I was just camping there on the last weekend of August, I go there often, as my cousin lives right inside the park, in the house near the main gate, we camp right on her property! Great video, nicely done, safe travels, cheers!
We stay here usually in the Fall and have usually found the campsites more private than you describe but I suppose it depends on the secion. This park is open all year round which is interesting. We have camped here Easter weekend.
We've been coming to this park since I was a young. The park is quite a bit bigger now than it used to be. The sites in this video are part of many expansions. Sites 172-176 in Pines we consider the best in the park although they are on a bit of a slope. They are next to the boardwalk trail so no campers in front of you. We are going there next weekend and will be our second trip there this year. Being from Guelph, it's the perfect distance for two nights. Any longer of a stay and we head to a provincial.
We love Valens. We went the long weekend and our site was large. My kids loved the trails and the boardwalk they are 3 and 5. It is our go to close to home park.
Absolutely love Valens. Gives us the Up North vibe when we can't travel too far. We live in Hamilton and are frequent visitors to Valens in the colder months (Nov-March). Sometimes when this mama needs some solo time, I love going here for a few nights in the off-season, usually Feb/March! We are avid tent campers, no glamping for us lol so I guess that's where we differ. Have to solidly disagree with you on the privacy issue, having been to a ton of various provincial parks through the province...I find there is certainly more privacy here then many that we have visited up North. :) Always love your videos! Thanks for posting them!
We were there from Aug 13-17 @ site #37(corner site) in the Ironwood area...with our Rpod 178. This was our first time there. We brought our fold-up bikes to cycle around. The beach was closed the last 2 days we were there because of the high bacteria count. The trails were nice to walk on. We rate this camping area a 7/10.
I live in Hamilton, so Valens Lake is just a short drive for me. I wanted to go camping there, but not having the showers is such a turn off for me. I will try it next year for sure. I'm also excited for the cabins as well.
I’m glad you guys tried this place out. We do group camping here. Those who aren’t in to camping can come for the day and us others can stay overnight :). Try out quick stops Elora Gorge & Wildwood conservation areas if you can’t get into a PP in the future!
The conservation areas are a good place to go for a change. They seem much easier to get in to than the provincial parks. We've been to Elora before and we really liked Rockwood. We haven't tried Wildwood so we may have to check that out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks for reviewing another non-Ontario Parks campground. I hope you will continue to review even more Conservation Areas, plus Municipal Parks, private parks etc. Since we live in Cambridge we started using Valens as our first and last trip of the season. It’s close to home in case anything isn’t working properly or we forget something. It’s open year round so we can camp here before most other parks open or after most close for the season. It’s an easy drive for friends that want to come out for the day. It’s easy to justify for even as little as a single night’s stay. It’s far enough away from major roads and large enough that it really feels like you’re away from it all. Water hookups at the campsite is a bonus. It offers just enough trails and a leisurely 1h30 paddle if you do the entire lake, so that you aren’t bored. You don’t feel the need to drive anywhere once you’re there. Many campsites are far better than Guelph Lake, Pinehurst, Laurel, Elora, Conostogo, Rockwood, Bying Island, Brant, Wildwood, Fanshawe or Pittock. We simply can’t justify driving a few hours to an Eastern Lake Huron or a little less for a Northern Lake Erie shoreline park. We even prefer it over Awenda. Love your videos. Please keep up the good work. I think you need to organize an annual camping rally in 2024!
Many people don't think about the parks that are close to home. They can be pretty amazing and don't break the bank for gas money. We went to Rockwood Conservation Area last month for Thanksgiving and it's only 35 km from home. The time before that when at Rockwood we had a plumbing emergency at home. I was able to quickly drive back home, deal with it, then go back to the campground. Very convenient!
@@CampingwiththeColes Agreed! It can often mean more trips out per season. We can typically only justify driving to Killbear or Algonquin if we can stay for more than 3 nights. We’d love to see you two review Waterford North Conservation Area, Cape Croker Park and Halfway Lake PP (one of our favourite).
