We're calling it! This is the best East Coast city for metropolitan camping

Let's call the East Coast for what it is: Congested. Whenever we travel I-95 from Boston down to the Carolinas, it's one city after another, after another. The metropolitan areas sprawl so far that at times it feels like one continuous city. We leave the Boston Metro area only to hit Providence an hour later. Then we travel through Connecticut and deal with the smaller city of New Haven smack dab in the middle of the state's I-95 corridor. That's the start of the most hellish part of our drive, because shortly thereafter is Bridgeport, the gateway to the biggest metropolis of them all. You might as well call it New York City stop #1, because after that is Fairfield, and then Stamford. I can't remember the last time I drove through Stamford without there being traffic jams in both directions. Driving among the parking garages, hotels, and train stations, it feels like NYC burst beyond its boundaries and industrialized across the state border. The interstate becomes increasingly bumpy from here on, as the Concrete Jungle is not limited to the skyscrapers. Under the road's asphalt are concrete slabs that jerk vehicles at every joint.

The last time we drove around New York City to get to the New Jersey turnpike, it took us an hour and a half to go 60 miles. That's without traffic and about the best you can get. The worst part is the poor signage and constant risk of wrong turns that, if taken, would get you on the news as one of those sad souls who thought their RV could miraculously learn to do the limbo.

It's a stressful time, circumventing that city, and so once we reach the New Jersey Turnpike, we breathe a sigh of relief, despite the fact that we immediately hit Newark, and then an hour and a half later, Philadelphia, quickly followed by Wilmington, DE and then Baltimore and Washington, DC. Finally, after that, we get some space, even though a few smaller cities dot I-95. But it's really not until Florida that things start getting nutty again, eventually culminating in some of the worst traffic culture we've encountered anywhere in the country, around Miami and Fort Lauderdale. For many reasons, this included, we typically conclude our I-95 travels in South Carolina. If we travel further south, we switch off I-95 in Jacksonville to cut over to Florida's Gulf Coast.

We are not city people. That's funny to say because, once upon a time, we both were. But, because we travel on interstates for many miles of our RV life, we find ourselves venturing through and around cities fairly often. Beyond the East Coast, we found it easier to plan campgrounds further from city limits, but when we travel our familiar I-95 route back east, we don't have much of a choice.

We have now RVed some semblance of this route six times since we launched full-time, sometimes varying the sections and deviating off the beaten path, but between our RV travels and road trips of years' past, this is one part of the country that we know very well. We've been fascinated by our experiences trying to camp in the vicinities of the line of cities north of the Carolinas. We're lucky to find solace in our home-base when we're in the Boston area, and not far is a state park that's familiar territory and far enough from the city to get some reprieve. Besides a total fail at a Plymouth, MA campground, we haven't had enough camping experience to truly conclude if Boston should be considered horrific or mediocre in terms of RV accessibility. Other RVers have positively reviewed a few other campgrounds in and around the metro area. Maybe we'll try some of them out someday, but for now, we're happy to have a spot in the Andersons' driveway.

Traveling down I-95, there is a scarcity of RV parks like no other. Here are your choices around Providence, all...both of them. Oh, and the better rated one is only a 7.0/10 on RV Trip Wizard.

It's even worse in the off-season, the time when most of our travels in this area take place. CT campgrounds tend to think that on November 15, a snow squall will come blowing in and bury the region into apocalyptic disaster, and then on March 31, suddenly the skies clear and the sun beams forth. You may be surprised to discover that the Concrete Jungle has no such apocalyptic winter, and you can stay in parking lot that is Liberty Harbor RV Park, but be warned, you will lose an arm and a leg.

