Hiking

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

Splash Valley Resort and Waterpark

122 RV Sites, 23 Cabins, 36 Tent Sites, 2 Yurts, 12 Villas, 4 Suites

Splash Valley Resort and Waterpark in Cobden, Ontario, offers 122 RV sites, 39 cabin, suite, and villa units, 36 tent sites, and two yurts in the Ottawa Valley, with 30 and 50-amp water-and-electric service and rigs accepted to 50 feet. Dedicated tent-trailer categories join RV sites, alongside a water park, splash pad, lake, and beach. One hundred twenty-two sites span 30-amp water-and-electric, 50-amp water-and-electric, 15-amp tent trailer, and 30-amp tent trailer categories, carrying water and electric with site WiFi, sized to 50 feet, with fire pits and picnic tables. Note these are water-and-electric rather than full hookup at the site — plan tank capacity and use the dump station. Thirty-nine cabins, suites, and villas, 36 tent sites, and two yurts make the lodging range unusually broad. A general store, boutique shop, laundry, restrooms, showers, firewood, and recycling handle the practical side. You may bring your own food to the water park, but nothing in glass. The water park and splash pad anchor the summer, with a lake and beach supporting swimming, boating, paddle boats, fishing, and inflatable water toys. Mini-golf, laser tag, gem mining, sports courts, basketball, volleyball, walking trails, hiking, biking, a playground, dog park, snack bar, and on-site dining fill the rest, with live music through the season. Cobden sits about 90 minutes west of Ottawa in cottage country, where Canadian Shield granite meets mixed boreal forest. Summer is the season. Reserve well ahead.

from $46/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

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

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

Cedar Valley Cottage Resort

On the scenic Scugog River in the City of Kawartha Lakes, Ontario—in the rolling agricultural and cottage-country landscape east of Lindsay where the Trent-Severn Waterway's interconnected lakes, rivers, and locks create one of the most celebrated inland boating corridors in eastern Canada—Cedar Valley Cottage Resort, a Summerhill Resorts property, offers two and three-bedroom seasonal cottages with full kitchens and comfortable furnishings alongside premium waterfront docks, a multi-sports court with road hockey, pickleball, tennis, and basketball, direct fishing and boating access from the Scugog River, and the immediate proximity to the Kawartha Lakes region's trails, provincial parks, and the historic town of Lindsay that makes this cottage-country resort the complete base camp for a Kawartha summer season from May through October. The river is at your dock. Lindsay is minutes away. Cedar Valley's two and three-bedroom cottages provide the family-scale accommodation that the Kawartha Lakes seasonal market demands—full kitchens for self-catering the week, comfortable furnishings for the evening post-lake gathering, and the private cottage character that distinguishes a cottage-country stay from a standard campground experience. The premium Scugog River docks allow guests with their own boats to arrive by water or launch directly onto the river for the fishing, the leisurely river exploration, and the Trent-Severn Waterway lock system navigation that makes the Kawartha waterway network one of Ontario's great boating destinations. The multi-sports court's road hockey, pickleball, tennis, and basketball keep the active family and the competitive adults equally occupied during the dry-weather hours between lake sessions. The Kawartha Lakes region—City of Kawartha Lakes encompasses the former Victoria County's interconnected municipalities, conservation areas, and provincial parks in a landscape shaped by Precambrian Shield bedrock, glacial lakes, and the rivers that connect them—provides the fishing, boating, and nature experience that the Ontario cottage tradition has organized itself around since the 19th century. The Scugog River connects the resort directly to the Trent-Severn Waterway, the 386-kilometer engineered waterway that links Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay at Port Severn through 44 locks and 6 lakes in the most complete inland boating route in Ontario. Lindsay, minutes from the resort, provides the essential Kawartha Lakes town infrastructure—the farmers market, the historic downtown shopping, the medical and grocery services, and the community events calendar that the City of Kawartha Lakes anchors in its largest urban center. The Petroglyphs Provincial Park, 45 miles north near Woodview, protects the largest concentration of Indigenous petroglyphs in Canada—the 900-plus carved figures in the crystalline limestone outcropping are among the most significant sacred sites in Ontario's First Nations heritage. Fenelon Falls, Bobcaygeon, and the other Kawartha Lakes waterfront communities provide the day-trip variety that the cottage-country touring circuit builds around locks, ice cream shops, and antique stores along the Trent-Severn. Cedar Valley Cottage Resort operates seasonally from May 1 through October 31 in the Kawartha Lakes' temperate Ontario summer climate, with June through Labour Day the peak cottage season and the September and October shoulder weeks offering the region's most comfortable temperatures, the autumn walleye and bass fishing peak, and the hardwood forest's fall color display that the Kawartha uplands produce in the October weeks before closing. Reserve your cottage at Cedar Valley and let the Scugog River, the Trent-Severn Waterway, and the Kawartha Lakes' complete cottage-country experience make Ontario's inland lake district the summer destination the resort's river location promises.