Awesome video! Glad Cheryl was able to get past the giggles for the introduction. ;) My SIL went to Valens earlier this season and her major complaint was the distance from campsite to the water. As for privacy, I found at outlet river A at Sandbanks was ZERO privacy along the waterline. Your site actually looked GOOD in comparison to where I stayed. Awesome review as always, thank you for sharing! 😃
Thanks for the honest review. Im married to a non-camper/very little camper. We tent/ I tent. We live in Niagara so we like the fact that this is close its just us and our dogs (the kids are non camper and teens), I paddle so i think Valens checks our boxes especially thw walj in sitea and they have winter camping which is a plus for me. Thanks for the great tour and honest review again, your videos arw great.
Valens is a nice little park with some easy paddling. The cabins were just being built when we were there in 2021 so they've been in operation for a couple of years now. Thanks for watching. Enjoy your time there.
thanks for posting. we just started following you guys last winter. We like it because we think you are both around our age and do the things we like to do. Hope you are enjoying murphy’s point. we just hit back from there a couple weeks ago for our first time and we enjoyed ourselves. Going to Charleston labour day for the first time and very excited
You're going to love Charleston Lake PP. Great kayaking right from the beach in the no motorboat area. If you go out further, along the canoe routes to the backcountry sites, motorboats are allowed there. We did a review of it last season, ua-cam.com/video/fqwbQYcsUwY/v-deo.html
We stayed there this past August and were pleasantly surprised as well. As we were with Laurel Creek and Rockwood C.A. We had Ironwood 59 and it was very private. It was tiny and buggy, but easier to back into than the pull through we had at the Pinery :) We spent most of our time fishing from the bridge as swimming was not recommended (goose poop seems a common problem at conservation areas). Will definitely get the canoe in the water when we go back! Great videos. You've helped this rookie a lot over the past year.
We're glad we were able to help you out. We liked Rockwood too especially for the Kayaking and the hike around the lake. We hope to go back soon and do a video review of it. Lots more to come. Happy camping!
Cool, I didn't know about this spot but just found out yesterday that there will be a Taylor Coach (my trailer's brand) campout in Sept at this campground, thanks for the review, perfect timing!
We went to this park for our maiden trip with our new trailer for the May long weekend. It was a good choice since it was only 45 min away from home. Our site wasn't bad, but backing in was a challenge because the site wasn't deep and there was a tree to avoid. We barely had room to park our vehicle. Our neighbors were close, but respectful. There was no excessive noise. We took our bikes and were able to explore the rest of the park and take a look at other sites and try out some of the trails. I don't see how people would be able to bring 5th wheels or large motor homes here as the roads in the camping areas are narrow and many people are parked close to the road. The firewood was damp so everyone had smokey fires. The washrooms were clean. It would have been nice if there were garbage cans there since the closest place was at the dump station. It would also have been nice to take our kayaks, but we left them at home since the weather was on the cool side with possible rain. Your review was spot on and one of the reasons we chose this park for our first trip of the season! Thanks for your insights!
I'm glad you got your new trailer and got a chance to take it on its maiden voyage. Hope the tow vehicle worked out for ya. Now, it's time to venture further and hit some of those amazing Ontario parks and really make some memories!
Thanks for watching our videos. We love making them. Our SUP is inflatable. It's a Jimmy Styks paddle board that we got from Costco a few years back. The company has since gone out of business. It's very handy for travel as it rolls up into a backpack with the paddles, pump and repair kit. It's about the size of a hockey bag.
You pretty much just have some conservation areas and the kinds of provincial parks you have recently reviewed besides private RV parks to the west of Hamilton for campgrounds in Ontario.
Thanks for this (and all your other videos!). We also usually go to Provincial Parks but have been to a couple Conservation areas. Look forward to trying this one. Not far from Kitchener.
