Summer 2020 Camping Road Trip

When we got our first camper, Tim and I talked about how we'd love to do some longer road trip type vacations and we really wanted to continue to do this even with Griff (though road trips with kids can be a bit harder!). We took one long road trip with our pop up, but hadn't taken a road trip type trip since we got our next new (to us) camper. We were so excited to take Griff on his first road trip in the camper this summer! We had initially been planning on going to New Orleans in the spring but it got cancelled due to COVID. Then, we were planning on taking a trip out to a couple major East Coast cities (DC, Baltimore, & Philly) but due to COVID knew this summer wouldn't be the best for that either. Instead, we decided to do a mixture of a mountain and beach trip!

Since we were driving quite a distance, we chose to split the drive up as much as we could and do as much driving as we could when Griff was sleeping (naps or at night). The first night we left around 4 pm and drove to Charleston, WV (which brought back a lot of ASP memories for me!). We didn't get there until 1 am so we stayed at a hotel that night. From there, we drove on to Shenandoah National Park and stayed at Loft Mountain Campground within the park. We spent the next 2 days exploring the National Park. While it was really pretty, we both agreed we still preferred the Smoky Mountains. However, we did enjoy hiking to a couple waterfalls (Dark Hollow Falls & Doyle River Falls) and seeing a couple other neat areas in the park (Big Meadow, Skyland Lodge, Masanutten Lodge, etc).

After leaving Shenandoah, we drove to Outer Banks and stayed at Oregon Inlet Campground. We didn't realize how big the Outer Banks area was! We had about 4 days in this area and packed our days with beach time as well as time exploring. The first day we spent most of the morning hanging out at the beach right off the campground. Griff LOVED the big waves - although we didn't love constantly chasing him out of them. 😅 We let Griff take a nap and spent the afternoon exploring the northern Outer Banks area - including Corolla, Currituck Beach Lighthouse and Whalehead. Everything indoor was closed down but we enjoyed walking around and exploring outside still. Our second day we drove down to Hatteras and took the ferry (a car ferry - so we drove on and took our car!) to Ocracoke to explore that island and see its wild ponies and lighthouse. On the way back we saw the Hatteras Lighthouse and stopped at a beach on the sound side and let Griff swim - there were no waves and the water was super warm so it was really relaxing. On the third day, we went back to the beach we'd found the day before and spent the morning there playing and relaxing in the water. Then, we spent the afternoon exploring one last lighthouse - the Bodie Island Lighthouse - and relaxing at the campground having dinner. On our last day (our travel day), we went for a quick last swim at the campground beach and then drove to Harpers Ferry, WV.

We were sad to find out most of the Harpers Ferry National Park was still closed due to COVID. However, we made the best of it and still saw what we could. We saw a couple of the battlefields and also drove down to the Lower Town area to walk around. In this area, we stayed at a KOA which had a lot of nice amenities so we also took advantage of a few of those when we could (while still socially distancing). Griff especially enjoyed playing on the bounce mat at the KOA! Tim and I both agreed we would like to come back to Harpers Ferry one day to see the rest of it.

Overall, it was a really good trip! Griff did really well in the car (although we did use our back up Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes and Frozen II as needed!) and we really loved getting away for a few days as a family. It was definitely different due to COVID -  We didn't do anything indoor and really did our best to still socially distance and only go in gas stations or groceries when required and with a mask). However, it still included some wonderful memories and was a great little getaway and recharge.

Now, we're counting down the days and anxiously awaiting our next camping road trip! TBD as far as where we go depending on how this pandemic plays out. Here's to many more (socially distanced if necessary!) memories on our future trips!