I have mixed feelings about camping at Rhododendron Park. It's not the greatest place to camp but it's cheap and rustic and relatively comfortable.
On the plus side:
-The sites are pretty decent sized; most of them you can set up two mid-sized tents and park two cars.
-Each site has a fire pit with grate for cooking and a picnic table.
-It's only $15 a night (cash only) self register first come first served.
-There isn't a ton of people (which is nice) because there are only 15 sites and there is no electric hook-ups or running water at the sites.
-Beautiful rhododendrons growing everywhere under the dense forest cover above which makes it feel almost otherworldly.
-No onsite management so very few annoying rangers to bug the campers.
The flipside:
-There are no bathrooms, no showers, no sink to wash hands or anything!
-There is a water spicket available in the center of the campground to fill up water jugs but I wouldn't drink the water.
-ONLY PORT-O-POTTYS! There are a total of maybe 5 for the whole campground. They get serviced regularly but only once a week or less.**
-If you value a good night's sleep then this probably isn't the place for you. ***
**Once a kid decided to paint inside the port-o-potty with his own feces! His parents just ignored it and packed up camp and left. We obviously didn't use it after that and had to walk about 4 times farther to the next one. We stayed 3 more days and it was still covered when we left.
***The first time I camped here the navy jets were flying overhead from about 11pm to 1am the first night. The second night, a huge group had set up camp next to our site and they stayed up drinking and partying until about 3am. Also, they kept losing kids over the next couple of days. Nobody was in any real danger, they just couldn't keep track of all the kids and would be too drunk to know who was where.
There is also an animal shelter very close and therefore dogs barking and howling isn't uncommon either.