Agency-listedGeorgia DNR Wildlife Resources DivisionFree
Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
Drive-up · Georgia Wildlife Resources Division · GA · 31.65210, -81.77670
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →Georgia Wildlife Resources Division lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Nearest town: not published by GA DNR for this property. Designated primitive campground on a Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division wildlife management area. Camping on a Georgia WMA is legal only in designated campgrounds (rule 391-4-2-.61). A hunting licence, fishing licence or Lands Pass is required to be on the property. GA DNR publishes no camping fee. No potable water is claimed.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 36 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake CampgroundNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground · Townsend WMA · GA
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- FFuel4 mi
- OOutfitter4 mi
- GGrocery4 mi
- MMechanic4 mi
- @Mail4 mi
- RxPharmacy5 mi
- EVEV fast charger7 mi
- HHardware7 mi
- LLaundry16 mi
- +Urgent care18 mi
- ShShower29 mi
- AAir-up42 mi
- WWater42 mi
- DDump47 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 42-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 4 mi out.
Not within 60 mi: Propane. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
Access
Drive-up
Land
Georgia Wildlife Resources Division
Elevation
36 ft
Ground slope
3.1% · gentle
Nearest rail line
~2.4 mi · main line
State
GA
Coordinates
31.65210, -81.77670
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground · Townsend WMA · GA (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureJohnson Lake · ~0.8 mi · USGS: perennial lake or pond
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelCitgo · ~4.1 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- GroceriesParker's · ~4.3 mi
- PharmacyLudowici Drugs · ~4.6 mi
- Hospital / clinicHinesville VA Outpatient Clinic · ~17.5 mi
- HardwareHarris Ace Hardware · ~7.1 mi
- Nearest rail line~2.4 mi · main line
- Nearest highwayno interstate or US route within 10 mi
EV charging — from Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground · Townsend WMA · GA — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger6.8 mi straight-line SW — NeSmith Chevrolet Buick GMC, Jesup, GA · Blink Network · J1772, CCS · 2 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reach2 within 25 mi · 46 within 50 · 139 within 100 · 314 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)32.4 mi — Brunswick, GA - Tesla Supercharger, Brunswick
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO17.2 mi — HINESVILLE CPE250, Hinesville
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)6.8 mi — NeSmith Chevrolet Buick GMC, Jesup, GA · Blink Network · J1772, CCS · 1 Level 2 port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast chargerFree (as listed by AFDC)
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 254343 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground · Townsend WMA · GA — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Highway rest areaGeorgia Weigh Station Region 9 South (McIntosh) · ~22.8 mi SE
- Highway rest areaGeorgia Weigh Station Region 9 North (McIntosh) · ~22.9 mi SE
- RestroomFederal restroom · ~28.9 mi E · FWS
Coming out here — Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground · Townsend WMA · GA
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Johnson Lake as a perennial lake or pond, ~0.8 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 3.1% — gentle. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Rail line mapped ~2.4 mi from the pin — the national rail atlas classes it as a main line. The atlas also records Amtrak service on it. That is the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026), which records that a line is there and what class of track it is. Whether anything runs on it, how often, and at what hour, it does not say, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin in the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). That file holds the divided, limited-access highways only — a state expressway or a two-lane US route near this camp would not be in it.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground elsewhere
Other camps near Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Morgan Lake WMA - Morgan Lake Primitive Camp~2.6 mi
- Townsend WMA - Middleton Lake Primitive Camp~7.3 mi
- Townsend WMA - Big Lake Primitive Campground~10.7 mi
- Townsend WMA - Wesley Lake Primitive Campground~12.7 mi
The unit that manages Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
Cowhouse Lake Campground is in Townsend WMA, a wildlife management area managed by Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.
How we know this — Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
Stay limit
14 nights (not to exceed 14 consecutive days)
Permit
The WMA License is no longer available or required. A basic hunting or fishing privilege that allows hunting or fishing on state lands is all that is needed to be present on designated state WMAs, state PFAs, and state shooting ranges.
Area rules
All camps or fires shall be in designated campgrounds unless otherwise posted at the check station, except that camping is allowed anywhere on National Forest lands unless otherwise indicated or signed. It is unlawful for any person to use any musical instruments, radios, televisions, generators or other noise making devices after 10:00 p.m. daily, in such a manner that such devices may be heard by other WMA visitors.
Source
public land records
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
GA DNR layer values for this point, verbatim: Camping='Primitive', Access='Year Round', Maintained='Yes', Management='GM', Comments=None, Name='Cowhouse Lake Campground'. Coordinate is Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division's own, unrounded, from the agency's public WMA feature service, layer 6 "Campgrounds" (188 points statewide, read 2026-08-16): https://services6.arcgis.com/9QlSLDqa0P1cHLhu/arcgis/rest/services/WRD_WMA_Public/FeatureServer/6 . Not derived, not geocoded, not rounded by us. SECOND SOURCE - the property's own page (https://georgiawildlife.com/townsend-wma, read 2026-08-16) affirms camping: Accommodations & Facilities list "Primitive campsites". GA DNR publishes no street address; the WMA spans Long and McIntosh counties. FEE BASIS: Georgia DNR prints a "Fees & Passes" block on every property page and none of the 135 WMA pages read this fire names a camping fee. State-managed WMAs and PFAs print "Land Access: Hunting License, Fishing License, or Lands Pass" - i.e. a licence or Lands Pass is required to BE on the property at all, camping or not. GA DNR (https://georgiawildlife.com/LicenseChanges, read 2026-08-16): "The WMA License is no longer available or required." / "A basic hunting or fishing privilege that allows hunting or fishing on state lands is all that is needed to be present on designated state WMAs". We found no first-party page printing the Lands Pass price, so no price is claimed here. This is an ABSENCE-OF-CAMPING-FEE finding, not a published "free" statement; fee=0 means "no camping charge", not "free to enter". REVIEWER: decide whether a pass-gated site should be labelled on a free-camping map. STATEWIDE WMA RULE, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 391-4-2-.61 (Camping Regulations on Wildlife Management Areas), verbatim: "All camps or fires shall be in designated campgrounds unless otherwise posted at the check station, except that camping is allowed anywhere on National Forest lands unless otherwise indicated or signed."; camping limited to "a period of time not to exceed 14 consecutive days; after which the campsite shall be vacated and all personally owned property or physical features of the camp removed for a period of not less than 7 days."; "It is unlawful for any person to use any musical instruments, radios, televisions, generators or other noise making devices after 10:00 p.m. daily, in such a manner that such devices may be heard by other WMA visitors." SOURCING CAVEAT: Georgia's official rules host (rules.sos.ga.gov) renders rule text via JavaScript and returned no body text; its API paths returned 403. This rule text was read at https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/georgia/Ga-Comp-R-Regs-R-391-4-2-.61 (Cornell LII), a REPRODUCTION, NOT a .gov source. Clause (1) is corroborated by GA DNR's own per-property pages. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Townsend WMA - Cowhouse Lake Campground
Camping near a reservoir →Water on public land →Dumping grey & black →Off-grid communication →All field notes →