Camping along the Blue Ridge #1
So there are many wonderful camping opportunities along the Blue Ridge Parkway. These National Park campgrounds do vary in size and amenities and we enjoyed each and every one of them. I would love to do an in depth review of the campgrounds but I'm posting this from my smartphone and the blogger app frustrates me 😊 so I am just going to share some basic information.
We started our Blue Ridge adventure in Cherokee North Carolina at the southernmost end of the Blue Ridge. Our first stay was at Mount Pisgah campground.
No showers here but a very rustic & clean restroom.
Our next stay was at Rocky Knob Campground. This was another beauty and if we walked a little bit towards the gatehouse, we had a decent cell signal with Verizon.
Leveling again was a bit of a challenge but we did just fine.
This campground had clean restrooms and a super nice camp host but no showers.
We really liked this campground especially since the sites were very private and they even had showers. Our only issue was that many of the sites are unlevel so you really need to drive around and view them because the pictures online can be deceiving. That unfortunately is the case for all of these National Park campgrounds. So sometimes making an online reservation will end in disappointment when you actually see the site but luckily for us, we were able to switch to a "first come first serve" site when we could not level our van in the one we had reserved.
Our second stay on the parkway was actually a forest service campground, Lake Powhatan, run by a private concessionaire so the sites were more expensive. Typically the national park campgrounds are $20 a night and only $10 with our America the Beautiful Interagency Lifetime Senior pass. This site was $18 a night after our discount. None of the sites that we stayed at had electrical hookups but water was nearby and most all had dump stations with potable water.
There were many beautiful hiking trails here and several of which connect to the North Carolina Arboretum property.
Linville Falls campground was our next stop & this was one of our favorites.
Like all the campgrounds, there were wonderful hiking trails nearby plus this campground has a gorgeous river flowing through it. No showers here & the restrooms were just OK but the scenery was top notch as well as the trout fishing. We were disappointed to learn that you cannot swim in any Blue Ridge Parkway waters 😓 but you can swim at some of the forest service campgrounds located nearby. (Lake Powhatan for example).
Our next stay was at Julian Price.
We stayed in Loop F which had an OK restroom but we were totally envious of the dishwashing station and modern restroom with showers in Loop D.
Once again, there were beautiful hiking trails accessible right from the campground & a lake for fishing & kayaking but NO swimming 😓. Also, as mentioned previously, many of the sites labeled as RV sites would be nearly impossible to level a Class B van like ours & would be quite a challenge for a travel trailer as well.
Next was our stay at Doughton Park. We stayed in the A loop and it was a quaint beautiful little spot. Although we never met him, folks say that the camp host here is wonderful and we even had a good supply of free firewood stacked up near our fire pit.
Our next stay was at Rocky Knob Campground. This was another beauty and if we walked a little bit towards the gatehouse, we had a decent cell signal with Verizon.
We are going to head back to the Blue Ridge Parkway next week and pick up where we left off & then continue on to the Skyline Drive. We are so enjoying our travels along the Blue Ridge. The campgrounds are just a wonderful place to spend the night so you don't have to rush your journey through the parkway. We feel that the most spectacular assets of the parkway are the wonderful hiking trails, flora and fauna, beautiful views and historical sites along the way. 😊👍🚐