State parks in North Carolina with cabins

Hanging Rock State Park

The Sauratown Mountains park north of Winston-Salem, and the one most North Carolinians picture when they think of a state park cabin. The cabins sit on their own road above the family campground and are the real thing: a full kitchen, a bathroom, heat and air conditioning, a fire ring and a grill outside. The park around them is the draw, with three waterfalls, the climb to Moore's Knob, a swimming lake and stone buildings the Civilian Conservation Corps left behind. The catch is summer: from the first Monday in June to the third Monday in August the cabins go by the week, Monday to Monday, so a two-night August weekend is not an option. Pets are not allowed in the cabins or the cabin area.

Morrow Mountain State Park

An hour east of Charlotte in the ancient Uwharrie hills, above Lake Tillery and the Yadkin River. Its six vacation cabins are the most equipped in the state system: two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room with a fireplace, and a kitchen with a stove, refrigerator and microwave, furnished for six with four twin beds, a queen and a sleeper sofa. Morrow Mountain is also the only park that rents both kinds of cabin, so it is worth checking the cheaper camper cabins if the vacation cabins are gone. Same summer rule as Hanging Rock: whole weeks only, Monday to Monday, from June into August. Bring your own linens and towels.

Singletary Lake State Park

A quiet Bladen County park built around a Carolina bay lake, most of the year given over to group camps. For everyone else there is one building to rent, the Canebrake Family Cabin, and it is the outlier in this whole list: three bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining table and a bathroom, sleeping eleven, for the price of a rustic bunk cabin elsewhere. Cabin guests also get the swim pier, which is closed to day visitors. Being a single cabin, it books out early, and in June and July it goes by the week, Sunday to Saturday. It is not wheelchair accessible and pets are not allowed.

Lake Norman State Park

The closest cabins to Charlotte, on the largest manmade lake in the state. Six camper cabins sit in the campground: one bedroom with a double bed, another with two sets of twin bunks, heat and air conditioning, and a picnic table and fire ring outside. There is no kitchen and no bathroom, so you cook outdoors and walk to the bathhouse. The park is the busiest of the group for a reason, with a swim beach, boat rentals and some of the best mountain-bike trails in the Piedmont. Cabin 1 is accessible; pets are not allowed inside any of them.

Carolina Beach State Park

Twelve miles south of Wilmington, with six camper cabins in the family campground and the ocean a short drive away. The park itself faces the Cape Fear River and the Intracoastal Waterway rather than the surf, and it runs a full marina, which is unusual for a state park. Its real oddity is botanical: Venus flytraps grow wild here, along the easy trails around Sugarloaf Dune. The cabins are the standard rustic pattern, a queen in one room and two sets of twin bunks in the other, with Adirondack chairs by the door and the bathhouse a walk away. The Centennial Cabin on site 42 is the accessible one.

Raven Rock State Park

Forty minutes south of Raleigh, built around the crumbling stone face that gives the park its name, where the Cape Fear River cuts past a 150-foot outcrop. Six rustic camper cabins sit above the campground, each with a queen bed, two sets of twin bunks, heat and air conditioning, and a tent pad, grill and Adirondack chairs outside. There is no bathroom or kitchen inside, so the bathhouse and the fire ring do the work. It is the easiest cabin to reach from the Triangle, and it pairs well with the park's mountain-bike trails and paddle-in campsites. Cabin 3 is accessible.

Goose Creek State Park

A tidewater park on the Pamlico River east of Greenville, where live oaks lean out over brackish water and a boardwalk carries you through cypress swamp. Six camper cabins sit in the newer loop beside the RV sites, each with a queen bed, bunk beds, heat and air conditioning, and an outdoor spigot; the bathhouse is a walk away. It is the flattest and quietest park on this list, better for paddling, birding and the butterfly garden than for hiking. Campsite 24 is the wheelchair-accessible cabin. On weekends and holidays a two-night stay is the minimum.

Gorges State Park

The only state park cabins in the North Carolina mountains, near the corner where the state meets South Carolina and Georgia. Gorges catches enough rain to be classed a temperate rainforest, and it holds twenty-six waterfalls, deep river gorges and a stretch of the Foothills Trail. Five camper cabins sit in the family campground at the Grassy Ridge access, each with a double bed and two sets of twin bunks, heat and air conditioning, and Adirondack chairs by the door. The waterfall hikes are steep and often muddy, and the drive in is a mountain drive, so allow more time than the map suggests. Cabin 1 is accessible.

Cliffs of the Neuse State Park

Ninety-foot bluffs over the Neuse River, fifteen minutes from Goldsboro and startling in a part of the state that is otherwise flat. Three camper cabins sit on sites 7, 9 and 11, each with a queen bed and two sets of twin bunks, electricity, heat and air conditioning, and potable water outside; the bathhouse is nearby. The park has its own swimming lake with boat rentals, which makes it an easy summer weekend with children. Three cabins is the smallest camper-cabin fleet in the system apart from Singletary, so book early. Cabin 9 is the accessible one and the only one with a charcoal grill.

Hammocks Beach State Park

The closest thing in the state park system to a beach cabin, though the beach itself is offshore. Hammocks Beach protects Bear Island, four miles of undeveloped barrier island reached by seasonal ferry or paddle, where loggerhead turtles nest above the tide line. The four camper cabins are on the mainland at the Simmons campground, drive-up and open year round, with bunk beds and a double bed but no water and no bathrooms; a bathhouse sits in the middle of the loop. Plan around the ferry schedule, because the island is the point of coming here. Two nights minimum year round, three on the summer holiday weekends.

Medoc Mountain State Park

The newest cabins on this list, and the least known park. Medoc Mountain is a low granite ridge in Halifax County, an hour northeast of Raleigh, with quiet trails and one of the cleanest streams in the region for paddling and fishing. The campground was rebuilt with Connect NC Bond money and reopened with four camper cabins added alongside the renovated bathhouses and full-hookup RV sites. The cabins have two bedrooms, heat and air conditioning, and no indoor kitchen or bathroom, so cooking happens outside and the bathhouse is a walk. Because the cabins are new they are not yet listed in the reservation system's park description, so call the park at 252-586-6588 if the booking site does not show them.

William B. Umstead State Park

Check before you plan this one: the renovated Family Campground reopened in 2026 with six new camper cabins, but the reservation system still says cabins remain closed until further notice, and the state's rate table lists Umstead's camper cabins as coming soon. When they open they will be the only state park cabins inside a major city, eleven miles from downtown Raleigh and minutes from the airport, in a five-thousand-acre pocket of forest with two lakes and boat rentals. The cabins sleep six with electricity, heat and air conditioning and a spigot outside, and share a central wash house with hot showers. Umstead also rents primitive group-camp cabins on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights for a good deal less.