Fall 2026 Stony Fork campground in the Jefferson National Forest is a good stepping stone for our northern trips. It’s not a “destination” campground, but its location three hours from Asheville is perfect for our typical mid-day departures. We’re here for two nights mainly to wind down from our hectic schedule leading up to this trip. The campsites and bathhouses are decent, but the surrounding area is overgrown with vines and briars. It has a single nature trail that’s so narrow it warns of ticks and poison ivy.
RV travel isn’t just fun and games. Take a look at all that happened during the first 1.5 weeks of this trip. Tim noticed a strange bite on his leg and we had it checked out at urgent care. I developed a severe neck strain, probably due to intensive physical labor prior to our departure followed by limited movement while driving. We had to evacuate the van, with Autumn, during a severe thunderstorm due to a tornado warning. A burning rash appeared all over my abdomen, self-diagnosed as “prickly heat”. The toilet drain wasn’t sealing, causing gross fumes to rise into the van. Biting gnats infiltrated the van. All resolved now, thank goodness, but I confess there were times when I joined Autumn in wondering “why are we doing this?”.
What a pleasant surprise — Ohio’s Hocking Hills State Park. The other-worldly gorge is the main attraction, with trails wandering across stone bridges and over, under, and through moss- and fern-covered boulders. The day-use area and the campground are quite busy on weekdays in August.
Once again appreciating the Harvest Hosts program, we stay at the Wood County Museum within its park-like grounds. Not only is this a pleasant and interesting location, but across the street is Snook’s Dream Cars much to Tim’s delight. It’s on the museum property where we wait out a tornado warning.
En route to the Detroit area for another visit to the marvelous Henry Ford Museum, we stop by Toledo’s National Museum of the Great Lakes. Highly recommended! The self-guided freighter tour is more meaningful and sobering after having read The Gales of November by John U. Bacon. So many people and ships have been claimed by the beautiful but treacherous Great Lakes.
Combining last year and this, Tim has spent four full days exploring the Henry Ford/Greenfield Village property and I’ve spent four half-days. See Fall 2025 for more photos.
Tawas Point State Park, sandwiched between Lake Huron and Saginaw Bay, is a return visit for us. The water is warm enough to swim on both sides of the peninsula. For more photos, including the light stations, see Fall 2025.
While in northern Michigan we’re minimizing time on the road, choosing camping spots that are relatively close together. After Tawas we drive about two hours to Hoeft State Park, also situated on Lake Huron. This is a lovely, wooded location with the beach just over the boardwalk. Riding bikes to the 40 Mile Point lighthouse is a great way to spend the day. The former keeper’s home is full of interesting antiques. The tower is an easy climb. On the beach is some of the wreckage of the Joseph S Fay, and there is also the pilothouse of the SS Calcite among other attractions. This property has a “Keeper’s Program” in which RV travelers may stay in exchange for two or more weeks of volunteer work.
Wilderness State Park, on Lake Michigan, has two campground loops on the lake and another in a more wooded area within walking distance of the lake. Some reviews have advised that, if one of the waterfront campsites isn’t possible, the wooded loop is the next best choice because the lake-adjacent loops are too congested. IMO, it’s only the interior of the loops that are tight; the campsites around the exterior are adequately separated. That said, the lakeside areas are much more windy than the areas back from the lake.
Approaching the Mackinaw Bridge to the Upper Peninsula, Tim perfectly describes our anticipation: “It seems as though we should get out our passports.” We camp in Sault St. Marie at another Harvest Host member, The Original Soo Locks Tour. Overlooking the St. Marys river we watch the huge freighters pass by. Tim finds a website, VesselFinder.com, that provides ship specifications and destinations. It’s great fun! Tim’s brother and sister-in-law, Brent and Cris, join us for a fascinating boat tour of the locks.
Between Sault St. Marie and Tahquamenon Falls SP is the Iroquois Point lighthouse on Whitefish Bay, the final resting place of many Great Lakes’ shipwrecks. A notebook inside the lighthouse contains an undated report regarding the reopening of the Edmund Fitzgerald investigation.
Our second visit to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, and Tahquamenon Falls State Park. For more photos, please see our Fall 2025 blog.
From Tahq Falls we travel a short distance to Grand Marais, a pretty little harbor town off the beaten path. Before settling in at Woodland campground, we check out Sable Falls.
Grand Marais calls itself “the quiet end of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore”. Compared to Munising, it certainly is. In between, though, there are many gratifying places to be explored. Traveling east to west along Lake Superior’s Michigan coast:
The rustic Hurricane River campground within the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is the icing on the cake: a fascinating history; the North Country National Scenic Trail; a well-maintained lighthouse property 1.5 miles away; and a rocky river flowing into crystal clear Lake Superior with its extensive beach of sand, colorful stones, and boulders. Despite its cool temperature, the lake is so enticing that i move around reverently in waist-deep water with an occasional full-body dip. In about three feet of water is the wreck of the Mary Jarecki, which rises to within a foot of the surface. The water is so clear that i can see the grooves worn into the sandstone shelves beneath it. Such a simple but elevating experience.
Staying with Boondockers Welcome hosts Martha and Jeff in Marquette, MI, two days aren’t nearly enough to appreciate this charming town on Lake Superior. There’s a pretty walk around the harbor that features a lighthouse, museum, and freighter loading dock that’s no longer in use. At the north end of town is Presque Isle, an awesome park overlooking an active freighter dock at one end and the magnificence of Lake Superior at the other. Photos don’t do it justice.
Trees continue to stalk us. Here at JW Wells state park, on the western side of Lake Michigan, we had no sooner settled on our campsite than part of a paperbark birch fell our way. Perhaps it’s time to start camping at Cracker Barrel? Although we have a site overlooking Green Bay (the bay itself), the water isn’t inviting. It’s kind of thick, greenish brown, and is known to contain algae and agricultural chemicals.
Some of the reviews of Fayette State Park’s campground are negative, and it’s true that campsites could be more level with more space between them, but the location, waterfront, and Fayette Historic Townsite more than offset any minor inconveniences.
Kitch-Iti-Kipi or “Big Spring” is a popular attraction in the Upper Peninsula. For those who have visited other springs, say in Florida, this one isn’t unusual except for the wooden barge structure that was built to transit across the spring. Unfortunately it was broken when we visited. People could go aboard for a better view of the spring, but it was stationary.
In the Hiawatha National Forest, Brevort Lake campground offers well-spaced, wooded campsites – many waterfront. No hookups or showers but a dump station with potable water as well as a boat launch and restrooms with flush toilets. Good hiking too.
When we pull in to our campsite at Petoskey State Park on Lake Michigan, through the trees there appears to be a tan wall – about two stories high – in the direction of the lake. It’s part of the sand dunes! This is a great park. The scenery is gorgeous and provides for hiking, swimming, paddling or biking on the Little Traverse Wheelway into the attractive town of Petoskey. The clear lake beckons.
Another peninsula: Leelanau! The rustic state park is at the northern tip and our waterfront campsite faces north with Lake Michigan to our left and Grand Traverse Bay to our right. Michiganders think of the Leelanau peninsula as the pinky finger of the mitten that the lower peninsula of Michigan resembles. They will hold out their left hand in the shape of a mitten and use their right hand to point to the location on the mitten where they live.
Funny – a year ago when we toured Michigan we opted not to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore because we had seen plenty of dunes over the years — Panama City Beach, the Outer Banks, Assateague Island. Those were dunes; these are DUNES.
The Platte River modern campground within the Sleeping Bear Dunes park is wooded and well-designed. It’s about a mile one way on the foot trail to Lake Michigan but this includes some deep, soft sand. The lake can also be reached by bike. Don’t miss Platte River point where the clear river runs into Lake Michigan, with the Dunes as a backdrop.
All of the spectacular scenery that we’ve encountered during our years of travel appears to have raised the bar on what now seems impressive. The Channel campground of Muskegon state park is positioned between Lake Michigan and Muskegon Bay. There’s a paved walkway along the channel from the campground to the lake, ending between the two breakwaters at the channel entrance. A few years ago the water level rose so much that many of the area’s trees died, so the Channel campground is not nearly as wooded as the other Muskegon state park campground to the north (but the campsites are more level). Now that we’ve moved to the southern half of Michigan’s lower peninsula, the atmosphere doesn’t seem as nurturing.
The May House in Grand Rapids is another Frank Lloyd Wright treat. Now owned by Steelcase, tours are free with a reservation. (Limited days and hours.)
SPRING 2026
Heading toward North Carolina’s Outer Banks, we stay at Raven Rock State Park located between Chapel Hill and Fayetteville. Raven Rock is in the “Fall Zone” where NC’s piedmont region meets the coastal region with a significant drop in elevation, creating unusual rock formations as well as rapids along the Cape Fear River. The campsites here have full hookups and are particularly large though fairly open. They back up to a forested area in the center of the campground loop. Bathhouses are immaculate. There’s a good quality visitor center/museum. We hike over four miles on the Raven Rock loop trail, which includes a steep stairway down to the Cape Fear river – the only way to view Raven Rock. At an overlook farther along we have one of those rewarding experiences that sometimes materialize on camping trips – the appearance of Scott, who turns out to be a resident of Ocracoke where we’ll be camping in a few days. After giving us tips on bakeries and fish markets and where to see the best sunsets, he says that he’s an ambulance driver and they routinely drive through the Ocracoke campground and wave to the campers. We’ll watch for him!
Goose Creek State Park has two very different campground loops. The wooded one near the river is for tents and is a great spot for launching kayaks. Closer to the park entrance is an open campground with full hookups for RVs. The sites are large but not private, and there’s a trail to the visitor center. We depart a day early because rough weather is expected when we had originally planned to take the ferry to Ocracoke.
Although Ocracoke Village, built around the harbor, is tourism-oriented, it still has an appealing flavor. A few miles away Ocracoke campground (operated by the National Park Service) is just across the dunes from the ocean. No hookups and cold showers only, but there’s a water fill and dump station adjacent to the campground. (We were never able to find a place that fills built-in RV propane tanks on the island.) There’s a nice atmosphere here with easy access to the beach. Our recent acquaintance, Scott, does in fact drive his ambulance through the campground. We exchange waves and he comes to our door and chats awhile. Ocracoke hospitality! En route to the Hatteras ferry we observe the fragility of Ocracoke’s future. There’s a stretch where the ocean is only about 30′ from the road and huge sandbags have been stacked in between. Elsewhere, mounds of sand have been scraped and scooped off the road and onto the shoulders.
The ferry between Ocracoke and Hatteras is free and takes about 70 minutes to work its way around a crab-spawning sanctuary. After stopping at the visitor center – the former weather station that influenced the Wright Brothers decision to come to the Outer Banks – our first order of business is to find propane to fill our RV tank. Surprisingly, park rangers, ferry employees, the visitor center, and a local store that sells propane cylinders have no clue. Tip: the private campground, Frisco Woods, can accommodate.
Frisco, not to be confused with Frisco Woods, is the NPS campground where we’re staying on Hatteras. No hookups and no dump station. The vegetation here is thicker and taller than at Ocracoke campground. This, combined with more variation in elevation, creates a greater sense of privacy and peacefulness. Ocracoke has the advantage of easier access to the beach. Here at Frisco, there are two boardwalks. The one we used is about a quarter-mile long – through woods and over lowlands – and then there are relatively high dunes to cross. This we did in 25 knot winds with gusts around 40, making photography challenging.
Although the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is closed due to restoration work, it’s worth spending some time at the nearby museum that includes exhibits on area shipwrecks as well as the process of moving the 1870 lighthouse farther from the ocean in 1999.
— NOTE WORKER AT TOP
https://www.nps.gov/caha/planyourvisit/chls.htm
Most impressive about the Outer Banks is the obvious imbalance of power between nature and humans.
At the NPS Oregon Inlet campground, the dunes are so extensive that it’s possible to lose one’s way.
Our particular experience of the Outer Banks couldn’t happen in the summer when the heat, bugs, and crowds would be unpleasant. In April, our time here has been quite nice. The scenery, atmosphere, and lifestyle have kind of grown on us. We’ll miss it, and plan to return soon.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/29/north-carolina-outer-banks-homes
If Merchants Millpond SP had been open it would be our next stop, but we stay a couple of nights at Medoc Mountain SP before heading to Pocahontas SP near Richmond Virginia. Pocahontas is a very large forested park with a very large campground. The extensive trails are unusually wide, well-maintained, and well-signed. Inside the spotless campground laundry room there’s a video feed from inside a bluebird box and we watch as the eggs are hatching. There’s a Visitor Center with interactive exhibits and a Civilian Conservation Corps museum (open weekends) that’s a reminder of win-win national projects.
https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/fall/ccc.html
Tim’s siblings – Connie and Brent – and their spouses – Al and Cris – join us at the High Knob day use area of Maryland’s Gambrill SP. There are nice overlooks here on the Catoctin ridgeline. Many parks are experiencing funding shortages and Gambrill appears to be one of them. In the campground, briars and other brush choke the wooded areas and crowd the campsites. Dead, but standing, ash trees get our attention. Another tree across our roof might be the end of our camping adventures.