After a tumultuous trip last year to visit Long Island and stay at the island's only year-round campground, we've decided that it's best for our trailer's integrity – and our wellbeing – to get in and out of NY as quickly as possible. Jersey offers slim-pickings along the Turnpike, especially in winter, and so we've found our staple campgrounds outside of Philadelphia. Our choice for the second year in a row: Lums Pond State Park in Bear, DE. A favorable second choice for those who like more of an RV park feel: KOA Philadelphia/Clarksboro in Clarksboro, NJ. We will always have a special place in our hearts for this KOA. Just be sure to choose this one and not the one on the west side of Philadelphia, unless you want to end up looking like this in your campsite.

But, of all the major cities that we pass through on our journey down the East Coast, there is one that always impresses us with its selection of campgrounds. We don't feel like we need to go back to our staples because there are always more campgrounds we want to explore. And, every time we go to a new one, we feel worlds away from the city.

Washington, D.C. definitively has the best area campgrounds.

We'll lump Baltimore in this category, too, since the cities are so close together.

Our first RV trek down to DC, I was fearful of the campground situation. Most of the places I found were rustic with limited hookups, and being that we were total newbies, we didn't want to risk navigating narrow, tree-lined roads with tight turns. We also weren't equipped to camp without hookups. And so, for our first choice campground, we stayed at Cherry Hill RV Park in College Park, MD. We wrote an entire review of it because we could not rave about it the way many RVers do, but for a metropolitan RV resort, even we can agree that this is a nice place to camp out and explore the District and surrounding areas. It'll cost you some dough, but at least you get ample amenities for the price.

After a few more months to build confidence as RVers, we felt like we could handle one of the rustic campgrounds. We chose Patapsco Valley State Park in Endicott City, MD, about 20 minutes from Baltimore and 45 from DC. This time, we came to the area in the summer. Patapsco isn't open in wintertime, which is probably for the best because the hill to get into the campground was not something that RVs should traverse in icy conditions.

Once in our site, though, we marveled at how we could be so close to the city and yet feel worlds away. We were tucked away in the woods, surrounded by the dense and luscious green foliage. The site was 30amp electric only, adding to the "campy" feel because we actually needed to monitor and conserve our resources. The facilities and park trails left a little to be desired, but we still look back on our stay with fond memories, likely due to its ability to open our eyes to the nature-centric campgrounds that exist in this area.

That was our only summertime visit to DC/Baltimore in our RV. The next time we passed through, it was January. Some campgrounds were closed for the season, but a surprising amount remained open. We narrowed down our choices and ended up booking a site at Pohick Bay Regional Park in Lorton, VA. It's owned and run by NOVA (Northern Virginia) Parks, an organization that preserves countryside acreage in suburban counties in this region of the state. They must do a good job, considering the top notch bird watching we did while we were there, spotting multiple birds of prey, including eagles! The park itself was worth the higher price. Some sites, including ours, had full hookups, while others are water and electric. Our site was fantastic, but we did notice that others were quite a bit unlevel. The center of the main campground loop had a giant field and playground. The other, smaller loop offers both RV sites and cabins. The outskirts of the loops lead to hiking trails, one down to the bay.

If we're ever back to Northern VA in the summer, we would totally gun for a site at Pohick Bay. The waterfront has a marina that includes boat rentals and paddle tours, there is a disc golf course, and best of all, there is a waterpark! Plus, we can only imagine the bird sightings during a time of year where migratory birds are back in the area. We know we'd see ospreys, my favorite bird, because we saw their nests.

I'm so dazzled by the DC-area campgrounds that I always end up writing a blog post about them. After our stay at Pohick, I wrote this post as a summary of why we choose the more rustic, wooded campgrounds in the area. Little did I know how much more I'd want to say.

