Lake Vermillion Recreation Area

Kate Anders

Perfect spot to stop late at night, we tent camped at a very nice spot. Gorg lake, cows mooing and pheasants calling in the morning. Only rated 4 stars because of the pervasive musty smell. 🐄 Very quiet, and clean bathrooms.

Chuong Vando

Beautiful location. Well maintained and great bathroom and hot shower facility.

Paul Dacus

This place's claim to fame is the lake clearly, but there is another gem in the Lake Vermilion area, and it's the mowed trails that circle the campground. Do yourself a favor and walk through these amazing grassland trails, they are absolutely beautiful. There is so much life and diversity in the plants and animals of these grassland, it is hard to take it all in. I walked through a short section of trees and was surprised by the noise in the treetops, it was about 15 raptors taking off simultaneously, it was amazing. They are not very strenuous walks, and there is about 1.5-2 miles in all, but totally worth taking 30 min to see this incredible grassland mini-biome.

Mick Williams

We followed our GPS getting off I-29 at exit 79 in Sioux Falls and going straight west on hwy 42 for about 20 miles to the sign for the right turn to go up to the recreation area. It would have been just as easy to catch I-90 west as well. At the main/west campground, we followed the sign for the East Campground and turned left at the white recreation sign right at the bottom of the hill. Passing the boat ramp, we saw the pull-along sites (49-62), which are small and close to the road accurately described in forums as not big-rig friendly. The fresh water fill spigot is in a large pull-out on the right, past the boat launch and just before the 10 mph sign. We continued to the end loop and backed into site 43 (50/30/20 AMP), which was easy thanks to its corner location. As soon as we had settled in, the very friendly camp host come over to check us in. We had already paid the $30 a night plus $10 nonresident reservation fees, to find out starting this year we needed to pay a non-resident $15 a night state park fee or $60 for a year pass. We were able to purchase, choosing a yearly, online and the host gave us a temp sticker for our window. Our site was spacious enough for our 40 5th wheel and F450. The electric hookup is at the back; we needed about 30 of cord. All sites here are electric only and nicely spaced apart. Site 43 offered a beautiful lake view, which we enjoyed during our peaceful four-night stay in early May. Verizon had 3 bars, T-Mobile had 2, and our T-Mobile house internet clocked 207 Mbps down / 3.49 Mbps up. Satellite reception should be fine in most sites except site 45, which is heavily shaded. There's both a shower house and vaulted toilets in the east area. Spring was coming alive with gobbling turkeys and cackling pheasants; we even got a show from a strutting tom turkey. Overall, a quiet and scenic stay with great wildlife viewing and lake views.

Zoe Montague

Spent the weekend fishing and camping in the cabins at Lake Vermillion, South Dakota. Cabins are exactly what you expect, it's for sleeping. The deck space is excellent, better than most cabins I've been to. The view is just stunning as well. Tested out the photo sphere and panorama feature on my camera and am pretty happy with how they came out.