Hillsboro Cove
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 16:20 UTC
- A night
- $18–$21Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 5352 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Hillsboro Cove is a quiet little campground conveniently located off Highway 56 between the towns of Marion and Hillsboro. It's known for water front camping sites and a readily accessible boat ramp for fishermen. Keep reading
Recreation
Popular activities include camping, boating, fishing and hunting. Anglers will find an abundance of Channel Catfish, Walleye, White Bass, Wipers, White Crappie and a boat ramp is provided at the campground for convenient access to the lake.
Facilities
The campground offers 51 individual sites and one group camping area with a large shelter. The group camping area holds up to 80 people. The individual sites have tables, grills, sun shelters, electric hookups, and a boat ramp.
Natural Features
Completed in 1968, Marion Reservoir encompasses 6,200 acres of water surrounded by 6,000 acres of public lands. The surrounding expanse of forest provides visitors with endless recreational activities, set against the backdrop of the sparkling lake.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby communities of Hillsboro and Marion offer additional tourist attractions. Both cities have a nationally recognized Art and Crafts show, as well as a variety of restaurants and shops.
What the agency tells you
One RV and two tents or three tents per site
Off-road vehicles not permitted
First-come, first-served sites are available
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.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 53 · 1 group
- Hookups
- 52 electric, 37 water, 1 sewer
- Longest rig
- 70 ft
- Paved pads
- 1 of 53
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- 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
- Reservoir, Lake
- Accessible Swimming
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hunting
- Swimming
- Water access
- Wildlife viewing
- Night sky · 29th darkest of 57 in KS
- Bortle 4
56 of 92 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 16:20 UTC
recreation.gov lists 52 of the 53 campsites the agency files here. The rest aren’t on its booking system, so a reservation won’t get you one.
OpenBooked
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 · 17
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $18–$21 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.
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 16:20 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Oct 1, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
53 sites · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 52 mapped sitesAll 53 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. 52 of the 53 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| HCOV | 001 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 615 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 002 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 614 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 003 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 608 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 004 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 600 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 005 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 68 ft | 596 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 006 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 73 ft | 587 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 007 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 82 ft | 602 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 008 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 75 ft | 620 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 009 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 75 ft | 593 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 010 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 87 ft | 506 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 011 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 127 ft | 382 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 012 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 85 ft | 137 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 013 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 85 ft | 70 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 014 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 83 ft | 74 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 015 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 67 ft | 58 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 016 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 67 ft | 53 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 017 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 78 ft | 44 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 018 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 111 ft | 35 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 019 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 111 ft | 16 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 021 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 104 ft | 32 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 022 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 97 ft | 38 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 023 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 97 ft | 88 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 024 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 72 ft | 108 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 025 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 72 ft | 115 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 026 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 74 ft | 319 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 027 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 58 ft | 221 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 028 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 70 ft | 147 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 029 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 136 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 030 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 58 ft | 102 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 031 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 112 ft | 32 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 032 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 88 ft | 125 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 033 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 89 ft | 79 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 034 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 162 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 035 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 111 ft | 135 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 036 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 70 ft | 277 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 037 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 58 ft | 213 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 038 | standard electric | 40 ft | 30 amp | 70 ft | 242 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 039 | standard electric | 30 ft | 30 amp | 62 ft | 196 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 040 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 41 ft | 201 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 041 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 86 ft | 144 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 042 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 51 ft | 188 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 043 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 58 ft | 121 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 044 | standard electric | 35 ft | 30 amp | 88 ft | 23 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 045 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 28 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 046 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 61 ft | 27 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 047 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 71 ft | 40 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 048 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 52 ft | 42 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 049 | standard electric | 50 ft | 30 amp | 52 ft | 42 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 050 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 63 ft | 37 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 051 | standard electric | 45 ft | 30 amp | 82 ft | 34 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | 052 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 113 ft | 25 ft | $18–$21 |
| HCOV | GA1 | type not stated | 70 ft | 50 amp | 632 ft | ||
| HCOV | GS1 | group standard electric | 30 amp | 302 ft | 285 ft | $80 |
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.
25 of 53 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Marion Cove1.8 mi
Cottonwood Point1.9 mi
French Creek3.1 mi
Canning Creek38 mi
Santa Fe Trail38 mi
Neosho Park39 miFrom Marion, Kansas, take Highway 56 for about five miles. Turn right on Nighthawk, then turn right again into the park.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Eastshore, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 47°F, day 70°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 21°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
Hillsboro Cove is in Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Derek Schmidt (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →