Cardinal Shooting Center is a massive RV park with hundreds of parking spaces. Their trap shooting range is the largest in Ohio, and their aim is to become the largest in America.

We Paid: $38 per night for 2 nights
Discounts Used: None
Address (GPS Link): 616 S.R. 61 Marengo, OH 43334
Website:  https://www.thecardinalcenter.com/
Amenities List: Power, Water, Sewer, Camp Store, Games Room, Rec Room, Performance Hall, Pool, Jacuzzi, Playground, Field Games, Bathrooms, Showers, Cabins, Tent Camping, Propane, Gun Range, Archery Range

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Best Features

• Huge Delux Spaces
• Nice Amenities

Worst Features

• No Wireless/Cable

Judging my our trailer, I’d say this parking space is around 100′ long. The largest I’ve ever seen.

The Details

Cardinal Shooting Center and Campground is definitely one of the more unusual parks we’ve visited. I believe it was built foremost as a shooting center, and the camping was an accommodation for the people who show up for events. Not that they have short changed the camping side of things, it’s just that the one seems to be in service to the other. This place is vast with many hundreds of campsites, all with full hookups. Those close to the shooting range tend to be sitting on a long gravel runway and are deemed “basic” sites. We picked a deluxe site, where you will find more greenery and absolutely enormous parking sites. 

The layout of the park emphasizes its size. Despite having cut down all the trees, you cannot see from one end of the shooting range to the other. It is vast, at least a mile long. There was no event happening while we were there so the park was relatively empty. Other parts of the park are also stretched out. To take pictures and explore, we took the truck rather than walk. I believe the sheer size of the place is the reason they don’t offer wireless here. It would be very expensive to cover such a large area and support so many users in a rural location.

This shot is from one-third of the way up the shooting track, looking back to the road. About 15% of the overall park area.

The bathrooms and showers are all private and well maintained, exactly how I like them. They have a large indoor pool, rec room, and entertainment hall. A nearby deck overlooks a decent sized fishing pond and bubblegum machines dispense fish pellets so you can feed the fish. They don’t allow fishing from the doc, but you can fish from the shore. They had some pretty big fish in there, and while they allow you to cook one up if you like, they encourage catch and release fishing.

The camp store is pretty small, but there is a restaurant and multiple gas stations near the property. I imagine the park might get noisy when events are being held, but it was very quiet for our stay. At $38 a night for a deluxe parking spot, the price is decent for what they offer and I give Cardinal Shooting Center a thumbs up. 

Here is one of the skeet shooting sites near the end of the road. They have about 50 of these and are building more. We loved the farm in the background here.