Stargazing

Smith Mountain Campground

20 RV Sites, 2 Tent Sites

On Liberty Road in Penhook, Virginia—in the rolling Blue Ridge foothills of Franklin County less than five miles from the nearest public boat launch on Smith Mountain Lake—Smith Mountain Campground operates as a family-owned RV facility with full hookup sites, a stocked fishing pond, private hiking trail, and the quiet country character that the lake region's residential neighborhoods have preserved across the decades since Appalachian Power dammed the Roanoke River to create what has become Virginia's second-largest lake and the surrounding community's defining natural asset. The campground's private pond, four-unit bathhouse with individual tiled rooms, and boat parking give guests who came to fish and be near the water the specific combination of amenities that lake-country camping specifically demands. Full hookup sites with 30 and 50-amp electric, water, and sewer connections, picnic tables, and fire rings serve both back-in and pull-through configurations across the property's site inventory, and complimentary high-speed WiFi keeps connected guests online through the site footprint. A four-unit private bathhouse with individually tiled rooms—each containing a shower, sink, toilet, and electrical outlet—provides a level of bathroom privacy that the typical campground shower-house arrangement doesn't supply. A dedicated laundry facility handles the practical needs of extended stays. Dedicated boat parking accommodates the trailered watercraft that lake-bound guests consistently arrive with, and a pavilion available for private reservation serves the group gathering needs of family reunions and organized camping events. A playground and outdoor recreation area serve families with younger campers and children in tow. The private hiking trail and stocked fishing pond are the property's most distinctive natural amenities—giving guests who want to fish without launching a boat an on-property option that the lake's five-mile distance doesn't otherwise provide. Smith Mountain Lake's character—a 20,600-acre reservoir on the Roanoke and Blackwater Rivers at the base of the Blue Ridge, with 500 miles of wooded shoreline and an elevation of 795 feet—provides the fishing and boating programming that organizes the Franklin County camping calendar from spring through fall. Striped bass, largemouth bass, crappie, and bluegill populate the lake in numbers and quality that have established Smith Mountain Lake among Virginia's premier fishing destinations, and the shoreline's development as a residential and resort community has produced a marina and restaurant infrastructure that gives boating guests on-water dining access that few Virginia lakes match. Smith Mountain Lake State Park, on the Halesford Arm of the lake's western reach, provides the hiking, swimming beach, boat rental, and educational programming that bring non-boating visitors specifically to the state park when a day on the water doesn't require owning a vessel. The park's mountain bike trails and the lake's kayaking and paddleboarding resources extend the recreational programming beyond powerboating into the quieter water-access categories. Roanoke—Virginia's largest city in the western part of the state, with the Taubman Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Transportation, and the Blue Ridge Parkway access via the Roanoke Valley—is accessible for the urban cultural programming that a lakeside camping base supplements naturally. Smith Mountain Campground is open seasonally through the Virginia camping calendar, with the prime season running from April through October when Smith Mountain Lake's fishing, boating, and outdoor recreation are at their most active. Fall foliage on the Blue Ridge foothills surrounding the lake creates one of the most visually rewarding shoulder-season camping opportunities in western Virginia. Reserve your site with boat parking early for the spring bass season and let the Franklin County lake country earn the reputation that Virginia's recreational community has assigned to it for decades.

from $35/night

Jellystone Park™ Williamsburg

118 RV Sites, 46 Cabins, 17 Tent Sites, 2 Yurts

Jellystone Park Williamsburg in Virginia offers 118 RV sites, 46 cabins, 17 tent sites, and two yurts with 20, 30, and 50-amp full hookups, cable TV, and rigs accepted to 80 feet. Preferred premium patio pull-through, premium, and deluxe categories join a pool, mini-golf, laser tag, and jumping pillow at the center of the Virginia Peninsula. One hundred eighteen sites span deluxe back-in, deluxe pull-thru, premium back-in, premium pull-thru, and preferred premium with patio pull-thru categories, all carrying water, sewer, and electric with cable TV and site WiFi, sized to 80 feet, with fire pits, picnic tables, and BBQ pits. The patio category adds outdoor living space. Forty-six cabins, 17 tent sites, and two yurts round out the lodging. A general store, laundry, restrooms, showers, and firewood handle the practical side. An outdoor pool anchors the summer, with mini-golf, laser tag, a jumping pillow, arcade, game room, craft room, recreation center, fitness center, sports courts, basketball, gaga ball, and gem mining filling the grounds. Golf cart rentals, walking trails, biking, a playground, pavilion, dog park, and on-site dining round it out, with foam parties, wagon rides, arts and crafts, live music, and planned activities through the season. Stargazing is good on clear nights. Colonial Williamsburg, the Jamestown Settlement, Yorktown Battlefield, and Busch Gardens sit within a short drive between the James and York Rivers. Summer is decisively the season. Reserve well ahead.

from $38/night

Nature's Getaway RV Park

30 RV Sites, 3 Tent Sites

Seven miles west of Historic Bedford on Route 30 in Schellsburg, Pennsylvania—in Bedford County where the Allegheny Mountain ridges and the Shawnee State Park's forested plateau create the outdoor recreation landscape that the old Lincoln Highway corridor's travelers have appreciated since the road was first paved—Nature's Getaway RV Park and Campground offers 75 water and electric RV sites, 5 primitive tent sites, 3 water and electric tent sites, a dry cabin, a heated swimming pool, a game room, a playground, volleyball, cornhole, badminton, shuffleboard, a large field for open-air games, two shower houses (with private unisex rooms for added privacy), a camp store stocked with essentials and Ritchey's ice cream, laundry, WiFi, and a dump station, all on a clean, family-operated property immediately adjacent to Shawnee State Park and within easy day-trip range of the Flight 93 National Memorial and the historic Bedford Springs. Next to Shawnee. Close to everything. The 75 water and electric RV sites, combined with the tent and cabin options, create the accommodation variety that the Bedford County family camping market demands across the summer season. The heated swimming pool and the broad recreational offering—volleyball, cornhole, badminton, shuffleboard, the game room, and the large open field—create the all-day activity infrastructure that keeps families on property between the Shawnee State Park hikes and the Bedford attractions day trips. Two shower houses with private unisex rooms provide the bathing comfort that the modern campground guest expects, and the camp store's Ritchey's ice cream, snacks, and essentials handle the daily supply needs without requiring a drive to town. Laundry, WiFi, and the dump station complete the practical infrastructure that a 75-site Allegheny Mountain campground requires. Schellsburg sits in Bedford County on the Allegheny Front's western slope, in the ridge-and-valley landscape where the Allegheny Mountains' parallel ridges and the agricultural valleys between them create the Pennsylvania scenery that the Lincoln Highway (US-30) corridor historically carried the motoring tourist through on the way to Pittsburgh and beyond. Shawnee State Park, immediately adjacent to Nature's Getaway, protects 3,983 acres of the Allegheny highland with hiking trails, Shawnee Lake's swimming beach and boating, and the fishing access that makes the park one of Bedford County's most visited outdoor recreation destinations. The Flight 93 National Memorial, 25 miles north near Shanksville, preserves the Somerset County field where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001—the memorial's Wall of Names and the Tower of Voices wind chime memorial create the most sobering and most significant historical site in southwestern Pennsylvania, visited by over 600,000 people annually. Historic Bedford, 7 miles east on US-30, provides the Bedford County seat's Main Street commercial district, the Fort Bedford Museum's French and Indian War and Revolutionary War artifacts, and the Bedford Springs Resort and Spa's historic hotel complex whose natural springs drew Washington, Buchanan, and seven other US presidents to the Pennsylvania mountains. Nature's Getaway operates seasonally in Bedford County's temperate Allegheny Mountain climate, with the Memorial Day through Labor Day window covering the summer peak and the late spring and early fall shoulder seasons providing the most comfortable temperatures for hiking in Shawnee State Park's high-terrain trails. The fall foliage in October transforms the Bedford County ridge and valley landscape into the display that the Pennsylvania Wilds and the broader Allegheny Mountain fall season produce each year. Reserve your site, tent position, or cabin at Nature's Getaway and let Shawnee State Park, the Flight 93 Memorial, and the historic Bedford Springs deliver the Allegheny Mountain Bedford County experience from the Lincoln Highway's most welcoming campground address.

