Canoeing/Kayaking

Tiny Village Bon Echo

1 RV Site, 6 Tent Sites

Tiny Village Bon Echo offers a one-of-a-kind glamping experience in the Canadian Shield country of Ompah, Ontario — a short drive from Bon Echo Provincial Park, where the Canadian wilderness reaches its most dramatically scenic expression in the granite cliffsides, clear lakes, and ancient forest of the Madawaska Highlands. For guests seeking a uniquely designed nature retreat far from the ordinary campground, Tiny Village Bon Echo delivers an experience that begins with the accommodations themselves. Ravine Domes, Forest Villas, treehouses, and cozy cabins connect guests to the landscape in ways a conventional campsite cannot match — each unit positioned and designed to deepen the sense of immersion in the surrounding Canadian Shield forest. A Ravine Dome's built-in net hammock and panoramic natural views make sleep itself an event. Forest Villas bring three connected cabins among the trees onto a massive shared deck, where the trails to the kayak launch begin practically at the door. On-site amenities include a beach, waterfall, swimming pool, hiking trails, modern showers, a general store, propane, and dump station services, with internet available for guests who need to stay connected. Tiny village bon echo prices reflect the property's unique glamping positioning and the quality of the designed accommodations. The Canadian Shield geology surrounding Tiny Village Bon Echo is one of the most ancient and visually compelling landscapes in North America — Precambrian granite sculpted by glaciers into the lake-studded, forest-covered terrain that stretches across Ontario's vast interior. The clarity of the lakes, the silence of the forest, and the quality of the night sky in this remote part of the province make the Bon Echo experience genuinely restorative in ways that busier outdoor destinations cannot replicate. Bon Echo Provincial Park, a short drive away, is the defining natural landmark of the region — home to Mazinaw Lake and the 100-meter Mazinaw Rock, one of the largest collections of Ojibwe pictographs in Canada, with over 260 Indigenous paintings on the cliff face accessible by canoe or the park's interpretive ferry service. The rock's sheer scale — rising nearly 100 meters directly from the lake's surface — is among the most arresting natural spectacles in Ontario, and the ferry ride along its base provides a perspective impossible to replicate from the shore. Canoeing, kayaking, and swimming on Mazinaw Lake fill a full day at the park. Tiny Village Bon Echo is open through the Ontario camping season, with summer delivering peak conditions for lake swimming, paddling, and the full outdoor recreation lineup. Book domes and treehouses well in advance — demand for the most distinctive units consistently outpaces availability, and tiny village bon echo photos simply don't prepare guests for the experience of waking up inside the Canadian Shield at its most beautiful.

from $40/night

O'Reilly Lake Resort

9 RV Sites, 5 Cabins, 17 Tent Sites, 3 Cottages

At 1091 O'Reilly Lake Lane in Mountain Grove, Ontario—in the Township of Central Frontenac where the Canadian Shield's ancient granite and the spring-fed lakes of the Frontenac Axis create the cottage-country landscape that the rural communities between Kingston and Haliburton have built their outdoor recreation identity around—O'Reilly Lake Resort, a Summerhill Resorts property, offers 3,500 feet of beautiful waterfront on O'Reilly Lake, a small spring-fed lake teeming with fish and featuring a small private forested island, alongside paddleboards, kayaks, pedal boats, canoes, life jackets, and hydro-bikes for cycling across the lake, an inflatable water playground, a jumping pillow, a playground, and a camp store stocked with ice, firewood, snacks, and small groceries in a pet-friendly resort whose spring-fed lake character—the clarity, the fish population, and the private island visible from the waterfront—creates the complete Canadian Shield lake experience in the Frontenac Axis's most secluded cottage-country terrain. The lake is spring-fed. There's a private island. The water toys are included. Three thousand five hundred feet of waterfront on O'Reilly Lake—the spring-fed, fish-rich lake whose clarity and forested margins create the aesthetic that the Frontenac Axis's granite-and-lake landscape produces at its best—provide the natural centerpiece for the resort's water recreation. Paddleboards, kayaks, pedal boats, canoes, and life jackets are available for guest use, and the hydro-bikes—the pedal-powered watercraft that cyclists operate across the lake's surface—provide the distinctive water recreation alternative that distinguishes O'Reilly Lake from the standard paddle-only cottage-country resort. The inflatable water playground and jumping pillow create the energetic water recreation for the younger guests whose enthusiasm for the lake needs a structured outlet beyond the canoe. A camp store with ice, firewood, snacks, and small groceries handles the daily provisioning without requiring the drive to Mountain Grove's limited commercial infrastructure. Mountain Grove sits in the Township of Central Frontenac in Frontenac County, in the rural Shield community on County Road 38 between Sharbot Lake and Arden in the granite outcrop and mixed-forest landscape that the Frontenac Arch's geological connection between the Adirondacks and the Laurentian Shield creates across southeastern Ontario. The Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve—a UNESCO-designated biosphere encompassing the Thousand Islands and the Frontenac region—protects the wildlife corridor that the granite ridges, spring-fed lakes, and forested wetlands of Central Frontenac sustain for wolves, black bears, moose, and the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence forest community's full species composition. Frontenac Provincial Park, 30 miles south near Sydenham, provides 6,000 hectares of the most remote backcountry canoeing and camping in southeastern Ontario—the park's 50-plus interior lakes connected by portage routes create the classic Canadian Shield paddle experience that the provincial park system protects without road access to the backcountry campsite positions. Kingston, 60 miles south on Highway 38 and Highway 401, provides the regional urban infrastructure, the Royal Military College, Queen's University, and the Fort Henry National Historic Site's living history interpretation of the 1812-era limestone fortification that overlooks the St. Lawrence. O'Reilly Lake Resort operates seasonally through the Ontario summer and early fall, with the Victoria Day weekend in late May through the Thanksgiving weekend in October covering the primary open period and the summer months from late June through Labour Day delivering the warmest lake conditions for swimming and the water playground. The late summer bass and walleye fishing on O'Reilly Lake, the spring bass opener in late May, and the loon observation that the spring-fed lake's clear water and forested margins support create the fishing and natural history activity across the season. Reserve your lakefront site at O'Reilly Lake Resort and let the spring-fed lake, the hydro-bikes, the private island view, and the Frontenac Shield's ancient granite landscape deliver the cottage-country Ontario experience that the Summerhill network's most secluded property provides.

Woodland Park

3 RV Sites, 10 Tent Sites

At Woodland Park in Sauble Beach, Ontario—on the Bruce Peninsula where Lake Huron's freshwater coast produces the seven-mile continuous natural sand beach that makes Sauble Beach the most visited freshwater beach community in Canada, a short walk from the campground's entrance—Woodland Park provides more than 770 campsites including 155 overnight and transient sites, 575 seasonal sites, and 20 tent sites, alongside an indoor heated pool and hot tub, two playgrounds, supervised children's activities, a recreation center, beach access, boat docks, boat ramp, a dog park, and the complete amenity infrastructure that a 770-site campground in one of Canada's most popular Lake Huron beach communities develops when the summer season fills to capacity with the Ontario camping families who have been making Sauble Beach a generational tradition for decades. The seven-mile beach, the indoor pool, and the supervised children's programming together define what families return to Woodland Park for year after year. All overnight and transient sites at Woodland Park include a large cement patio, picnic table, and fire ring on paved roads, with free cable television at every site. The paved road and cement patio infrastructure provide the clean, durable site surface that a 770-site property with high summer turnover requires to maintain the quality standard that repeat-visitor families arrive expecting. Clean washrooms and showers distributed through the property serve the hygiene infrastructure at the site density the campground maintains. Free WiFi provides the connectivity. Two- and three-bedroom trailer rentals—stocked with dishes, plates, pots, pans, glasses, cutlery, microwave, toaster, coffee maker, and television with free cable—serve the families who want the Sauble Beach camping experience without bringing their own equipment, providing the fully outfitted domestic setup that makes a week at the beach practical regardless of the gear situation at home. Sauble Beach's seven-mile freshwater sand beach—a short walk from Woodland Park's gate—is the largest and longest freshwater beach in Canada and one of the longest natural sand beaches in North America, stretching in a continuous arc of clean quartz sand between the Lake Huron shoreline and the beach communities that have grown up behind it since the early 20th century when the Bruce Peninsula's sand beaches became accessible by road. The lake's shallow, gradually sloping sandy bottom provides the safest swimming conditions in any large Canadian beach community, and the clear, freshwater character eliminates the ocean beach concerns that parents with young children at saltwater beaches manage. The Bruce Peninsula extending north from Sauble Beach contains some of the most ecologically significant and visually dramatic natural landscapes in Ontario: the Bruce Peninsula National Park's Georgian Bay shoreline, the Fathom Five National Marine Park's shipwrecks and clear-water diving, and the Niagara Escarpment's limestone cliffs and alvars that create the specific karst terrain that supports rare orchids and the migratory birds that use the peninsula's narrow land bridge as a concentration point during fall migration. Woodland Park is open seasonally through Ontario's summer camping calendar from May through October. Sauble Beach's peak season runs from Canada Day weekend in July through the August civic holiday when the beach fills with the Ontario cottage-and-camping population that converts the seven-mile shore into the most socially animated freshwater beach scene in the province. Reserve transient sites well in advance for July and August, claim the patio space on arrival, and let Lake Huron's seven-mile sand beach earn the Sauble Beach reputation that Ontario families pass from parents to children as reliably as any summer tradition in the province.

from $40/night

Whitewater Cottage and RV Resort

20 RV Sites, 24 Cabins

Along a scenic 2.5-kilometer stretch of the Ottawa River in Foresters Falls, Ontario—in the Whitewater Region Township of Renfrew County where the Ottawa River's Foresters Falls rapid creates the whitewater kayaking and rafting destination that the international paddling community has built Wilderness Tours and the Ottawa River's commercial rafting industry around, 75 minutes west of downtown Ottawa in the Ottawa Valley's Canadian Shield landscape—Whitewater Cottage & RV Resort, a Summerhill Resorts property, provides RV sites with full hookups, river-view chalets, a luxury lake house, glamping options, a sandy beach, a pool, hiking and walking trails, volleyball and basketball courts, mountain bike trails, kayak and canoe rentals, and the Whitewater BeerSpa—an on-site thermal wellness experience combining hot tubs, saunas, dump buckets, river dashes, hammocks, campfires, and a traditional float pool—in a resort whose Ottawa River location, the BeerSpa's unique wellness concept, and the Wilderness Tours rafting access create the most distinctive river resort experience in the Ottawa Valley. A BeerSpa on the Ottawa River. Wilderness Tours next door. The accommodation range—full hookup RV sites, river-view chalets, a luxury lake house, and glamping configurations—creates the broadest spectrum in the Ottawa Valley resort market, serving the Class A motorhome traveler and the couples' retreat cabin guest with the same river setting and resort amenity access. The sandy beach on the Ottawa River provides the swimming and sunbathing access that the river's current creates at the calmer water downstream of the rapids, and the pool provides the controlled-water alternative. Hiking and walking trails through the Shield forest, volleyball and basketball courts, and mountain bike trails on the resort's forested acreage create the terrestrial activity complement to the river's paddling options. The Whitewater BeerSpa—the resort's signature wellness facility featuring hot tubs, saunas, dump buckets, cold-water river dashes, hammocks, campfires, and a traditional float pool—creates an experience unique in the Canadian camping landscape and worth the Foresters Falls trip on its own terms. Foresters Falls sits in the Whitewater Region Township of Renfrew County on the Ottawa River's Foresters Falls rapid, in the river corridor between Cobden and Castleford where the Ottawa's gradient and the Shield's granite banks create the whitewater kayaking, surfing, and commercial rafting opportunities that Wilderness Tours—one of Canada's largest commercial adventure tourism operators—has built its Ottawa River operation around since the 1970s. The Foresters Falls rapid's standing wave creates the playboat kayaking venue that the international whitewater community uses for training and freestyle events, and the Class III-IV rapids downstream of Foresters Falls toward Palmer Rapids provide the commercial rafting route that Wilderness Tours operates from its base adjacent to the resort property. Ottawa, 75 minutes east on Highway 17, provides the national capital's complete cultural infrastructure—the Canadian Museum of History, the National Gallery of Canada, Parliament Hill's Centre Block and Peace Tower, and the Rideau Canal's UNESCO-designated 7.8-kilometer winter skating rink create the Ottawa cultural calendar that the Foresters Falls weekend escape and the Ottawa day-trip combine into a complete Renfrew County experience. Algonquin Provincial Park's west gate, 90 minutes north on Hwy 60, provides the Shield's most iconic canoe tripping and wildlife observation landscape. Whitewater Cottage & RV Resort operates seasonally through the Ottawa Valley summer and fall, with the Ottawa River's highest commercial rafting water in May and June and the BeerSpa's year-round thermal cycle creating the dual-season appeal that the Renfrew County river resort calendar sustains. Reserve your site, chalet, or BeerSpa session at Whitewater Cottage & RV Resort and let the Ottawa River, the Wilderness Tours rafting access, and the BeerSpa's river-dash thermal cycle make the Foresters Falls stay the Ottawa Valley adventure that Canada's most complete river resort provides.

from $39/night

Back Bay Campground

34 RV Sites, 6 Tent Sites

Back Bay Campground sits on the southern shore of Black Bay on Black Lake in Hammond, New York, a few minutes from the St. Lawrence River in a corner of St. Lawrence County where the fishing is outstanding, the summer pace is genuinely unhurried, and the water is the point of everything. The campground is a full-service camping and cottage operation in the Thousand Islands region—one of the most historically celebrated freshwater waterscapes in North America, where 1,800 islands scatter across the St. Lawrence between Ontario and New York. Full hookup RV sites with 30 and 50-amp service, water, and sewer accommodate RV campers, while cozy cottages and tent sites serve guests who prefer enclosed accommodation or a simpler camping experience. A swimming pool provides a controlled water option, and the campground store is stocked with ice, gas, propane, food, and drinks—the full supply roster for a weekend at the lake. A boat launch and dock access give campers direct water entry, and boat rentals are available on-site: 16-foot aluminum fishing boats for anglers targeting Black Lake's perch and bass, and 18 to 22-foot pontoons for leisurely lake tours. Kayak rentals and outdoor games round out the on-property recreation. WiFi is available throughout, and the weekend activity calendar—movie nights, karaoke, and themed holiday events—adds a social dimension to what is otherwise a nature-focused camping experience. Black Lake is a 6,000-acre natural lake in St. Lawrence County famous throughout the Northeast as a perch fishing destination—the lake's enormous population of yellow perch draws ice fishers in winter and live-bait anglers in summer in pursuit of one of the most consistently productive freshwater fisheries in New York State. Bass, walleye, and northern pike round out the species list, and the lake's clear, fertile water supports the kind of multi-species fishing that keeps anglers occupied across an entire week-long stay rather than a single afternoon. Hammond, the nearest town, is a small lakeside community with the unhurried character of upstate New York's working rural landscape. The St. Lawrence River, a few minutes north of the campground, opens into the Thousand Islands region where the river broadens between granite outcrops, wooded islands, and the Victorian castles and summer estates that the Gilded Age's wealthy families built on the riverine archipelago. Boldt Castle on Heart Island—the unfinished monument to a love story that has defined Thousand Islands tourism for over a century—is accessible by boat tour from Clayton and Alexandria Bay. Wellesley Island State Park provides hiking, camping, and the Minna Anthony Common Nature Center, one of the Thousand Islands' best natural history interpretation facilities, directly on the river. Back Bay Campground operates from May 1 through September 30, aligning with the northern New York camping season when Black Lake's fishing peaks and the St. Lawrence region is at its most accessible and welcoming. Summer weekends fill quickly given the combination of excellent fishing, proximity to the Thousand Islands, and the cottages and boat rentals that make extended family stays particularly manageable here. Early reservations are essential for July and August holiday weekends in a region where quality waterfront camping with full services is limited.

from $20/night

Sandbanks River Country Campground

70 RV Sites, 6 Cabins, 8 Tent Sites, 3 Cottages

Sandbanks River Country Campground in Prince Edward County, Ontario, offers 70 full-hookup RV sites, nine cabin and cottage units, and eight tent sites on the Outlet River, with 30 and 50-amp service, ADA-accessible sites, and rigs accepted to 48 feet behind a gated entrance. A dedicated 30-amp waterfront category joins 30 and 50-amp full-hookup tiers, with boat docks, kayak rentals, and a beach. Seventy back-in sites run in 30-amp full hookup, 30-amp full hookup waterfront, and 50-amp full hookup categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric, sized to 48 feet, with fire pits and picnic tables. Accessible sites are available, and the waterfront category is worth requesting early. Nine cabins and cottages and eight tent sites round out the lodging. A laundry, propane exchange, restrooms, and showers handle the practical side. Boat docks, boat rentals, and kayak rentals open the river for boating, canoeing, kayaking, paddle boarding, and fishing, with a beach on the property. A recreation center, sports courts, volleyball, horseshoes, a playground, and picnicking fill the grounds. Pets are welcome. The Outlet River connects to East Lake here, and Sandbanks Provincial Park's internationally recognized freshwater sand dunes and barrier beach are close by. Prince Edward County has become one of Ontario's most celebrated wine and culinary destinations over the past two decades, with tasting rooms and farm restaurants throughout. Summer is decisively the season in Ontario, with the harvest drawing a strong September and October. Reserve well ahead for July and August.

from $48/night

Sun Outdoors Association Island

209 RV Sites, 10 Cabins, 4 Tent Sites, 5 Cottages, 17 Lodges, 2 Park Models

Sun Outdoors Association Island in Henderson, New York, offers 209 full-hookup RV sites, 34 cabin, cottage, lodge, and park model units, and four tent sites on a 65-acre private island, with 20, 30, and 50-amp service and rigs accepted to 65 feet on a big-rig-friendly layout. Elite waterfront pull-in and lakefront sunset pull-through categories join deluxe lake view tiers, with a marina, boat ramp, and fishing guides. Two hundred nine sites span deluxe lake view back-in, elite pull-thru, elite waterfront pull-in, lakefront sunset pull-thru, and limited lake view back-in categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric with site WiFi, sized to 65 feet, with fire pits and picnic tables. Naming a category "lakefront sunset" tells you exactly what you are paying for. Thirty-four cabins, cottages, lodges, and park models and four tent sites round out the lodging. A general store, laundry, propane fills and exchange, restrooms, and showers handle the practical side. The resort is open mid-May through mid-October, with most planned activities and the pool running in peak summer. A marina, boat ramp, boat docks, boat rentals, kayak rentals, fishing pier, and on-site fishing guides open Lake Ontario for boating, paddle boarding, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, and fishing. An outdoor pool, clubhouse, game room, arcade, craft room, sports courts, basketball, corn hole, golf cart rentals, walking trails, and a playground fill the rest. An entire island reached by private bridge, at the eastern end of Lake Ontario where the Thousand Islands begin. The season is short. Reserve well ahead.

from $44/night

Kittawa RV Resort

27 RV Sites, 5 Cabins, 11 Tent Sites, 4 Cottages

Thirty minutes east of Ottawa in Limoges, Ontario—in the Nation Municipality of Eastern Ontario where the rural French-English bilingual community of the Ottawa Valley creates the cultural character that distinguishes the eastern Ontario cottage country from the Muskoka and Kawartha corridors to the west—Kittawa RV Resort, a Summerhill Resorts property at 651 Limoges Road, offers 310 spacious tree-lined sites with water and electric hookups, a man-made lake, hot tubs, an Aquapark, a ballfield, sport courts, a children's playground, an outdoor theater, fishing, canoe and paddleboard and kayak rentals, laundry, a general store, propane exchange, WiFi hotspots, and clean washroom and shower facilities, alongside the weekend activity programming—wagon rides, wood sign painting, outdoor movie nights, Pétanque, water volleyball, evening dances, kids' baseball, and darts—that Summerhill Resorts builds into its resort calendar to create the socially engaged camping experience that the 30-minutes-from-Ottawa market consistently seeks. The capital is a half hour west. The lake is on-site. Three hundred ten tree-lined sites with water and electric hookups provide the seasonal and overnight accommodation for the Ottawa Valley's family camping community, with the man-made lake at the resort's center creating the aquatic focus that the Aquapark's inflatable obstacle course and water features, the fishing from the lake's banks, and the canoe, paddleboard, and kayak rentals extend into the full water recreation day. Hot tubs provide the evening soaking complement to the lake activity, the sport courts and ballfield serve the active guest who needs organized physical activity, and the outdoor theater's movie nights create the social gathering event that the resort's family demographic turns out for in force. The general store, propane exchange, laundry, and WiFi handle the practical daily logistics of an extended-stay resort 30 minutes from Ottawa's full urban infrastructure. Limoges sits in the Nation Municipality, which encompasses the bilingual rural communities of the South Nation River watershed in Eastern Ontario between Ottawa and the Quebec border. The Nation River's agricultural and wetland corridor through the municipality creates the natural environment that the surrounding farmland and the forested conservation areas provide for the wildlife watching and the seasonal outdoor activity that the Limoges area's proximity to Ottawa makes attractive to the capital region's residents seeking the rural escape that the city's immediate commuter belt cannot provide. Ottawa, 30 minutes west on Highway 417, provides the full national capital experience—Parliament Hill's Centre Block (reopening after extensive restoration), the National Gallery of Canada's Frank Gehry-designed building on Sussex Drive, the Canadian Museum of History across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, the Rideau Canal's UNESCO World Heritage waterway, and the ByWard Market's farmer stalls, restaurants, and galleries that make the Ottawa core genuinely walkable and engaging for the day-trip visitor from Kittawa. The Rideau Canal's 23 locks between Ottawa and Kingston provide the waterway heritage that the canal's designation as a World Heritage Site celebrates. Kittawa RV Resort operates seasonally through the Ontario camping season, with the Victoria Day weekend in late May through the Thanksgiving weekend in October covering the primary open period and the July and August peak delivering the weekend programming—movie nights, Pétanque, wagon rides—that the Summerhill activity calendar schedules to create the socially animated resort experience. Reserve your site at Kittawa and let the man-made lake, the Aquapark, the evening outdoor theater, and the 30-minute Ottawa access make Eastern Ontario's most complete resort campground the capital region escape that the Summerhill standard delivers.

from $26/night

Tiny Village Ottawa River

13 RV Sites, 2 Tent Sites

Tiny Village Ottawa River in Deep River, Ontario, offers 13 RV sites and two tent sites on the banks of the Ottawa River, with 30-amp service and rigs accepted to 75 feet. Back-in, pull-through, and water-only pull-through categories join glamping cabins, boat docks, and a beach in Renfrew County. Thirteen sites run in back-in, pull-through, and water-only pull-through categories, the serviced sites carrying water, sewer, and electric on 30-amp, sized to 75 feet, with fire pits, picnic tables, and site WiFi. Two tent sites round out the accommodations. One important note on the rental cabins and glamping units: they are classified as housekeeping cabins, which means guests bring their own supplies — eco-friendly products are appreciated. A general store, dump station, restrooms, showers, and firewood handle the practical side. Pets are welcome. Boat docks and a beach give direct river access for boating, canoeing, kayaking, and swimming, with walking trails, hiking, volleyball, and birding from the property. Off-roading is nearby. The Ottawa River defines the Ontario-Quebec border here, flowing through Canadian Shield granite and boreal forest past the whitewater rapids that have drawn canoeists since the fur trade era made this the primary commercial artery of New France. Deep River is among Ontario's most scenically pristine river communities, and the property delivers genuine remoteness within driving distance of Ottawa. The Ontario season is short. Summer is decisively the peak — reserve well ahead.

from $44/night

Duck Lake RV Resort

9 RV Sites, 7 Cottages

On the shores of a spring-fed lake naturally shaped like a duck in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes region, Duck Lake RV Resort spreads across more than 340 acres of Canadian lake country near the village of Kirkfield. The resort blends a sandy beach, direct watercraft access, and a full recreation program with the unhurried pace of a lake destination that has attracted Ontario families for years. For campers looking for a genuine lake-country experience in a well-managed private resort setting, Duck Lake makes a compelling case from the moment you arrive. The resort's on-site amenities match the lakeside setting well. A sandy beach gives swimmers and sun-seekers a natural focal point, and a boat ramp accommodates guests with their own watercraft for boating and fishing exploration. A resort pool and water park add recreational options for families, and the recreation hall, sports courts for volleyball and basketball, and baseball diamond supply a range of active alternatives to the water. A playground serves younger guests, and a general store and pavilion keep the day-to-day logistics of an extended stay well managed. Shower and laundry facilities are available on-site, and the combination of treed lots, waterfront sites, and cottage rentals gives guests a range of accommodation options to suit different styles and budgets. Duck Lake itself is the resort's defining asset. The spring-fed water maintains exceptional clarity, and the lake's unusual shape creates a range of conditions from open-water boating to sheltered coves suited to paddling and fishing. The surrounding forest screens the shoreline from development and gives the lake a natural character that feels genuinely removed from urban Ontario. Early mornings on the water, with mist rising from the surface and the sounds of the Kawartha Lakes bird life starting up, provide the kind of experience that converts first-time visitors into annual returnees. The Kawartha Lakes region surrounding Kirkfield is one of Ontario's most beloved cottage country destinations. The Trent-Severn Waterway—a 386-kilometer historic waterway connecting Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay—passes through the region, and the Kirkfield Lift Lock is one of its engineering marvels: a hydraulic lock raising and lowering boats by 15 meters, dating to 1907 and still in operation. The surrounding area offers scenic drives through rolling Canadian Shield country, antique shops, and the particular character of small Ontario lakeside communities that have served summer visitors for well over a century. Duck Lake RV Resort operates through the Ontario camping season and books up quickly for summer weekends, when the combination of beach access, lake recreation, and the broader Kawartha Lakes appeal draws families from across the province. Waterfront sites and cottage rentals are the first to fill, so early reservations pay off. Whether you're spending a week on the lake, using the resort as a base for Kawartha exploration, or simply looking for a well-managed Ontario lake resort with room to breathe, Duck Lake delivers the genuine Canadian cottage-country experience. Reserve early and let the lake set the pace.

from $43/night

Shady Shores RV Resort & Campground

6 RV Sites

Shady Shores RV Resort and Campground in Sterling, New York, delivers waterfront camping along the south shore of Lake Ontario and the Blind Sodus Bay inlet in Cayuga County's lakefront countryside — a resort with breathtaking Great Lake views in the Sterling and Fair Haven area that has served as a favorite destination for families and friends seeking the specific combination of Lake Ontario's open-water beauty, the Fair Haven Beach State Park's sandy shoreline, and the world-class trophy trout and salmon fishing that the lake's cold, deep waters produce in the remarkable fishery that has made the Lake Ontario south shore one of the premier sport fishing destinations in the Great Lakes system. The resort's bay and lake frontage gives guests the multi-aspect waterfront experience — the protected Blind Sodus Bay for calm-water recreation and the open Lake Ontario shoreline for the full Great Lake experience. RV sites and camping accommodations with the shoreline positioning on Lake Ontario and Blind Sodus Bay give guests the comprehensive waterfront access that the Sterling-Fair Haven corridor provides for boating, swimming, fishing, and the specific sunrise-over-the-lake experience that a western New York Great Lakes shore campground delivers on clear mornings when the lake's unobstructed northeastern horizon lights the water in the specific quality of Great Lakes dawn light. The resort's decades of serving returning family guests reflect the depth of loyalty that a well-positioned waterfront campground sustains from year to year. Pets are welcome. Lake Ontario's sport fishery is one of the most productive trophy trout and salmon fisheries in North America — a legacy of the Great Lakes restoration programs that began stocking chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead rainbow trout, brown trout, and lake trout into the lake system in the 1960s and 1970s, creating a sport fishery where the open-lake trolling for chinook salmon in the summer months and the bay and stream steelhead runs in fall and spring sustain a charter boat industry of significant regional scale. The Wayne and Cayuga County Lake Ontario ports — Sodus Point, Fair Haven, Port Ontario — provide the charter fleet access to open-water fishing that produces the trophy catches that the Great Lakes sport fishing industry specifically markets to anglers from across the northeastern United States and Ontario. Fair Haven Beach State Park, two miles west of the resort in Cayuga County, preserves a mile of Lake Ontario sand beach and the Sodus Bay inlet's bay beach in a state park that gives public access to the shoreline that private resort development has claimed along most of the Lake Ontario south shore. The park's swimming beach, pier fishing access, and the dune-backed natural beach character give families the public waterfront complement to the resort's private amenity infrastructure. Shady Shores RV Resort and Campground operates through the upstate New York camping season from spring through fall, with the summer months from mid-June through Labor Day representing the peak family camping demand and the spring and fall fishing seasons for steelhead and brown trout drawing the angling-focused visitor market that extends the resort's effective season into April through May and September through October. The Erie Canal's cultural and cycling tourism, accessible 20 miles south via the Cayuga County trail network, gives the resort's inland neighbors a heritage tourism dimension that complements the lakefront recreation. Reserve sites well ahead for summer holiday weekends and the July salmon-fishing peak when Ontario south shore accommodation fills from the New York and Ontario markets.

from $35/night

Bass Lake Resort

14 RV Sites

Bass Lake Resort in Parish, New York, provides a family-oriented lakefront camping resort on a private lake in Oswego County's Great Lakes agricultural fringe, offering a complete resort recreation package of mini-golf, pool, boat docks, ball field, shuffleboard, and planned activities in a central New York lake setting approximately 10 miles inland from Lake Ontario's southern shore. The resort's private lake—insulated from motorized boat traffic and the wave action that Ontario shoreline camping produces—provides the calm-water swimming, kayaking, and small-boat recreation environment that families with young children and first-time lake campers find most comfortable and enjoyable in a campground that feels genuinely resort-like despite its upstate New York small-town surroundings. The resort's facilities cover the full family camping recreation spectrum: full hookup sites, an outdoor pool, mini-golf, a ball field, boat docks for guest watercraft, boating and canoeing and kayaking on the private lake, basketball, volleyball, horseshoes, shuffleboard, a playground, pavilion, dog park, clubhouse, laundry, showers, bathrooms, dump station, and Wi-Fi create organized recreation capacity across diverse activity preferences. The private lake's protected swimming environment and the shore fishing for bass, crappie, and panfish that a stocked inland lake reliably produces round out the water recreation options for the resort's core family demographic. Planned activities and supervised events for children make the resort's social calendar active through the summer season. Parish sits in Oswego County's transition between the Tug Hill Plateau's northern escarpment and the Lake Ontario plain, a quiet agricultural community in the interior of one of New York's most scenically understated regions where apple orchards, dairy farms, and the waterfall-laced streams descending from the Tug Hill create a rural landscape character entirely different from the Adirondacks' tourist infrastructure 60 miles to the east. The surrounding Oswego County terrain's trout streams, the Great Lake salmon fishing in Salmon River—one of the most prolific fall salmon rivers on the Great Lakes—and the Lake Ontario charter fishing operations based in Pulaski collectively provide adult outdoor recreation of national significance within an hour's drive of the resort. Selkirk Shores State Park on Lake Ontario's shoreline approximately 20 miles west provides access to the Great Lake's dramatic shoreline bluff environment and the steelhead and brown trout surf fishing that Lake Ontario's tributary streams support in spring and fall. The Salmon River Reservoir north of Pulaski and the Tug Hill Plateau's vast state forest lands create backcountry hiking and wildlife watching opportunities in the ruffed grouse, wild turkey, and black bear habitat that the plateau's remote beech-maple forest preserves in an area of New York that receives less tourist attention than the Adirondack and Finger Lakes corridors but delivers genuine Upstate wilderness character. Bass Lake Resort operates seasonally from spring through fall in Oswego County's four-season Great Lakes climate, where the Lake Ontario snow belt's heavy winter snowpack eventually yields to the genuine summer warmth that fills the pool and private lake with swimmers from late June through Labor Day. The Tug Hill's snow shadow creates microclimatic conditions that can extend the Oswego County spring into late June and return fall colors by late September, and the resort's private lake environment provides the family camping experience that appeals to repeat seasonal campers who prefer the intimate small-lake atmosphere over the more complex and crowded shoreline campgrounds that Lake Ontario's recreational fishing communities attract.

from $66/night