from $167/night

Scugog Landing Cottage & RV Resort

Port Perry, Ontario, is one of the best-preserved Victorian main streets in Durham Region, an hour northeast of Toronto at the head of Lake Scugog in the southern edge of cottage country. Scugog Landing Cottage & RV Resort occupies 120 acres of rolling Ontario landscape incorporated into the Trent-Severn Waterway just ten minutes from Port Perry's waterfront, combining genuine cottage country character with resort infrastructure that accommodates both RV travelers and guests arriving without their own accommodation. The resort offers a range of RV sites with full services alongside cottage and cabin rental options that give guests the Lake Scugog experience without requiring property ownership on the water. The grounds are expansive and thoughtfully laid out, with the lake providing direct waterfront access for boating, fishing, and paddling from the resort's own shoreline. At 120 acres, the scale ensures that even fully booked summer weekends feel uncrowded and spacious — a quality that resorts on smaller properties simply cannot replicate. Pets are welcome throughout. Lake Scugog and the Trent-Severn Waterway form the twin defining features of the surrounding landscape: flat, mirror-calm water, marshland edges alive with waterfowl, and the measured pace of a historic canal system that has been drawing Ontario cottagers for generations. The Trent-Severn is one of Canada's most beloved recreational waterways, stretching 386 kilometers through Ontario's lake country and providing a boating route of genuine historical and natural significance. Lock 26 operates nearby, and watching cruisers and sailboats work through the lock mechanism is a quintessentially Canadian cottage-country experience that visitors from outside Ontario rarely anticipate and consistently remember. Great blue herons, Canada geese, and various duck species populate the Lake Scugog shoreline through the warm-weather months, giving the waterfront an animated natural quality that persists from dawn through evening. The Kawartha Lakes region surrounding Port Perry combines agricultural countryside with lakeside scenery in a way that feels distinctly and authentically Canadian. Port Perry's Victorian downtown rewards a morning of exploration: boutiques, galleries, bookstores, cafés, and antique shops line Queen Street toward the Lake Scugog waterfront, and the Boathouse Grill is a local institution for lakeside dining worth reserving. The Great Blue Heron Casino in Port Perry offers evening entertainment just minutes from camp. The summer months bring the Highland Games, Dragon Boat Races, and StreetFest to the Port Perry community, layering festival energy on top of the already-rich outdoor and culinary calendar. Scugog Landing operates through the Ontario camping season, with summer bookings — especially for waterfront cottages and preferred RV sites — filling months in advance given the resort's proximity to the Toronto metropolitan area. Friday-through-Sunday availability is always limited during peak summer months; longer stays of a week or more offer the best chance at securing preferred positions on the water. The resort's established community of returning guests gives Scugog Landing a warm, familiar character that first-time visitors tend to notice within the first day of settling in.

