Stargazing

Elwha RV Park

51 RV Sites

Elwha RV Park in Port Angeles, Washington, offers 50 RV sites alongside the Elwha River, with 30 and 50-amp service, ADA-accessible sites, and rigs accepted to 45 feet. Seven distinct categories — including big rig and narrow pull-throughs, private back-ins, and pull-ins — sit behind a gated entrance, open all year at the gateway to Olympic National Park. Fifty sites span 30-amp water-and-electric back-ins, big rig 30/50-amp pull-throughs, narrow 30/50-amp pull-throughs, private and standard 30-amp back-ins, and pull-in sites, all carrying full hookups where noted, sized to 45 feet, with fire pits and picnic tables. Accessible sites are available. Cabins serve guests without a rig. A general store, boutique shop, laundry, dump station, RV storage, restrooms, showers, firewood, and a concierge handle the practical side, with WiFi and recycling throughout. The park is open year-round. On-site recreation is broad: a recreation center, clubhouse, pavilion, sports courts, volleyball, basketball, horseshoes, corn hole, walking trails, a playground, a pond, and bike rentals, with a community fire pit for evenings and live music through the season. Mountain biking, hiking, birding, and stargazing all run from the area, with skiing, snowboarding, boating, and a casino nearby. Pets are welcome. The Elwha is the site of the largest dam removal in US history — the 2012 removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams reopened 70 miles of salmon and steelhead habitat, and the river's recovery is ongoing. Olympic National Park's Hurricane Ridge, Lake Crescent, and the Hoh Rainforest are all within reach. Directions: from Port Angeles take US-101 west to the Highway 112 junction, follow 112 about half a mile to the sign, then left onto Lower Dam Road.

RV@Olympic

92 RV Sites

At 191 Old Deer Park Road in Port Angeles, Washington—the gateway community to Olympic National Park on the Olympic Peninsula's north shore where the Strait of Juan de Fuca separates Washington State from Vancouver Island and where the park's three distinct ecosystems—temperate rainforest, alpine wilderness, and Pacific coastline—create the most ecologically diverse national park in the contiguous United States within a single 1,400-square-mile boundary—RV@Olympic provides 98 full hookup sites with fiber-optic internet at each position, a clubhouse with remote-work infrastructure, and the direct Olympic National Park positioning that puts Hurricane Ridge 45 minutes away and the park's Deer Park entrance 15 minutes from the campground gate. The fiber-optic connectivity, the remote-work clubhouse, and the dual Olympic National Park entrance proximity make this a specifically 21st-century Park gateway campground. Ninety-eight full hookup sites with 30 and 50-amp electric, water, sewer, and individual fiber-optic WiFi connections accommodate the full range of RV configurations across standard, premium, and luxury back-in site categories. The fiber-optic infrastructure at each site—rather than shared wireless that degrades with concurrent users—delivers the broadband quality that remote workers require for video conferencing and cloud-based workflow, addressing the practical need that the extended-stay Olympic Peninsula camping market generates as more guests work remotely from national park gateway campgrounds. A clubhouse with dedicated remote-work space, high-speed connectivity, and comfortable seating provides the co-working alternative for guests who prefer a shared workspace to the RV interior. Laundry facilities, full bathhouses, a playground, a dog park with wash station, outdoor fire pits, community gathering spaces, and a 24-hour cashier-less convenience store provide the daily infrastructure that the 98-site property requires. Olympic National Park's Deer Park entrance—15 minutes from the campground—provides access to the park's northeastern alpine terrain via the unpaved Deer Park Road, reaching the alpine meadow environment of Deer Park Campground and the Blue Mountain summit overlook at 6,007 feet elevation, with views across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island and east across the lowland forest to the Cascade Range's profile on the eastern horizon. Hurricane Ridge—45 minutes from the campground via the Highway 101 and Heart of the Hills Road approach—provides the most visited alpine environment in the Olympic Peninsula, with the Visitor Center at 5,242 feet, the Hurricane Ridge Road, and the meadow snowshoeing and wildflower hiking that Olympic's alpine zone supports with the most accessible infrastructure in the park. Lake Crescent—one of the deepest and clearest lakes in Washington State, occupying a glacially carved valley 30 miles west of Port Angeles—provides the swimming, boating, and the Marymere Falls trail access that the lake's position within the park boundary makes universally accessible without a backcountry permit. Sol Duc Hot Springs, accessed from the Sol Duc Valley road, provides the geothermal soaking pool experience in the old-growth forest setting that remains one of the most specifically rejuvenating experiences accessible from the Port Angeles base. Dungeness Spit—the longest natural sand spit in the United States at 5.5 miles, extending across the Strait from Sequim—provides the wildlife refuge day trip that the tidal lagoon's 30,000-plus Dungeness crab population and the 250 bird species documented on the Spit make the most biologically productive short hike in the region. RV@Olympic is open year-round in Port Angeles's maritime climate. Olympic National Park operates all four seasons, with summer bringing the full trail and visitor center access and winter providing the hurricane Ridge snowshoeing. Reserve your fiber-optic site early for summer park season and let the three-ecosystem national park on your doorstep earn the reputation that makes the Olympic Peninsula worth the ferry crossing from Seattle.