I was disappointed with Valens. Although I liked getting away for a couple days and enjoyed it, Id like to share a few legit cons and one really good pro. False advertising on the site. The photo of my site (21) showed grass but when I got there it was mostly dirt (dry and dusty) and the site was also on a slight slope. No mention of a slope in the description. They need to be fair and update their photos and description. I checked other sites inn my area that were empty and same thing, mostly dirt when it said grass, showing a grassy photo. Older camp area or not, photos should be updated for people when they research a place to camp. I was very disappointed, almost shocked with the wood they sold. You cant bring wood they say, you can only buy their wood and Ill be honest...its some of the worst wood for burning and I believe they know this but sell it always. Its terrible camp fire wood. Another disappointment but out of their control was the amount of raccoons at night walking through your site like they own it lol. I keep a clean site, no food out at night, no food on the ground etc. Sitting nicely by a bright fire with darkness all around and you hear an animal just a few feet away hissing at you... its not fun lol. Turn around shine a light and see 6 coons staggered around the site. One night had a coon and a skunk fighting on my site. The skunk won without any spray. The pro was how clean the park is and that's important. It was the false ad on their site and wood that bothered me and for that will not go back to Valens.
The campsite pictures for a lot of Parks are quite old and wood at Ontario Parks is famously wet. So it looks like this Conservation Area is trying to be like it's big brother, Ontario Parks. Thanks for your input.
Cell Phone Service: If you've been to this park please let us know your experience with cell service.
Thanks for sharing. Helpful info.
We had a lovely visit with our friend from Kitchener in the park. Nice to find a park open all year. Thanks so much for sharing.
I was just camping there on the last weekend of August, I go there often, as my cousin lives right inside the park, in the house near the main gate, we camp right on her property! Great video, nicely done, safe travels, cheers!
We stay here usually in the Fall and have usually found the campsites more private than you describe but I suppose it depends on the secion. This park is open all year round which is interesting. We have camped here Easter weekend.
We've been coming to this park since I was a young. The park is quite a bit bigger now than it used to be. The sites in this video are part of many expansions. Sites 172-176 in Pines we consider the best in the park although they are on a bit of a slope. They are next to the boardwalk trail so no campers in front of you. We are going there next weekend and will be our second trip there this year. Being from Guelph, it's the perfect distance for two nights. Any longer of a stay and we head to a provincial.
I keep thanking you for these videos lol. I somehow stumbled on this video searching for spots around Hamilton to do some stand up paddle boarding.
We're so glad you're going through our catalogue of videos and finding them helpful.
We love Valens. We went the long weekend and our site was large. My kids loved the trails and the boardwalk they are 3 and 5. It is our go to close to home park.
Absolutely love Valens. Gives us the Up North vibe when we can't travel too far. We live in Hamilton and are frequent visitors to Valens in the colder months (Nov-March). Sometimes when this mama needs some solo time, I love going here for a few nights in the off-season, usually Feb/March! We are avid tent campers, no glamping for us lol so I guess that's where we differ. Have to solidly disagree with you on the privacy issue, having been to a ton of various provincial parks through the province...I find there is certainly more privacy here then many that we have visited up North. :) Always love your videos! Thanks for posting them!
Valens is great as it's so close. We should try it in the colder months. Thanks for watching.
Thanks for these!! It’s so much more helpful than relying on the pictures. I’ve been curious about this park for awhile.
Glad it was helpful. Happy camping!
Wow I haven’t been here since my childhood! Will definitely try to visit soon after watching this!
I love having close neighbors are the best make new friends is what camping all about
We were there from Aug 13-17 @ site #37(corner site) in the Ironwood area...with our Rpod 178. This was our first time there. We brought our fold-up bikes to cycle around. The beach was closed the last 2 days we were there because of the high bacteria count. The trails were nice to walk on. We rate this camping area a 7/10.
I live in Hamilton, so Valens Lake is just a short drive for me. I wanted to go camping there, but not having the showers is such a turn off for me. I will try it next year for sure. I'm also excited for the cabins as well.
I’m glad you guys tried this place out. We do group camping here. Those who aren’t in to camping can come for the day and us others can stay overnight :). Try out quick stops Elora Gorge & Wildwood conservation areas if you can’t get into a PP in the future!
The conservation areas are a good place to go for a change. They seem much easier to get in to than the provincial parks. We've been to Elora before and we really liked Rockwood. We haven't tried Wildwood so we may have to check that out. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks for your review!
Our pleasure!
I am really enjoying your videos. So many ideas for camping next year.
Glad you like them! Lots more to come.