As we returned east last fall, we were too far north to stay at Pohick again, and so we chose Little Bennett Campground, a county park in Clarksburg, MD. We actually hoped to get a site at the nearby Ramblin' Pines Campground, but they never got back to us about site availability. We wanted ease of navigation after our Blitz East, and Little Bennett did not give us much hope. Most of the campsites didn't even list site lengths, and as we've come to expect from (and usually love about) government-owned campgrounds around here, the roads may not be the easiest to tow on. I did some due diligence and found that our best bet would be in Loop D, the only loop with hookups. I grabbed the last remaining site in the loop. It was way more wonky than either of us would like, but we made it work and now laugh about it. While we were there, we scoped out all the sites, making notes of which ones would be more suitable for our rig. Obviously, we plan to return someday. The campground was nice, the trails were lovely, and the park had lots of amenities that we wouldn't expect from a county park campground, like laundry, a game room, and a really nice camp store (with a machine where you could make your own protein shakes. Hmm...that's a new one).

And finally, after our two months of holiday fun at home, we hit the road again, finding ourselves back around DC for the New Year. Where would we choose to ring in 2024? Patapsco was out. Cherry Hill was cha-ching. Little Bennett was further west than we wanted to travel. And so, I went to Pohick's website, fully intending to book a site.

Then I stopped. While totally worth the price of admission, one of our goals for this year is to get our nightly average lower than last year. Even the water and electric only sites at Pohick were over that average budget, and given that we have a few expensive campgrounds already booked, we're challenging ourselves to save money as much as possible with our other bookings. I remembered seeing a no-frills campground near Cherry Hill when I was planning our 2022 travels. It scared me because back then I didn't want us towing into campgrounds that were carved into forests. It was also dry camping only, which was a no-go for us noobs, even if we were cool with navigating woodsy park roads.

But it's not 2022 anymore! Enter Greenbelt Campground, a federally-owned park just outside the District, in the literal Green Belt, a preservation along the Capital Beltway. You can't get much more city than this. The park lies adjacent to I-495, right where the road intersects with Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the east, and merges with I-95 to the west.

We arrived New Year's Eve and found only one loop open, with many of the specific sites closed or unreserved. We were one of only a handful of campers, and besides some distant traffic drones from I-495, the campground was quiet, once again feeling worlds away from civilization. This campground also had the most holly trees we had ever seen in one place, which made for a gorgeous pop of color in our otherwise brown and gray wooded site.

This park doesn't accommodate large rigs, and our loop stated that the length maximum was 30ft. We measure 28ft without counting the tongue, 34ft tongue included, but we chose a site that easily accommodated both truck and trailer. We loved our campsite. We loved being nestled away in our little wooded nook. The campground itself was in a state of dishevelment; the closed loops had lots of fallen trees and part of one of the hiking trails was closed due to erosion. We could tell the ground was soft and lots of trees had been uprooted. Others were hollowing from the inside out and splitting halfway up the trunks. The remaining downed trees had been purposefully cut by the park staff, likely a preventative measure before they fell.

The dump station is rather inconveniently located at the back of Loop C, one of the closed loops, meaning that the station too was effectively closed. No alert of this was posted on the NPS website, but good thing we had tank space to spare. The bathhouses were run-down but sufficient, and it didn't matter that half the stall doors didn't lock (if the doors existed at all) because we were practically the only people around.

We can't speak for warm weather camping here; maybe they spruce the place up. But we can say with confidence that this park is not for everyone. We looked past the issues and enjoyed the privacy and quiet. We also had the nature feel that we've come to embrace about DC-area campgrounds. We were near College Park but were paying nowhere near the rates of Cherry Hill. But, as I tend to conclude with all of my posts about campgrounds here, all will depend on how you like to camp. If you don't like the rustic, no-frills parks, then our preferences will not be yours, but the good thing is, we can recommend Cherry Hill to anyone who prefers an RV resort. Or, if you want the full hookups with a more rustic vibe, you can opt for Little Bennett or Pohick Bay.

Are there more campgrounds in this region that we will add to our list? Probably. It's now a bit of a fun challenge to compare a whole bunch of them, because as you can see, there's no shortage. We seldom bring politics into our posts, but with all the heated issues going on in the Capitol these days, we're relieved to see that there is priority placed on preservation of natural environments in these urban and suburban areas, on county, regional, state, and federal levels.