Blanchard Island Recreation Area
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $14From, per site
- Sites
- 161 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
The Mississippi River Project’s Muscatine Ranger Station has gone to a new way to pay for First-Come First-Serve campsites at the Blanchard Island Recreation Area. This new way is called "Scan & Pay". Blanchard Island’s open fee dates are May 15th through October 15th. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site using the QR Code and Recreation.gov mobile APP. (Cash will no longer be accepted for payment. Credit Card Only.) Keep reading
Recreation
Fisherman have good luck fishing for catfish from Blanchard Island. If you have a boat, you can launch it from here and find the best catfish holes. In the Fall, hunters enjoy camping and hunting deer from here, as well as the Island; if they bring their boat. Others just enjoy the serenity of the park and the natural views of the river and bottom lands. Wildife viewing is a popular activity here. Bald Eagles, ducks, Pileated Woodpeckers, deer, and the occasional muskrat or otter may be seen.
Facilities
This "off the beaten" path Class B campground is a fisherman' and hunter's and camper's paradise. The park has a boat ramp, concrete vault toilets, 15 campsites-each with a picnic table and fire ring, as well as a beautiful and quiet view of Blanchard Chute on the Mississippi River. There are a number of water hydrants throughout the park that provide potable water. A dump station is also available for camper's use.
Natural Features
Blanchard Island Recreation Area is a great place to view wildlife due to it's serene backcountry feel. It sits along the backwaters of the Mississippi River. You'll have to travel about 2 miles on a gravel road to get here, but it's well worth it. You'll want to bring the bug spray though to be safe!
Charges & Cancellations
As in the past, no refunds will be given if you must leave the campground early.
What the agency tells you
The Mississippi River Project’s Muscatine Ranger Station has gone to a new way to pay for First-Come First-Serve campsites at the Blanchard Island Recreation Area. Blanchard Island’s open fee dates are May 15th through October 15th.
First, you’ll want to download the Recreation.gov mobile APP to your phone prior to coming to the park, then create an account if you don’t already have one, because some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Second, all campsites are on a First-Come First-Serve basis. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. (Cash will no longer be accepted for payment. Credit Card Only.) Third, all payments will be completed by the customer using their smartphone (Android and IOS) by scanning a QR Code using the Recreation.gov mobile APP. Note: You cannot use Recreation.gov the website, to secure your site; you must use the Recreation.gov mobile APP and be at the campground. The Recreation.gov website, however; will have an information page for Blanchard Island now, so you can learn more about “Scan and Pay” here.
All dogs must be on a 6 foot leash and not allowed to roam freely for the safety of other campers and the pet.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Quiet hours are from 10 pm to 7 am. Generators are not allowed during this time.
A maximum of 6 campers are allowed per site as well as 2 vehicles.
Practice Leave No Trace Principles
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 16
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Toilets
- Vault Toilets
- “…The park has a boat ramp, concrete vault toilets, 15 campsites-each with a picnic table and fire…”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…Mississippi River. There are a number of water hydrants throughout the park that provide potable water. A…”
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- River
- Birding
- Boating
- Fishing
- Water access
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:23 UTC
recreation.gov lists 1 of the 16 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
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 · 16
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $14 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
“As in the past, no refunds will be given if you must leave the campground early.” · this campground’s own terms
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 · 6
recreation.gov availability, read 15:23 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
16 sites · the site map
All 16 sites
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 16 of the 16 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| Campground | Campsite | standard nonelectric | 851 ft | $14 |
| Campground | Campsite 1 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 10 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 11 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 12 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 13 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 14 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 15 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 2 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 3 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 4 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 5 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 6 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 7 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 8 | standard nonelectric | $14 | |
| Campground | Campsite 9 | standard nonelectric | $14 |
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
Shady Creek12 mi
Clarks Ferry15 mi
Tailwater East Campground36 mi
Tailwater West Campground36 mi
Cottonwood Campground (IA)36 mi
West Overlook Campground36 miTo get to Blanchard Island Recreation Area you will need to drive on approximately 2.5 miles of gravel road. The address is 34000 176th Ave. W., New Boston, IL 61272.
From Muscatine, IA, you will need to cross the Muscatine Bridge into IL. You'll drive about 2 miles on Hwy. 92, then turn right onto 322nd St. W for about 4.5 miles. Then you'll turn right onto 176th St. W, which is a gravel road. Follow this gravel road all the way to the levee for about 2.5 miles, then go up and over the levee to enter the park.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Muscatine, IA
Typical weather
Typical October night 42°F, day 65°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 13°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
Who answers for this land
Blanchard Island Recreation Area is in Illinois’s 17th congressional district. Its representative, Eric Sorensen (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →