Campgrounds In The Washington Dc Area

We are looking for (current or within the last year) recommendations for campgrounds or parks around the Washington DC area. Will be making a trip out there next year. We'd like to stay outside of DC proper, but near enough to move around daily for a couple of weeks without dropping the US oil reserves. AND, please, before anyone flames me, I did try to search the posts for this info, but the search engine won't accept Washington DC, because DC is under 4 letters long....and District of Columbia didn't get any results. Washington took me to the west coast state....I rooted around the map awhile, but I've found that WOM is always the best recommendation esp. in major metro areas. Happy Travels!

 

IMO, the best choice for a touristy visit to DC is Cherry Hill Park in College Park MD. You can take public transportation from there into the city. Enjoy your trip.

 

In a search it is best to look at the states close by or around the place you are looked for. You would never find an RV park in DC. Cherry Hill is OK but the road noise is bad off I-95. I think it may be the best bet to see the city. You do have RV parks near DC out in Maryland. Check this website for more information.

 

We stayed at Greenbelt National Park near College Park MD when we were there. It is dry camping as most National Parks are but the cost was great with a Golden Age Passport. The Metro is only a couple of miles away.

 

You say you tried to search the "posts" for parks in DC, but did you try the Campground Search feature? Choose Maryland as the state and then choose a city close to DC. I'd start with College Park which is on the north side of DC. At a setting of 25 miles, there are 15 parks listed, and if you expand the search to 50 miles, 35 parks turn up. By choosing towns in other areas you should get a pretty comprehensive listing of all the parks in the area. And remember, these reviews are written by our members (not professional reviewers), so I think they are just as much WOM as any of the posts you might read.

That said I absolutely agree with the Cherry Hill Park recommendation. We stayed there for two weeks a few years ago, and it suited our needs just fine. Because it is very close to major highways, there is noise that bothers many people. We honestly were not bothered at all by it. I do think their prices were high, and at that time, I did not think their premium sites were worth the extra cost, but that may have changed. They are not far from a metro line station which we used to go into DC at least 6 times (very convenient), and tour buses came right to the park for pick up. When we were there they had a tour desk that helped you pick tours and made your reservations for you. The fact that they are located near major freeways also makes it easy to go other places by car. They have many amenities that we did not use, but everything was clean and well kept. Just be aware that this is a very resort-type park and not a camp-in-the-woods campground. Spaces are a bit cramped, but utilities worked fine, and we had no problems while we were there.

Hope this helps.

 

I second the Cherry Hill Park. We stayed there a couple of years ago and found it to meet all of our needs. There is transportation from the park and stations near by. Plus restaurants and stores all around.

 

When we toured the DC area a few years ago we stayed at the Fredericksburg VA / Washington DC South KOA. It was a bit of a hike into DC, but we didn't mind. We drove to the "Franconia" Metro station and took the Metro right into downtown - it did take about 1 3/4 hrs in total to get from campground to Smithsonian/Capitol area. As I recall, it was relatively inexpensive to go this route. If you search for this campground, it's actually in Virginia.

Have a great trip!

 

I will second Bull Run and you are near the new Air and Space annex and you can get to Mount Vernon and Arlington quickly. You can also use HOV to get into the city with ease and you can park for under 10 bucks if you get there before 9 am.