Avondale
This place has sites and nobody may sleep in them.Ask for camping here →
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Avondale is a wonderful destination for people looking to launch a boat or have a picnic. Visitors can bring their family and friends for water sports and plenty of sunshine. The boat launch area at Avondale is open year-round. Here, boaters can find quick access to the main channel of Old Hickory Lake. The picnic shelter can accomodate up to 50 people and is reservable on weekdays. Keep reading
Recreation
Avondale is an ideal launching point for boat fishing. Bank fishing is also popular. Black bass, crappie, and paddlefish can be found in the area. Water skiing, sailing, wakeboarding, and swimming are also big attractions at Old Hickory Lake.
Facilities
The group picnic shelter accommodates up to 50 people and approximately 30 vehicles. Flush toilets (seasonal) and a boat ramp are available for use.
Natural Features
Located in Middle Tennessee, Old Hickory Lake is a 22,500 acre reservoir created by the Old Hickory Lock and Dam on the Cumberland River. The lake is named after former president Andrew Jackson, a Tennessee-native nicknamed "Old Hickory" for his tough and aggressive personality. Contact Info This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (615) 822-4846.
Nearby Attractions
Cages Bend Campground, with 42 water & electric sites, is just a short drive away from Avondale Access. At Cages Bend Boat Ramp, you can utilize both the launching ramp and fishing pier free of charge. Other nearby recreation areas include Rockland in Hendersonville and Bledsoe Creek State Park in Gallatin. Nearby Nashville attractions include sites such as the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame. Visitors can also tour President Andrew Jackson's early 19th century home, the Hermitage, a National Histric Landmark.
What the agency tells you
Avondale is a day use area. Camping is not permitted here.
Picnic shelter reservations are only available on weekdays from May - Labor Day. The picnic shelter is first-come, first serve during all holidays, weekends, and the off-season.
Parking is limited and cannot be reserved with shelter reservation
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets
- “…50 people and approximately 30 vehicles. Flush toilets (seasonal) and a boat ramp are available for use.…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River, Creek
- Boating
- Canoeing
- Fishing
- Kayaking
- Picnicking
- Water access
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 16:14 UTC
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:14 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
| AVONDALE | 1 | day use | 20 amp | yes | 201 ft | $50 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Cages Bend1.9 mi
Nat Caldwell Park2.2 mi
Lone Branch3.6 mi
Cedar Creek (TN)3.7 mi
Shutes Branch5.5 mi
Laguardo5.9 miFrom Nashville, TN: Take I-65 N to TN-386/Vietnam Veterans Blvd. Take Exit 9 from TN-386/Vietnam Veterans Blvd, turn right onto Shute Lane. Continue straight onto Avondale Access Road. Follow signs into recreation area.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Hendersonville, TN
Typical weather
Typical October night 49°F, day 72°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Avondale is in Tennessee’s 6th congressional district. Its representative, John Rose (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
The agency’s own record files sites here and marks every one of them day use. The draft asks whether any could open to overnight camping, and if not, why.
- The member who votes the moneyJohn W. RoseU.S. Representative · Tennessee’s 6th district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationBill HagertyU.S. Senator · Tennessee
- Your senator, on the same appropriationMarsha BlackburnU.S. Senator · Tennessee
Read the draft, or change the wording
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Avondale has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear John W. Rose, I’m a constituent in Tennessee’s 6th district. Avondale, Tennessee carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Avondale (Tennessee) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Avondale has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Bill Hagerty, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. Avondale, Tennessee carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Avondale (Tennessee) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the same question to the agency in writing.
Subject Avondale has sites, and nobody may sleep in them
Dear Marsha Blackburn, I’m a constituent in Tennessee. Avondale, Tennessee carries 1 record on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s own file, every one of them marked day use rather than overnight. I’m asking you to put one question to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in writing: would they consider opening any of these sites to overnight camping, and if not, why not? Road trips and camping on public land are part of how this country knows itself. It’s where a lot of people meet the place they live in for the first time, and it has never been something you had to be well off, or well organised six months in advance, to do. Sent about Avondale (Tennessee) via campanac.com