Thanks for reviewing another non-Ontario Parks campground. I hope you will continue to review even more Conservation Areas, plus Municipal Parks, private parks etc.
Since we live in Cambridge we started using Valens as our first and last trip of the season.
It’s close to home in case anything isn’t working properly or we forget something.
It’s open year round so we can camp here before most other parks open or after most close for the season.
It’s an easy drive for friends that want to come out for the day.
It’s easy to justify for even as little as a single night’s stay.
It’s far enough away from major roads and large enough that it really feels like you’re away from it all.
Water hookups at the campsite is a bonus.
It offers just enough trails and a leisurely 1h30 paddle if you do the entire lake, so that you aren’t bored.
You don’t feel the need to drive anywhere once you’re there.
Many campsites are far better than Guelph Lake, Pinehurst, Laurel, Elora, Conostogo, Rockwood, Bying Island, Brant, Wildwood, Fanshawe or Pittock.
We simply can’t justify driving a few hours to an Eastern Lake Huron or a little less for a Northern Lake Erie shoreline park.
We even prefer it over Awenda.
Love your videos. Please keep up the good work.
I think you need to organize an annual camping rally in 2024!
Many people don't think about the parks that are close to home. They can be pretty amazing and don't break the bank for gas money. We went to Rockwood Conservation Area last month for Thanksgiving and it's only 35 km from home. The time before that when at Rockwood we had a plumbing emergency at home. I was able to quickly drive back home, deal with it, then go back to the campground. Very convenient!
@@CampingwiththeColes Agreed! It can often mean more trips out per season. We can typically only justify driving to Killbear or Algonquin if we can stay for more than 3 nights. We’d love to see you two review Waterford North Conservation Area, Cape Croker Park and Halfway Lake PP (one of our favourite).
Nice review. Valens is open all year and has some great winter activities.
Thanks again. I’ve been very curious about this park. Love the outtakes 😂
Glad you enjoyed. Happy camping!
Awesome video! Glad Cheryl was able to get past the giggles for the introduction. ;)
My SIL went to Valens earlier this season and her major complaint was the distance from campsite to the water.
As for privacy, I found at outlet river A at Sandbanks was ZERO privacy along the waterline. Your site actually looked GOOD in comparison to where I stayed.
Awesome review as always, thank you for sharing! 😃
Thanks for the honest review. Im married to a non-camper/very little camper. We tent/ I tent. We live in Niagara so we like the fact that this is close its just us and our dogs (the kids are non camper and teens), I paddle so i think Valens checks our boxes especially thw walj in sitea and they have winter camping which is a plus for me. Thanks for the great tour and honest review again, your videos arw great.
Valens is a nice little park with some easy paddling. The cabins were just being built when we were there in 2021 so they've been in operation for a couple of years now. Thanks for watching. Enjoy your time there.
thanks for posting. we just started following you guys last winter. We like it because we think you are both around our age and do the things we like to do. Hope you are enjoying murphy’s point. we just hit back from there a couple weeks ago for our first time and we enjoyed ourselves. Going to Charleston labour day for the first time and very excited
You're going to love Charleston Lake PP. Great kayaking right from the beach in the no motorboat area. If you go out further, along the canoe routes to the backcountry sites, motorboats are allowed there. We did a review of it last season, ua-cam.com/video/fqwbQYcsUwY/v-deo.html
@@CampingwiththeColes we loved it!! went to bon echo this past weekend and it didn’t disappoint either
We stayed there this past August and were pleasantly surprised as well. As we were with Laurel Creek and Rockwood C.A. We had Ironwood 59 and it was very private. It was tiny and buggy, but easier to back into than the pull through we had at the Pinery :)
We spent most of our time fishing from the bridge as swimming was not recommended (goose poop seems a common problem at conservation areas). Will definitely get the canoe in the water when we go back!
Great videos. You've helped this rookie a lot over the past year.
We're glad we were able to help you out. We liked Rockwood too especially for the Kayaking and the hike around the lake. We hope to go back soon and do a video review of it. Lots more to come. Happy camping!
Cool, I didn't know about this spot but just found out yesterday that there will be a Taylor Coach (my trailer's brand) campout in Sept at this campground, thanks for the review, perfect timing!
