How to Find and Select a Campground

You need a place to stay each night, not only at your destinations, but on the way there and back! And you obviously want to choose a campground that is well maintained, has the features you want or need, is safe, clean, and close either to your destination, or on the way there!  Here's how to find and choose a campground that best meets your needs!

Identify what you need and what's important to you:

1. Safety - that can be from human or animals.  Most campgrounds are very safe.  But in campgrounds in cities or where Grizzly bears are present, you may need to reconsider. And campgrounds in urban areas can be very dangerous. Keep your cars locked and valuables with you.
2. Location - It should be either near your next day's destination or on the way there. Is it easy to get to from the main road, especially if you will arrive at night.
3. Basics - Hot showers, flush toilets. do you need a facet with potable water at your site?  Electricity?  Sewer connections for an RV?
4. Amenities: swimming pool, playground, fishing, shade trees, picnic tables at each site,  Which are important to you?
5. Noise: Is it near a busy road or other source of noises during sleeping hours? If you can't get a good night's sleep, it's better to stay elsewhere, unless you have good earplugs.
6. Cost - a few are absurdly expensive.  KOA campgrounds tend to be double the price of other campgrounds.  Are they worth it?  In my opinion, usually not.
7. Groceries and ice on-site? If you need them, that can help.
8. Late check-in.  What if you arrive at 10 or 11 pm?

Finding a campground

• At the bottom of each of our Destinations pages, we have links to campgrounds in the area.
• The easiest way is to use a combination of a campground review website, like Hipcamp, which lists has both state parks and private campgrounds, or RoadTrippers.com that helps map your trip and identify pointss of interest along the way.  Google maps also searches an area and connects to Google reviews.
• Enter the location where you want t search, and in some case you can specify a search radius.
• Click on the links to campgrounds that look interesting to you and start checking out the reviews.