from $41/night

Blue Haven Campground and Resort

16 RV Sites

The Adirondacks is a name that carries enormous weight among outdoor enthusiasts — six million acres of protected wilderness, 2,000 miles of hiking trails, 3,000 lakes and ponds, and a cultural tradition of wilderness appreciation dating back to the Gilded Age. The trick is finding a base that provides genuine lake access, comfortable facilities, and an easy gateway into the surrounding park without requiring a drive deep into the interior. Blue Haven Campground and Resort on Lake Roxanne in Ellenburg Depot sits in the Adirondack foothills near Lake Champlain, offering 110 acres of natural beauty that gives you the lake life and the mountain access together. Blue Haven is a large campground in the best sense — 366 spacious grassy sites with room to breathe, full electric and sewer hookup availability, back-in and pull-through configurations, and personal fire pits and picnic tables at every site. The scale means there's always a social energy at camp without the packed-in feeling that smaller parks produce. A dump station, laundry facilities, and a recreation center handle the practical and community sides of a longer stay. The sports courts, ball field, and playground round out the active recreation options on the property itself. Lake Roxanne is the campground's beating heart. Direct lake access lets guests swim, fish, and boat from the property, and the boat ramp accommodates those who arrive with their own watercraft. The gentle fishing on Lake Roxanne pairs with more ambitious pursuits available on Lake Champlain to the east. A sparkling swimming pool provides an alternative for families with younger swimmers. Weekly organized activities — bingo nights have a long tradition here — give the campground a community character that rewards guests who settle in for more than a night or two. Adirondack Park's northern reaches are directly accessible from Ellenburg Depot, with hiking trails, canoe routes, and fire tower climbs available within a short drive. Lake Champlain lies to the east, offering some of the best freshwater fishing in the Northeast and a rich history extending back to the Revolutionary War. The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes, Vermont, is reachable across the bridge. Montreal, Quebec — with all the cultural richness of a major French-Canadian city — is about 45 miles north, making Blue Haven one of the few campgrounds in the US within realistic day-trip range of an international city. Blue Haven Campground and Resort operates seasonally through the warmer months, and the Adirondack and Lake Champlain seasons align well with prime camping weather. Summer fills the campground with families making the most of the lake. Fall brings foliage season — one of the most dramatic in the entire Northeast — and the quieter pace that lets the surroundings come into their own. Reserve your site well in advance for July and August, when the northern New York lake country campground supply is stretched thin by demand. Come for the lake, stay for the mountains.

from $48/night

Tiny Village Parry Sound

Tiny Village Parry Sound in Ontario, Canada, provides a distinctive lakeside and Georgian Bay camping retreat in the Parry Sound District of the Canadian Shield, where the famous Thirty Thousand Islands of Georgian Bay—the largest freshwater archipelago in the world—create a labyrinthine boating, kayaking, and canoeing environment of extraordinary natural beauty in a protected UNESCO Biosphere Reserve recognized as one of the most ecologically significant freshwater landscapes on Earth. Positioned in the landscape surrounding Parry Sound where the Canadian Shield's exposed Precambrian granite meets Georgian Bay's open water in an island-studded shoreline that Canadian summer cottage culture has treasured for over a century, the campground provides a natural gateway to one of Canada's most celebrated outdoor recreation environments. The campground's facility reflects the outdoor recreation and cottage-style character of Georgian Bay camping: a beach for swimming, boat docks for guest watercraft, boat ramp, boat rentals, kayak rentals for exploring the island passages of the Thirty Thousand Islands, a lake, showers, bathrooms, general store, firewood, walking trails, playground, and recreation center serve the practical and recreational needs of guests whose stays center on the bay's paddling and boating opportunities. Canoeing, kayaking, paddleboarding, volleyball, hiking, and the birding and wildlife watching that the Georgian Bay's protected shoreline consistently delivers provide organized and independent recreation across the full outdoor spectrum. The cabins accommodate guests seeking enclosed lakeside accommodations. Parry Sound's position on the eastern Georgian Bay shore provides the administrative and commercial center for the Thirty Thousand Islands corridor, where the Town of Parry Sound's waterfront, the Gateway to the 30,000 Islands cruise boat operation on Georgian Bay, and the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts—home to the Festival of the Sound classical music festival each July—create a cultural and natural tourism infrastructure of surprising depth for a community of Parry Sound's size. The Canadian Shield's exposed granite outcrops, the silver-gray shores of Georgian Bay, and the boreal forest that frames every water view create the visual identity that the Group of Seven painters immortalized in the Canadian landscape painting tradition. The Georgian Bay Islands National Park, a 13,000-hectare park protecting 63 Georgian Bay islands and the Beausoleil Island's full range of Georgian Bay ecology, provides the most pristine and accessible wilderness island camping in the Thirty Thousand Islands corridor through a water-access-only park that rewards paddlers and boaters with complete island solitude. The Killbear Provincial Park on the Parry Sound peninsula provides developed beach and hiking access to Georgian Bay's granite headlands and the abundant wildlife that the park's Massasauga rattlesnake population, black bear community, and rich bird life represent in one of Ontario's most biologically diverse provincial parks. Tiny Village Parry Sound operates seasonally from late spring through early fall in the Georgian Bay's Canadian Shield climate, with the July and August summer season representing the peak of Georgian Bay's boating, paddling, and cottage culture when the Thirty Thousand Islands' warm bay water and the 18-hour northern summer days create ideal conditions for extended water recreation. The Festival of the Sound in July and the fall color season through late September and October—when the Shield's maple and birch forest transforms the granite island landscape into vivid color—create the most culturally and visually distinctive seasonal opportunities for guests whose Ontario visit extends beyond the summer camping peak.

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