When planning your trips, do you try and visit the same place, or places, every year (or travel season)? Do you have a favorite campground? Favorite RV park or resort? A favorite boondocking spot?
In one of Gail Marsh’s “Around the Campfire” series, she and other RVers discuss the pros and cons of returning to the same campground each year. You can read that story here.
As always, thanks for voting.
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Anywhere in New Hampshire!
Because we love dayhiking, we frequently camp in the Banff Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court. Not a great location for the views, but it is reasonably close to trails. Lake Louise campground would be closer, but the trains sound like they are running through the trailer! So, we camp further away.
We enjoy the quiet side of the Smokies near Townsend , TN. Especially in the Fall with leaves changing and festivals. There are several campgrounds in the area with Big Meadows being the prominent one
Actually I lied. I boondock the DP along side my garage. Cost of diesel is the reason.
Have returned to the Tetons and Yellowstone for 45+ years.
We did, until I unintentionally offended the in-law’s family estate executor. So, as they say in the homeland, “Oh, well”.
The Oregon and Washington coasts have everything I want.
Not all of us fit into your narrow view of campsite preferences. We have two favorite long-term go to places and several campgrounds we enjoy returning to on a more short term basis. We winter in Florida at our favorite southern location. We summer in the Adirondacks at our favorite northern location. When home (S&B Cumberland Plateau property), we have a half dozen campgrounds that we return to for several days to a week in spring and fall.
For many years we made at least one reservation at Maddox Family Campground, Chincoteague, VA. They sold out and the place is now an Outdoors Campground. They made many improvements and jacked up the price. However, they also run a 40% OFF coupon that allows us to continue to camp there, during the week in the off season, which is fine by us.
Depending on which direction we travel we have our favorites throughout the southern and western states.
A mountain lake full of fish and no people around.
Because of medical conditions, I can’t drive. We tried last year to see how far my wife could go, and she lasted about an hour. So yes, we’re stuck with one state park, which is about 15 miles away. But you have to make your reservations a year out, and the best ones go one minute after midnight. It’s very difficult to get a good spot. There is a couple COE parks around, but no full hookups.
We should be able to vote more than once on this poll. We have several favorite spots and they all are not in the same category.
Not so much the park as the people. There is a seasonal community that reassembles every winter at a Texas park. The group isn’t formal but ad-hoc and its members come from a wide swath of the U.S. & Canada. The group is not a clique and welcoming to all. It took the new park owners a bit of time to figure out the park’s vibe was this group and not their efforts to poorly imitate the activities the group self-organizes.
We’ve been going to a USFS campground near Mt St Helens over my birthday for over 30 years. I have pleasant thoughts about our visits all year long and It’s one of the few things I get really excited about any more.
The West side or the East?. Years ago the road on the East was swell. The last time I stayed at Iron Creek C.G. which is sweet. The road was so nasty I didn’t even make it the whole way up to the viewpoint. I was driving my Samurai. It was a mess of a road.
Hope it’s been fixed since then, but I doubt it.
Anywhere in the eastern side in the mountains. Give me the rivers, lakes, forest, bears, moose, deer and other critters and FEW people.
We return to the some of the same (dry camping) USFS campgrounds in CO that we’ve used for 30 years or so, since tenting days. They are great bases for my husband to backpack and hike from. (I can’t do the level of hiking I once did.)
We also try to spend a week at each Rim of Grand Canyon, at South Rim we prefer dry camping in Mather CG. However, for the bonus week planned in the spring this year, we chose Trailer Village to have power, since it may be cold and/or snow.
We have a couple of KOAs we use on a regular basis, as transition stops, or to visit friends in an area.
Many years, we also explore new areas &/or campgrounds, it just depends.
Naval Air Station Key West campgrounds! Restricted access of course as it is a military base. Reasonable rates for both dry and hookup camping – at least by Key West standards. Like anywhere in Florida in the high season, military retirees have to book 6 months in advance. Active Duty Military can book up to 1 full year in advance.
As we are travelers and not so much campers – No. The only place that was a regular stop was the Round Bottom Road camp ground owned by FMCA. That is not free anymore, so we have to find a new stop in that area.
We follow Indycar at various tracks, boondocking at each. Our absolute favorite track is Barber Motorsports in Alabama. The grounds are kept in pristine condition, and it literally reminds you of the Masters Golf Course (since the race is also held in the Spring) with the colors of all the flowers and trees as well as the lush green grass.
I chose “boondocking spot”, because you didn’t include the place we camp the most. It is a small museum where we are members and know the staff. Besides being a destination in itself, it is a convenient overnight stop for destinations more than a day’s distance from home.
We owned a lot at a resort in Florida and we return here every winter. Other than that we have our favorit states but don’t return to any particular park in them.
We own a site at a 5-star resort on the Oregon coast….so obviously that is our favorite place. On our trip to and from this resort, we always take the same route and stay at the same rv parks.
We live in NE Florida and if we want a quick getaway campground for a few days (like next week) we go to Crooked River State Park just outside St. Mary’s, Georgia (home of Kings Bay Naval Submarine base). It’s about 110 miles from the house. While we have favorite campgrounds all over the West we have been to Crooked River more than any other.
Yes, the campground at Pohick Bay Regional Park in Lorton, Virginia. It is on the southside of DC outside the I-495 beltway and just off I-95 about 5 miles. It is adjacent to Gunston Hall, George Mason’s ancestral home, and within spitting distance of our old neighborhood in Alexandria (Fairfax County), Virginia. Gunston Hall is as historic as Mount Vernon and far, far less crowded. 🙂 So, Pohick is near DC for touristy things but far from the MADDENING crowds otherwise. 🙂 🙂
None of the above precisely fit…our fav place was The Black Hills of SD. Sometimes in a FHU spot, sometimes in Custer State Park’s Gamelodge CG.
We camp in two fav state parks on the Oregon coast each year. Fort Stevens State Park near the Washington border & Bullard State Park in Bandon,
We go other places but these can’t be beat for an old beach bum like me.
We love a county park up in the mountains near Julian, Ca. And it’s only about an hour away from home.
I usually spend the summer months in Red River NM region, then move to Galveston Island in the winter months.
We did just about every FL state park CG, most of them more than once, until we retired. Then we went out West and discovered the little private park in Cedaredge, CO where we spent a month or two, sometimes the whole summer, for the last 13 years before I lost my wife. During those same years we spent the winters at Desert Trails in Tucson, AZ. The main attraction in both cases was the owner(s), but one died and the other sold out, and both are now expensive beyond my means. Besides, Pericles was not replaceable, nor was Michael.
When you find a happy place, why not return?
Then on longer trips and adventures, find new favorite places for the future.