Millcreek Park – Willingboro, Burlington County, NJ

Distance – 4 1/2 miles of trails (I did 3.3 miles around the outer parts of the loops)

Type – Loops

Difficulty: 1 of 10

Website – Willingboro Parks

Open – Sunrise to Sunset.

Terrain – Woods, wetlands, and fields

Surface – part paved, part wood chips, part crushed stone

Trailheads – 40° 1’24.84″N, 74°54’42.70″W (just one lot, there are several other options)

Directions – 300 Bev Rancocas Rd, Willingboro, NJ 08046

Parking – Several parking lots located throughout the park

Dog friendly? Yes

Stroller friendly? Yes

Benches? Yes



Facilities?: Port-a-potties



Markings – None, but very easy to follow

Map –



Description –

Back in August, I got the rarest of all things for a man with four kids 7 years old and under… a child free morning. So I opted to do what ALL childless fathers do… go hiking in South Jersey? Anyway, it was off to Millcreek Park in Willingboro! Several small lots here, I picked the first one along the drive that circles that park and headed down the crushed stone path into the woods.

Right away, I liked this one. For one, the park is REALLY big for a town park. For two, its along Rancocas Creek, and everyone knows how much I love Rancocas Creek. For three, there was a LOT of forest for a town park.

Throughout the trail, I tended to choose the outermost path to make the hike as long as possible.



Which also gave me some great river shots (although I had to backtrack to this intersection right after this view).



There were some minor maintenance issues, but the trails were overall very clear. This section of trail kept finding view of the creek.

See?



If you’re thinking that this would be a great spot to canoe or kayak, you’re right. But from here, the trail headed straight away from the water.

The trail worked its way around some marshland until it reached a three way intersection.



After spotting that deer in the last picture, I opted to go right at the intersection to stick to the outside of the trail system. We passed a nice stretch of woods until we reached a four way intersection.

At the four way intersection I wasn’t really sure where to head next, so I picked straight. It turned out that straight and right loop back to this intersection. I found some neat mushrooms and a lot more deer in this loop, as well as another view of the creek, our last of the hike.



I feel like we’ve been here before. I opted to head straight to take the only stretch of trail from this intersection that I hadn’t done yet. After crossing a small creek, the trail would merge with the paved walking trail.



I made a right onto the paved trail, which took me past some more deer and eventually into the wide open field section of the park.

The field stretch is also a lovely walk, although I didn’t like it as much as the woods (spoiler alert: I like hiking in the woods). There’s a playground and such in the park, totally normal, but eventually I reached something very unusual for a park…



How unusual? About this unusual.



Seriously, whole park is worth coming to for this… a Futuro house. Only a little more than 100 of these prefab houses were ever made, and this is one of two left in New Jersey (although it was a prefab BANK in town instead of a house). Sadly, the gas crisis of the ’70s killed what should have been the greatest housing movement ever.

A little past that is the Veterans Memorial, which you can stop and pay your respects at for a few moments.



The trail then crosses the park road and winds around a small pavilion.

By this point, it was getting hot. But when I saw the small pond with a short fitness trail around it, how could I resist walking around?



Once I looped back to the main trail, it was a short distance back to where I’d parked my car before I’d walked over 3 miles.

Nearby:

Willingboro Lake Parks is nearby in Willingboro, and is in a massive upgrade project. Pennington Park is also nearby