from $35/night

Dawley's Solduc River Campground

34 Tent Sites

Along the Sol Duc River in the Clallam County wilderness of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, Dawley's Sol Duc River Campground occupies a riverbank setting in the small community of Beaver that puts guests at the center of one of the Pacific Northwest's most diverse and accessible wilderness corridors. Thirty-three campsites—including spacious RV-capable sites on the east side of the grounds and 21 riverside sites, 13 of which overlook the Sol Duc directly—provide camping options ranging from the open RV pad to the intimate riverside tent site where the sound of the river over cobblestones replaces all other ambient noise within minutes of settling in. The campground's proximity to Olympic National Park, Sol Duc Hot Springs, the Hoh Rain Forest, and the Olympic coast's wilderness beaches makes it a natural base for the full Olympic Peninsula outdoor experience. All sites include a picnic table and a fire pit with a state-of-the-art grill, and a sun umbrella provides afternoon shade at each site—a thoughtful touch that distinguishes Dawley's from the bare-minimum infrastructure that many riverside campgrounds provide. Clean portable restrooms, nighttime path lighting, a communal dishwashing station, and firewood for sale on-site round out the practical support facilities. The campground's direct Sol Duc River access enables fishing from the bank, kayaking and canoeing through the lower river's accessible stretches, and the ATV trail network, mountain biking routes, mushroom picking, and fossil hunting opportunities in the surrounding Clallam County forest that make the Olympic Peninsula a year-round outdoor recreation destination. The Sol Duc River, flowing from its headwaters near Sol Duc Hot Springs through the Clallam County lowlands to its confluence with the Quillayute River near La Push, represents one of the Olympic Peninsula's most important salmon and steelhead rivers—a watershed supporting wild chinook, coho, and the winter steelhead runs that draw serious fly anglers from across the Northwest from November through March. The Sol Duc River Hatchery, adjacent to the campground, supplements wild fish populations and provides interpretive context for the salmon life cycle that connects the Pacific Ocean to the freshwater river systems of the Olympic Peninsula in one of the Northwest's most complete salmonid ecosystems. Olympic National Park, whose boundary lies within minutes of the campground, encompasses three distinct ecosystems—the subalpine meadows and glaciated peaks of the interior Olympic Mountains, the Hoh Rain Forest's old-growth Sitka spruce and Douglas-fir canopy receiving 140-plus inches of annual rainfall, and the Olympic Coast's 73 miles of wilderness Pacific shoreline. Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort within the park provides developed geothermal pools in a National Park setting accessible via the Sol Duc Road—one of the most scenic drives on the peninsula through old-growth forest. Rialto Beach's sea stacks and the intensely blue glacial waters of Lake Crescent both lie within 20 miles. The Olympic Peninsula's maritime climate delivers the rainfall that sustains the Hoh Rain Forest's extraordinary biological productivity, and Beaver's location experiences enough precipitation to keep the Sol Duc flowing strongly through most of the year—an advantage for the steelhead and salmon anglers who depend on adequate river levels. Summer provides the most reliable dry weather and the highest concentration of Olympic Peninsula visitors, making advance reservations essential for July and August stays. The shoulder seasons of April-May and September-October offer a quieter Olympic Peninsula experience with adequate dry weather for most outdoor activities and the full range of park facilities operational.

from $20/night