Camp Mack’s River Resort

Camp Mack’s River Resort sits where Reedy Creek meets the Kissimmee River, part of the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes on the eastern edge of Polk County near Lake Wales. The resort bills itself as ‘The Old Florida Lodge, Marina, and RV Resort,’ and that description is accurate in both spirit and history. The ground it sits on has ties going back to Fort Gardiner, a military outpost from the Second Seminole War, and to the early steamboat trade that once moved freight and passengers along the Kissimmee River before highways reshaped how people traveled through Central Florida.

Today the property functions as a genuine multi-use fishing and recreation destination rather than a single-format hotel. Guests can book full-hookup RV sites for a short stop or a full season, rent one of the riverside homes or cottages for a family trip, or take a room in the resort’s 40-room motel, which also has space for truck and trailer parking for guests towing boats. A full-service marina anchors the property, with boat rentals, fuel, and a tackle shop for anglers chasing bass on some of the best-known fishing water in Central Florida. The Freshwater Tavern serves as the resort’s restaurant and bar, and a general store covers the basics guests need without a drive into town.

What sets Camp Mack apart from a typical corporate RV chain is its structure and feel. The resort is organized locally, with its own condominium association and master association governing the property, rather than being one stop on a national reservation platform. The staff and marketing lean into the ‘Old Florida’ character of the place, the kind of unpolished, water-focused hospitality that has largely disappeared from more heavily developed parts of the state. Guests come for bass fishing tournaments, for the marina, and for a slower pace that is harder to find closer to Orlando or Tampa.

The resort’s location, about 30 minutes southeast of downtown Lakeland, makes it a reasonable day trip destination as well as an overnight stay, and its riverside setting on Lake Kissimmee’s connected waterways gives it a different character than the lake-cottage or RV-park format found elsewhere in Polk County. Between the lodge rooms, the RV sites, and the vacation rental homes, Camp Mack covers a wide range of budgets and travel styles under one independently run property, all centered on the marina and the fishing that has drawn visitors to this stretch of the Kissimmee Chain for generations.