The public swim beach at Guilford Lake runs about 600 feet along the northwest shore, with a showerhouse, restrooms and changing booths behind it and a paved lot at the top. It is the larger of two beaches on the lake; the other is inside the campground and is for registered campers. There are no lifeguards. The bottom is sandy and shallow well out from shore, which makes it a comfortable lake for small kids, and the 10 horsepower limit on the whole 396 acre lake means there is no ski boat wake to deal with.

Guilford Lake is older than most Ohio reservoirs by about a century. It was dug in 1834 as a feeder reservoir for the Sandy and Beaver Canal, an ambitious and ultimately doomed project meant to run 73 miles from the Ohio River at Glasgow to the Ohio and Erie Canal at Bolivar. The plan called for two tunnels, 30 dams, 90 locks, three reservoirs and a 400 foot aqueduct. The lake took its early name from E. H. Gill, the chief engineer. The canal never paid, the railroads finished it off, and the dam eventually breached. The state bought the land in 1927, completed a new dam in 1932, and dedicated the site as a state park in 1949.

Three launch ramps serve the lake, and there is an accessible fishing pier on Hanna Drive. A half mile lakeshore trail leaves from Teegarden Road and is about the extent of the hiking here. Fishing is largemouth bass, crappie, bluegill and channel catfish, with the shallow weedy arms at the upper end producing the best bass. Because the lake is shallow it warms early and stays warm, so swimming is good from early June into September.

The campground has electric and non-electric sites, showers and a dump station, and it fills on summer weekends with people who come back to the same loop every year. Park hours are 6:00 am to 11:00 pm and the office number is (330) 222-1712. Zepernick Lake Wildlife Area is a short drive east on SR 172 if you want a quieter, undeveloped lake with no motors at all.

Hanoverton, a couple of miles west, is the surviving canal town from the same era and its main street is a National Register historic district; the Spread Eagle Tavern there dates to 1837. Lisbon, the county seat, is ten minutes southeast, and Beaver Creek State Park with its restored canal lock and Gaston's Mill is about twenty five minutes south.