from $35/night

Growing Faith Farms

Enjoy all that nature has to offer at our mountainview glamping retreat. Growing Faith Farms is a small farm and glamping retreat located in the Brushy Mountains of NC. We are about 30 minutes from Boone, 15 minutes from Wilkesboro or Lenoir, and 90 minutes from Charlotte. Owned and operated by Joseph and Christina Angott, Growing Faith Farms was established in 2021 to introduce people from all walks of life to a slower pace. There is so much history and beauty in these mountains just waiting to be explored. Come visit and see where humanity and heritage unite to form a magical connection with the land and nature in a unique experience.

from $30/night

The Barlow RV Elk Park

4 RV Sites

The Barlow RV Elk Park in Elk Park, North Carolina, is a boutique mountain RV park with just four full-hookup sites in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Avery County — an intimate, carefully curated camping experience near Banner Elk in the high-country corridor where Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain, and Grandfather Mountain sustain the most concentrated alpine and ski resort environment in the southern Appalachians, giving guests the specific high-elevation mountain character and the dramatic Blue Ridge scenery that this northwestern North Carolina corner delivers at a density unmatched anywhere else in the eastern United States south of the White Mountains. The four-site scale gives the Barlow its boutique identity and its guests the genuine privacy and quietude that larger campgrounds structurally cannot provide. Four full-hookup RV sites give the campground its defining intimate character — a camping experience defined by the mountain setting and the proximity to the Avery County high-country attractions rather than by on-site amenity density, reflecting the specific appeal of a small, well-positioned boutique property where the surrounding landscape is the primary attraction and the campground infrastructure is the comfortable base from which to access it. The Elk Park location in Avery County's high valley gives guests the 3,000-foot-plus base elevation that distinguishes the Banner Elk corridor's summer climate from the piedmont heat below. Pets are welcome. Beech Mountain, five miles north of Elk Park at 5,506 feet, is the highest elevation incorporated town east of the Rocky Mountains — a ski resort community whose Beech Mountain Resort ski area sustains winter skiing and snowboarding, whose summer mountain biking trails on the ski slopes and the Beech Mountain Parks and Recreation trail network give the resort its four-season outdoor recreation character. The mountain's elevation gives it measurable temperature advantages over the valley communities below, and the Blue Ridge Parkway access via the Linville area and the parkway's high-country corridor near Beech Mountain provides the summit ridge driving and hiking experience that parkway travelers specifically seek in the Avery County section. Grandfather Mountain, 12 miles southeast of Elk Park via U.S. 221, is one of the most ecologically significant mountains in the southern Appalachians — a 5,946-foot summit in the Blue Ridge Mountains privately managed as a nature preserve and state park hybrid, whose Mile-High Swinging Bridge suspension footbridge, museum of natural history, and native wildlife habitats housing black bears, white-tailed deer, bald eagles, and river otters give it the character of a natural attraction of extraordinary quality. The mountain's eight distinct ecological communities from cove hardwood to boreal spruce-fir forest represent the most compressed elevation-driven ecological succession gradient in the eastern United States. The Barlow RV Elk Park serves guests through the Avery County mountain seasons — summer from June through August delivering the high-country cool and outdoor recreation, the fall foliage season from mid-October through early November bringing the most dramatic color display in the high-elevation spruce-fir and hardwood forest, and the winter ski season from December through March serving the Beech Mountain ski market that specifically values the walking-distance or short-drive proximity to the resort lifts. Sugar Mountain Resort, adjacent to Beech Mountain, extends the ski and snowboarding options with its own terrain and lifts. Reserve sites well ahead for the fall foliage peak and ski season weekends, when Avery County's limited boutique campground inventory fills against strong demand from the Charlotte, Raleigh, and Triad markets.

from $110/night