Very cool! Happy camping!
Not bad for a conservation area. I was surprised.
Me too!
Well timed. We just christened our kayaks at Christie Lake and Valens Lake is our next trip.
It's a nice little lake for an easy kayak paddle. Have fun.
We went to this park for our maiden trip with our new trailer for the May long weekend. It was a good choice since it was only 45 min away from home. Our site wasn't bad, but backing in was a challenge because the site wasn't deep and there was a tree to avoid. We barely had room to park our vehicle. Our neighbors were close, but respectful. There was no excessive noise.
We took our bikes and were able to explore the rest of the park and take a look at other sites and try out some of the trails. I don't see how people would be able to bring 5th wheels or large motor homes here as the roads in the camping areas are narrow and many people are parked close to the road. The firewood was damp so everyone had smokey fires. The washrooms were clean. It would have been nice if there were garbage cans there since the closest place was at the dump station. It would also have been nice to take our kayaks, but we left them at home since the weather was on the cool side with possible rain.
Your review was spot on and one of the reasons we chose this park for our first trip of the season! Thanks for your insights!
I'm glad you got your new trailer and got a chance to take it on its maiden voyage. Hope the tow vehicle worked out for ya. Now, it's time to venture further and hit some of those amazing Ontario parks and really make some memories!
Did you try out the lookout tower? Great view of the lake...the stairs are
a bit shaky...
You're right it's only worth it for southern Ontario to come to this park. Privacy is not great. But the store has very good firewood!
It's good if you live nearby. The firewood is not Ontario Parks firewood so it's excellent.
Thanks so much for all your reviews. I love this park . Love that it has water and electricity. Is your paddle board an inflatable one.??
Thanks for watching our videos. We love making them. Our SUP is inflatable. It's a Jimmy Styks paddle board that we got from Costco a few years back. The company has since gone out of business. It's very handy for travel as it rolls up into a backpack with the paddles, pump and repair kit. It's about the size of a hockey bag.
@@CampingwiththeColes thank you 😊
You pretty much just have some conservation areas and the kinds of provincial parks you have recently reviewed besides private RV parks to the west of Hamilton for campgrounds in Ontario.
Curious, do you remember the site number you stayed at?
Yep, site #28.
Thanks for this (and all your other videos!). We also usually go to Provincial Parks but have been to a couple Conservation areas. Look forward to trying this one. Not far from Kitchener.
Sounds great!
Check out indianline it's a good park too
Just came back from Earl Rowe . Won’t bother to go there again . No swimming man made lake and lots of geese bacteria in the water.
Mississauga here
I was disappointed with Valens. Although I liked getting away for a couple days and enjoyed it, Id like to share a few legit cons and one really good pro.
False advertising on the site. The photo of my site (21) showed grass but when I got there it was mostly dirt (dry and dusty) and the site was also on a slight slope. No mention of a slope in the description. They need to be fair and update their photos and description. I checked other sites inn my area that were empty and same thing, mostly dirt when it said grass, showing a grassy photo. Older camp area or not, photos should be updated for people when they research a place to camp.
I was very disappointed, almost shocked with the wood they sold. You cant bring wood they say, you can only buy their wood and Ill be honest...its some of the worst wood for burning and I believe they know this but sell it always. Its terrible camp fire wood.
Another disappointment but out of their control was the amount of raccoons at night walking through your site like they own it lol. I keep a clean site, no food out at night, no food on the ground etc. Sitting nicely by a bright fire with darkness all around and you hear an animal just a few feet away hissing at you... its not fun lol. Turn around shine a light and see 6 coons staggered around the site. One night had a coon and a skunk fighting on my site. The skunk won without any spray.
The pro was how clean the park is and that's important. It was the false ad on their site and wood that bothered me and for that will not go back to Valens.
The campsite pictures for a lot of Parks are quite old and wood at Ontario Parks is famously wet. So it looks like this Conservation Area is trying to be like it's big brother, Ontario Parks.
Thanks for your input.
not a fan of Valens, no play park for kids.. and skunks... beware
I want private I well stay home