Ferenbaugh Campground- Corning, NY

[kathybrj]

 
Right after returning from Vermont, I was scanning PUX and saw a post for the Finger Lakes Wine Festival.
 
 http://www.flwinefest.com/
 
 Hmmm?. well, I love wine and Blaise still had 4 days of vacation left. After making some arrangements to board the dog at home, I went in search of a campground. I called the KOA in Watkins Glen and they were booked (this is the campground the poster on PUX was staying at). Also booked was Watkins Glen State Park.  After perusing my Woodall?s guide (got it free from the Woodall?s reps that were at River?s Bend), I found Ferenbaugh Camp Ground in Corning, NY. It listed that it?s 8 miles from the Watkins Glen Raceway, which is where the wine fest was taking place.
 
 http://www.ferenbaugh.com/
 
 I called and the lady on the phone said she had sites available. So I reserved a water and electric site (there are 274 sites total). We packed up and drove out on Friday. We arrived about 9pm on Friday evening. Upon first look, it seems like the sites are all in an open field. We found out later that these are full hookup sites for larger rigs. We drove in to the office area and it was closed. The sign said, ?Pick a site and register in the morning?. Um, ok. Well, she had given us our site number on the phone, so we looked at the posted campground map and made our way to it.
 
 Our site ended up being a pull through in a lovely wooded area. Actually, except for the big rig sites, all the sites are in the woods, on the side of a hill. It was simply lovely and fairly level. The fire ring was a dug hole surrounded by flat rocks and it actually was very functional, as well as really cool looking (just different from the state park fireplaces and wheel rings we re so used to). The utility lines are up in the trees and difficult to see, which adds to the really rustic surroundings.
 
 We were diagonal to the bathhouse, which was kept fairly clean (6 unisex showers- all in little closet rooms across the back of the bathhouse). The front is divided into the ladies and men?s rooms- 2 toilets and 2 sinks.
 
 The campground has a small pool, a mini golf course, a nice little creek to fish in and a fishing pond. There are also nature trails off the top loops. There is a nice camp store, a rec room, a pavilion, a game room, and a playground. They also have group sites, but they seemed a little more open, than wooded.
 
 Ferenbaugh is a short trip to the raceway, into Watkins Glen, which has a really cool gorge you can hike; Corning Glass Museum, which is now totally redone, with hands-on activities for the kids and all those wonderful Finger Lakes wineries.
 
 This campground was a pleasant surprise and we have already booked our site for next year?s wine festival, along with my sister and Steelersfan, from PUX.  We?re looking forward to next July already!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Unregistered]

Ferenbaugh is located about a 30 min drive from us; we live just west of Ithaca, on the way to watkins glen. We love Ferenbaugh, we have lucked out an gotten a water electric cable site right next to a stream (the only one like it on the property). There are two other water electric cable (and i think even sewer) up on the 'hill' you speak of in your post.

The folks there are super, the campers friendly, the facilities well maintained and, believe it or not, you aren't more than a 15 min drive from a pretty worldclass supermarket (wegman's in corning) and/or Wal-mart (in Watkins Glen), where just about anything that needs emergency repair in a hook up can be addressed.

They're even a couple of trails in on the 250 acre campground.

Best thing is that our 6 and a half year old DS loves the popup and, with Ferenbaugh not only can be just pick up the phone and inquire about our favorite sites (we have a list), we can just "go!!", knowing that the drive to the campground is only about 30 mins...something that is a gem with an 'after work on a friday' initial thought about camping.

kdsmithjr