Townsend
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $3From, per site
- Sites
- 2510 on recreation.gov
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there
In the agency’s own words
This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote areas have limited or no cellular service. Keep reading
Recreation
Boat ramp,Tent camping,Picnic tables,Parking Natural Features ocated in the heart of east Texas, the 153,179-acre Angelina National Forest is located in Angelina, Nacogdoches, San Augustine and Jasper counties. The forest lies in the Neches River Basin and on the north and south shores of Sam Rayburn Reservoir, a 114,500-acre lake on the Angelina River formed by the construction of Sam Rayburn Dam in the early 1960's.
Nearby Attractions
Lake Sam Rayburn
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 25
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake, River
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:41 UTC
recreation.gov lists 10 of the 25 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.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $3 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 15:41 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
26 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 9 mapped sitesAll 26 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 10 of the 26 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 2 | type not stated | |||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 3 | type not stated | |||
| Scan and Pay | ScanPay 4 | type not stated | |||
| Scan and Pay | Standard | standard nonelectric | $3 | ||
| Townsend | 01 | standard nonelectric | 81 ft | 427 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 02 | standard nonelectric | 95 ft | 505 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 03 | standard nonelectric | 81 ft | 446 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 04 | standard nonelectric | 107 ft | 321 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 05 | standard nonelectric | 109 ft | 155 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 06 | standard nonelectric | 106 ft | 101 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 07 | standard nonelectric | 106 ft | 35 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 08 | standard nonelectric | 117 ft | 106 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 09 | standard nonelectric | 180 ft | 214 ft | $3 |
| Townsend | 10 | day use | |||
| Townsend | 11 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 12 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 13 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 14 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 15 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 16 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 17 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 18 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 19 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 20 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 21 | type not stated | |||
| Townsend | 22 | type not stated |
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.
25 of 26 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Broaddus, TX
Typical weather
Typical October night 53°F, day 80°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 35°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
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 Augusts are colder than the August 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
Townsend is in Texas’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Nathaniel Moran (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →