This is a great asset to Evansville. This is one of the oldest old growth forests in an urban…read morecommunity. Great hiking trails along the Wabash and Erie Canal, a great nature center, and a maple syrup festival. I recommend getting the family membership.

There are two things we look for when we travel. 1) Brewhouses and 2) Parks. We found both in…read moreEvansville, and Wesselman Woods is an amazing place, even though our visit was cut short. It's a bit off the beaten path, as you have to go through a residential area and then past another park/sports complex, but it's worth the drive. The parking area is next to a community recycling center, which I think is appropriate because anything that's returned there isn't getting put in a landfill or thrown out into the wilderness. When you enter the park there is a heavily-treed path you follow to the Visitor's Center. For being located near a large city you'd think that the park would be pretty open...exposed....but that's not the case. This park is SO green and you can't even tell where the Visitor's Center is until you're almost directly in front of it. That Visitor's Center has quite a few displays (plant and animal) for you to peruse before you go out into the wilderness. The part I liked the best was the curved display that looked out onto an area that a variety of birds frequent, along with informational plaques. I could have spent hours in that room alone. The cost to walk the trails is $5 per person. We were advised that we should apply some mosquito repellent because it had rained pretty heavily during the previous couple of days and, as a result, the mosquitoes were pretty thick. Well, I'm here to tell you, "the mosquitoes were pretty thick" doesn't even come close to describing the density of the mosquito population that day. Nowhere Near. What started out as about a 1 1/2 to 2 mile walk turned into a quickly paced just-short-of-a-run 20 minute journey through what I'm going to call the Mosquito Jungle. These little buggers weren't just everywhere, they were EVERYWHERE, including places they shouldn't/didn't have the right /I never gave them permission for. It was crazy. We spent more time swatting these bastages than we did anything else. My wife and I took turns covering each other's back. While we DID apply more than enough repellent, these were the most defiant insects I'd ever seen. They were flocking to us like pre-pubescent teen to a Justin Bieber concert, and all we did was walk through the door. What we were able to see of the nature preserve was beautiful. The trails are very clearly marked and directional signs are never too far out of sight (which came in handy as we tried to frantically find out way back to non-mosquito-infected territory), and the trails themselves were very well maintained. The next time we're in Evansville we plan visiting again (hopefully NOT after a monsoon) so we can take our time to better enjoy the plant and wildlife without being attacked. It really is a beautiful place.

There are great walking trails with lots of dogs. There is a huge children's playground located at…read morethe park. Depending on the day and time it can either be super crowded and over run with cursing children without adults. We almost witnessed 9 years olds getting into a physical fight. The park is so large and has so much potential it is just not well kept or monitored.

Wonderful break for my kiddos as we were driving cross country! 20 minutes off my route I- 64 BUT…read morethis place was quite AMAZING!!! I have never seen a park quite like it! And free!!! Kudos!!!!

This woody park provides a lot for a small town. Well maintained throughout, it offers several…read morepicnic shelters of different sizes, has multiple playgrounds with different features, has excellent ball fields, and offers a simple swimming pool. A paved trail, with a picturesque covered bridge, circles a fishing lake.

I love this park it is so pretty.I love feeding the grade.It is such a good place to take your…read morekids.overall all it is an amazing environment and Entertaining place

Smothers Park is a beautiful and clean family park. There are activities for all ages of children,…read moreand plenty of places for parents to sit and enjoy the view. There are bridges, a hollow tree, a climbing wall, a large slide, and plenty of places to play hide and seek. This park and the Riverwalk are my favorite places in Owensboro.

Awesome park I took my family too while we were in Owensboro. Great family fun park with many…read moreslides and swings for kids. They also have a wonderful walking trail on the river and many sites to see and enjoy. Excellent much recommend place

We are staying in Marion while in the area to run the Shawnee Marathon. We were looking for a park…read moreto explore and do an easy walk the day before the race and found this listing. These gardens are in the backyard of a guys house. It's easy to miss the drive off the road and we ended up turning around and coming back. When we arrived a man came out to greet us and offered to make change if we didn't have exact change. While the gardens are nice, many free parks are much larger and have more to offer. There is a fee of $2 per person and it is relatively small. We walked the entire loop and it was 0.3 miles. There are some interesting rock arches and the flowers are pretty, but the pond was murky. I guess if you didn't have anything to do, you could visit this place, but I would not recommend making a special trip.

Beautiful, well maintained event venue. Perfect setting for family, couple, or graduation pictures…read more A great assortment of flora and stone or metal sculptures. Kudos to owner/maintainer.

Walk was fine, I always give nature 5 stars so the government doesnt try to destroy it. Next time I…read morewould park by the ball fields instead of driving all the way around to the main entrance.

Not bad for free place to stop off and go for a stroll... The docs are well enough maintained that…read moreyou are not worried about falling in and it's very pretty

I was looking up things to do in the Carbondale area and this place caught my eye. I don't have any…read morekids nor am I one but I had to visit the park and I got to hear the story about how this park was built and how it came to be. This park is very well kept! I've never been to an active park that is so well maintained and the fact that it has no graffiti on it! This park is so Interactive and I thought it was convenient that it had porta potties next to it as well. Even the ice cream man came by to visit. Plenty of great Interactive things that check out that are one-of-a-kind like climbing got a dragon and even the playground is big enough for grown-ups to walk around without actually it's time to climb on stuff. This place was like walking into a Renaissance fair , I highly recommend checking this place out!

This is without a doubt one of the top parks that my kids have ever been to. When you step into the…read morepark you see sculptures of wizards, knights, dragons, and fantastical creatures. It is like stepping into a Dungeons & Dragons story. The highlight thought is without a doubt the castle. There are ramparts, hidden armories, gargoyles, coats of arms, statues and a whole menagerie of fantastical creatures. I had to tear my 5 and 3 year old away from it. It could have kept them busy for hours. There is also a touching backstory to the park. It was founding in memory of Jeremy "Boo" Rochman who died in a car crash nearby. He loved fantasy and his family set up the park in his honor. The park is privately funded, and can accept donations through its website. So if you do stop in and enjoy it, please make sure to support the park.

By far one of the nicest State Parks we've ever visited and we've been to quite a few of them. We…read morewere there during the leaf change and the colors were spectacular. They have one of the finest museums with so many Audubon artifacts that you can't see all of them in one visit. They also have a beautiful lake, nice cabins and a very well run, clean Campground. If you're looking for a nice place to visit this is it.

We love hiking around this park. It's close, the trails are easy to hike. You can't get lost, they…read moreall circle around. Lot's of woodpeckers. It's interesting to see actual Audubon prints.

It's a decent park nothing special but it is well kept and safe never had an issue hereread more

Gregg Park is a really nice park with a wide variety of amenities to choose from. You can tell it…read morewas a planned park because it has such a nice layout. Near the entrance on the south side of the park is a huge playground with multiple pieces for kids to play on. Visitors can simply park along the road that loops through the park so they can park near the amenity that interests them. There are horse shoes pits, pickle ball courts, a paved walking trail, a shelter and a pavilion (with its own playground), an amphitheater, and on the northwest side, Rainbow Beach swim/splash park with its own parking! And just in case that sounds crowded, there is a large green area with mature trees in the middle of the park that allows people to mill about or for kids to run and play their own games. The park is clean and well kept too! It might be nice to have some additional benches and picnic tables for those not needing to rent an entire shelter, but other than that, the park seems to have the makings of a fun day. Review #2980

Stayed in the campground, which is open year-round. They have a new bath house with 8…read moreseparate/private restroom/showers. 6 are locked up for the season. For the two that are open, the rooms are blazing hot but the showers are very cold. Not quite ice cold but the are not even "like warm". Totally unacceptable. They need to take the money wasted on overheating the rooms to heating the water to a reasonable temperature.

The highlight of this park is a reconstructed wooden fort, which overlooks the river and is fairly…read moreimpressive. I assume there is some more action during business hours as it wasn't the most happening place in the evening. There are a variety of trails and other facilities, as well as a disc golf course. Maps suggest that a road leads to another forest park, but the road does become unpaved dirt and gravel before the point of crossing under the main highway. The water fountains did not work for me. It is a free park with some interesting features and a variety of possible uses.