Fountain of Youth Springs Ranch

This not really a campground. It is a gravel road next to a river. A road drives within feet of the space as well.

The descriptions were accurate and the River sound was fantastic to sleep next to. There were few spots but I had the place to myself which was great! The Highway 95 noise was not a lot but enough to wake me many times in the night. Could be easier to find and defined or prepared safe fire rings would be a huge plus. Can’t beat the price. If my path crossed this area again I would have to consider it!

Host promptly greeted us at the campsite. Firewood was provided...easy access...beautiful river.

This spot was right on the river, which was a relaxing way to end and start our days. We were greeted in the morning by several deer and an awesome bald eagle who snatched breakfast out of the river.
We only encountered one fisherman. The negatives- there seemed to be a quite a bit of trash (likely from fisherman) and (more our personal issue) we felt like we we too close to the road to let the dogs off leash..

Very beautiful area, right on the river. Mike was great, very welcoming and helpful, very accommodating. We would love to camp here again, it was close enough to town to get anything we needed, but far enough away that the Milky Way was visible on the clear nights with the new moon. It was heaven. Our pup and 5.5 year old daughter had a blast wandering the wooded area right next to the camper and we all had so much fun fishing in the river. Nights were spent by the campfire then stargazing or playing games in the camper. Best family vacation we could ask for right now, secluded, but safe and so beautiful! Highly recommend! And the only other person we saw was a guy from the wildlife department dealing with beavers causing flooding, which we didn’t mind at all.

The biggest negative would be that previous campers had destroyed a lot of glass beer bottles by one of the fire pits so there was shattered glass everywhere in that area. You could definitely tell Mike had done what he could with trying to clear it out. We had a bunch of extra cardboard so we laid that out then a blanket so the kiddo and pup could stay safe. We mostly used that area just for the campfire so it wasn’t anything that bothered us, but we didn’t cook on the campfire as some would, however, there were two other fire pits on site so you had plenty of options to avoid the broken glass.

We met the host Michael, he stopped by to introduce himself and see if we needed anything. He was great. The camp site was great. We had an RV and parked it in the grass area and it made for a beautiful camping area. There was a rock circle for a fire pit and it worked great. There was plenty of kindling wood for the fire also. The river was nice but make sure you bring mosquito spray as they are there. It was close enough to town and the lakes, yet far enough away for camping. Overall, the experience was great and we would do it again.

The river was beautiful, the sky and surrounding countryside is gorgeous. The site was not what I expected. I was not aware that the campsite was just to the left of a bridge and a very popular fishing site for locals. Many cars travel on the bridge to get to Heron Lake. We had non stop foot traffic walking threw our campsite and parking in our campsite area even though it said private property. We finally put up a rope to block car traffic from coming into our site. That did not stop the foot traffic. If you like to fish and don’t mind the constant interruptions than it is good. Our host very very nice, I am not sure he is aware how many locals cross and fish on his property. We still enjoyed ourselves, making the best of it.

The site is a great location and the host is a real nice guy. I think the sites were oversold when we showed up all the spaces were taken so the host was going to let us stay on a horse pasture but we had the dogs with us so we had to take off and find a different spot to camp. We came back the next day to fish on the "private" section but were very quickly surrounded by fishermen so we decided to leave.