Fontainebleau State Park is a beautiful 2,800-acre state park on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in southeastern Louisiana just 45 minutes north of New Orleans. We stayed in one of the campgrounds 2/19-3/4/2020.

They have 6 cabins on the lake and a total of 165 campsites ranging from premium to unimproved. They also have group campsites, a lodge, pavilions, meeting rooms, multiple restrooms, and laundry facilities. Their showers and restrooms always seemed very clean.

Most RV campsites do not have sewer, so you will need a portable waste tank if you plan to stay for any length of time. They do seem to exaggerate the size of their campsites. All of our neighbors with big RVs had a hard time getting in. Because the pavement was curved and not as long as advertised, I had a hard time getting all of our jack pads on the pavement in our campsite.

For the children

There is a water playground and several playgrounds throughout the park for children.

Beaches

The white sand beaches are beautiful. If you explore some trails, you will find some secluded beaches. I don’t know what they are like in the summer, but in February they were deserted.

Wildlife

The flora and fauna in Fontainebleau State Park are abundant. I went on a late-night walk one night and saw a raccoon, and 30+ deer’s eyes reflecting in my light. We also saw an otter in Lake Pontchartrain and several alligators in the “alligator pond” right behind the kid’s water playground in the picture above. One of our neighbors saw a sounder of hogs.

The day that I saw several alligators in the pond, there were many kids playing right by the pond. Yeah, it seems dangerous to me too, but I talked to the game warden and he says they are fine and leave people alone. He said as soon as people start feeding them they get aggressive and have to be removed. It is illegal to feed the alligators.

Most of the trees are draped with Spanish Moss.

Nature trails

There are many nature trails throughout the park for hiking and biking. The first week we were there, I spent many hours walking the trails by myself while Sherry tried to get over a nasty cold.

Some of the trails have signs along the way identifying the flora and fauna you might see on the trails.

One of the trails is called Alligator Marsh Boardwalk. As the name suggests, it has a long raised boardwalk through the marsh. We didn’t spot any alligators out in the marsh.

Views

At the beach is a long pier with a gazebo at the end, from which the views are stunning. Off to the right is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway bridge that goes right over the middle of the lake to New Orleans.

Before we got here we were told by other campers to get a picture of the pier at sunset. They were not wrong:

Sugar Mill

There are the remains of an old sugar mill from the 1800s in the park.

Sugar cane is still a popular crop in the area. According to some of the locals, it is part of the reason the roads are so bad. They say the side of the road on the way to the mill is worse because the trucks full of sugar cane are so much heavier than when they are returning empty on the way out to the field.

If you are ever in southeastern Louisiana we recommend you spend some time in the beautiful Fontainebleau State Park even if it’s just for one day.

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