Western Maryland has attracted us in the past but this is our first visit to New Germany SP. Truly a candidate for the “hidden gem” award, even the drive here is remarkably scenic. The campground, adjacent to a lovely lake, does not have hookups nor cell coverage. (There is Wifi at the “Lake House”.) The atmosphere is peaceful and there are few campers here on this April weekend. I love a walkable woods even though we stick to the trails to avoid ticks and erosion.
Our third time to Deep Creek Lake – one of Maryland’s excellent state parks and a good way to utilize the state’s 50% off Sunday-Thursday camping for seniors, including non-state residents. See 2022 for some photos. Here are a couple more:
We return to Seneca Rocks in northeastern West Virginia and this time I accompany Tim on a hike to the overlook – four miles roundtrip and 1000′ elevation gain.
A detour to Spruce Knob, highest point in West Virginia, is worth the time and white knuckles from the winding, narrow road to the top. Then on to Watoga SP in West Virginia’s Pocahontas County, possibly the prettiest place in the state. This park is among Tim’s earliest memories; his family vacationed here when he was a child. Just like last year, we ride bikes on the Greenbrier River Trail to the property owned by his aunt and uncle. See photos and descriptions in the Spring 2025 section of this blog.
Our final stop this trip, Virginia’s Claytor Lake SP is very nice though with a bit more of a resort atmosphere than we like. There are boat rentals, lakefront cabins, gift shop, visitor center, boat launch, trails, marina, and conference center in addition to the campground, which is located apart from the day use areas and cabins. On this mid-May weekend, the place is packed. Close enough to Asheville for a quick trip, Claytor Lake may see us again during quieter weekdays.
And now for 2.5 months in Asheville catching up and preparing for a three-month Fall trip. In 2025 we very much enjoyed Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This year we plan to tour most of Michigan’s coastline along the three Great Lakes. Can’t wait!
January 2026 Our annual trip to Florida, primarily to see my sisters, includes some tried-and-true campgrounds as well as a couple of new ones. Poinsett, a South Carolina state park, is our first stop. Earlier reviews complained about the roads but they’re in good condition now. The scenery is appealing, with CCC-built structures, and the extensive trails are well-maintained. (Whether the campsite surface is gravel or dirt is worth considering when making reservations.)
Although we’ve been to Jekyll Island we haven’t camped here until now. The campground is at the north end of the island with good access to Driftwood Beach, biking trails, and the fishing center with it’s large pier. Campsites vary in width. There could be a parking lot atmosphere if it weren’t for the numerous trees and Spanish moss. The main bathhouse is due for major renovation. Campspot, the reservation service, has come to our attention before for the various fees it imposes. In this case, $10 was required to guarantee the site we’d chosen. We declined but still got the desired site upon arrival.
We spend a couple of days at the home of Karen and Jeff, where they’ve set up an entertainment center for our cat Autumn.
Anastasia State Park is always a treat. It’s not easy to get reservations for a full week because Florida residents can book eleven months in advance while for everyone else it’s ten months. So weekends fill up, but we got lucky.
Central Florida has its own beauty:
At this point in our trip, campground reservations must be adjusted due to a severe storm heading east, with temperatures dropping below freezing in northern Florida. Magnolia Park on Lake Apopka, part of the superb Orange County park system, fortunately has one campsite available. There is a unique feature about this park:
Due to a large family dinner at my sister’s, the forecast low temperature of 22F must be accommodated. Under the van, we place lights and two thermometers in the vicinity of water lines and tanks, enclosed in a hammock of two tarps – one mylar. Inside, we run the Truma water heater overnight along with two small space heaters and our propane furnace for back-up. We’re on 15A shore power so two electric cords from two different circuits are needed. The outside low temperature during the night reaches 27.3F while the thermometer under the van in the “worst case” location gets down to 35F. The thermometer in the service bay reads 46.2F at its lowest.
An “Oh, by the way”: we store the tarps in a rural size mailbox that Tim installed along with an inverter-connected electrical outlet.
Returning home, the temperatures between Florida and Asheville require more changes to our schedule. We spend two nights at Dreher Island State Park near Columbia SC where it’s above freezing for that short window of time. Before leaving for snowy Asheville, we winterize the van at our campsite – a first for us – taking advantage of the full hookup. We drain the tanks and water heater; use an air compressor to blow out the water lines; and put RV antifreeze in all drains. Some folks put antifreeze throughout their water system but we don’t want to risk any residual in our fresh water tank and lines after de-winterizing. We use the propylene glycol RV antifreeze available through West Marine. Ethanol-based antifreeze is more common but can damage the seals and can evaporate.
Weather may again be a factor for our Spring trip when we travel to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and then through Virginia to western Maryland and eastern West Virginia.