Finding Campgrounds & RV Camping with Nearby Biking Trails

Ever since we got our eBikes, we have made it a mission to seek out great biking trails.

But not just any biking trail, we really love trails that are easily accessible – right from where we are staying in our van, bus or boat.

We do still frequently seek out cool trails and trailheads to break up a longer driving day.

But we really love being able to park at our campsite and explore on two wheels what is right around us.

Particularly since much of our RV travels in recent years have been in our van, our only source of transportation once we’re at camp is on foot or by bike. Switching the van back to driving mode is a bit of a hassle and is something we prefer not to do once we are level and settled.

But campgrounds with great biking are often a bit of a challenge to find.

How do we do it?

Today’s post and video shares our secrets, and some of our favorite finds so far.

The Types of Trails We Enjoy

We are particularly keen to find places with great paved or gravel bike trails, or “green” (beginner level) mountain bike trails that are more scenic than technical – and which are enjoyable to ride on our folding bikes without risking damaging our bikes or ourselves.

We really really love Rails-to-Trails routes – they tend to be mostly flat, and are often well separated from car traffic.

We also seek trails that are long enough to really get a good ride on – generally 10-50 miles in length. Ideally with some cool things to explore along the way too – whether access to a nifty downtown area, a swimming hole, a great lunch spot, or (of course!) ice cream!

Short small town bike trails that are often only five miles long (or less!) are not nearly long enough to get a good workout in.

We’re also not as interested in bike routes that are just bike lanes on the side of a busy road, or that are separated from traffic but are really just glorified sidewalks along roadways.

We vastly prefer dedicated trails that are well away from traffic.

We also prefer bike trails that aren’t overly multi-use – whether shared with lots of pedestrians or primarily for equestrian use. While sharing the trails is a great concept, navigating around lots of people on foot can become tedious – and horses often leave trails way too torn up for fun riding.

And when it comes to finding bike trails near a campground or RV Park – we’re looking for trails that easy to get to. No driving, or long rides on open roadways involved!

Finding the Perfect Campground Trail

Yeah, we’re not picky or anything.

And don’t even get us started on our campground preferences (privacy, scenic, great connectivity, etc.)

So it doesn’t come as any surprise that there’s not an easy way to find these gems of locations. At least, not that we’ve found.

Finding campground with great biking is a pretty manual process of combining multiple search methods to find that perfect intersection of ideal trail and great campground.

The tools we use include:

• 

  Google Maps – We turn on the ‘Bike Route’ feature to show us trails in areas we are considering heading to next. Scrolling around, we hunt for long and interesting looking trails – and then we’ll make note of any campgrounds or RV parks that might be nearby.

• Trail Link – A site dedicated to trails, we’ll use this to seek out potential trails – and then look for mentions in reviews of possible campgrounds nearby.
• Campground Review Sites – We love Campendium, but also use RV Park Wizard, to research campgrounds. Once we have some trails identified, we’ll search around to see what campgrounds might be nearby. We’ll keep an eye out for reviews that mention bike trails when doing general campground searches.

Even using all of these tools – sometimes we end up making a leap of faith, trusting that we’ll be able to find a way from a promising campground to a cool trail without needing to ride through heavy traffic or along high-speed roads first.

Some Favorite Campgrounds & Bike Trails

Here are some recent favorite campground with great biking we have discovered – in roughly reverse chronological order.

Alafia State Park – Florida

Traverse City, MI

St. Johnsville, NY – Erie Canal Biking

South Marcum ACOE – Rend Lake, MO

Iron Mountain Trail, Red Top Mountain SP – Acworth, GA

Alafia State Park

Fries New River RV Park – Fries, VA

Timber Creek Campground – Branch, MI

High Pines RV Park – Lane, PA

C&O Canal – Brunswick, MD

Liberty Harbor RV – Jersey City, NJ

• Red Top Mountain State Park – Acworth, GA – A top rated campground north of Atlanta that has recently been completely redone. At the base of the campground is the connector trail to the beautiful 4 mile Iron Hill Trail. It is shorter than we’d like, but pretty enough to enjoy looping around twice.
• South Marcum Campground – Benton, IL – This Army Corp of Engineer park is one of three surrounding Rend Lake, with an amazing ~20 mile bike trail connecting them all. South Marcum is at one end of the trail, if we had to do it over again – we’d likely choose the middle campground so we could divide up the trail better.
• Timber Creek Campground – Branch, MI – Small US Forest Service campground available on a first-come-first-served basis, with the North Country National Scenic Trail running right through it. Bikes are allowed on this section of this epic hiking trail.
• Traverse City State Park – Traverse City, MI – State park in this urban city across the road from Lake Michigan, with the TART Trail running right behind it giving access to explore the city and some wonderful local parks.
• Harrison Park Campground – Owens Sound, Ontario – A popular city run park with tight RV spaces, with access to trails through town and along the Georgian Bay.
• High Pines RV Park – Lantz Corner, PA – Private RV Park, with access across the road to a 7 mile in & out trail to Kinzua Bridge State Park, with an incredible skyway to explore.
• Fries New River Trail RV Park – Fries, VA – Beautifully built private RV park, with access to the amazing New River Trail. It’s a trail all along the New River with dozens of miles of trail to explore.
• Alafia State Park – Lithia,FL – Great campsites at this state park, with a connector trail to their mountain biking playground offering easy to difficult trails. 
• Crane Brewing – Raytown, MO – A Harvest Hosts location, this brewery in the Kansas City Metro area is a trailhead for the Historic Rock Island Trail – offering great access for a bike ride, followed by a cold beer!
• Dam West Recreation Area – Lake Carlyle, IL – This cute little Army Corp of Engineers park along Lake Carlyle connects in with a network of easy biking trails along the dam, around the lake and into town.
• Hawthorne City Park – Terra Haute, IN – Cute little city owned campground with lots to do onsite, and right along a network of trails running through the city to get you into town and exploring the university area.
• River Trail Crossing – Butler, OH – Cute privately owned RV Park along the water, right along the B&O Bike Trail. Go left about 10 miles, and you’ll find gluten free pizza at one end, go right and you’ll find an ice cream shop.
• Stow Silver Spring Campground – Stow, OH – City park that connects to a huge bike trail network – including to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. You can bike one way into Cleveland and take the tourist train with your bike back.
• St. Johnsville Marina & Campground – St. Johnsville, NY – Right along the Erie Canal, this waterfront RV park and marina has easy access across the bridge to awesome biking along dedicated tow paths in both directions.
• Liberty Harbour Marina & RV Park – Jersey City, NJ – Right across from the Statue of Liberty, this is basically a parking lot with a high price tag (but it’s so worth it!). Amazing bike trails on the Jersey side right from the park, and an easy ferry over to absolutely incredible bike exploration of NYC with dedicated paths.
• Brunswick Family Campground – Brunswick, MD – Right on the C&O Trail, a bike route from Washington DC to Pittsburgh – this is a dedicated tow path with no vehicle traffic. From the campground the historic town of Harpers Ferry is an easy destination just about 10 miles away. The campground itself isn’t the greatest, and is super pricey considering what you get. But the biking is heavenly!
• Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway – Central Florida – A collection of campgrounds with awesome bike access to trails that explore the greenway where the canceled cross-FL barge canal had been planned. Ross Praise, Shagri La and Santos are all state park campgrounds along the trail, with easy access to a range of mountain bike trails and an amazing 16-mile paved dedicated bike trail with the curvy flow of a mountain trail.
• Ft. De Soto Park – St. Petersburg, FL – A lovely county park if you can snag a site with many private feeling water front sites. Also at the end of the biking trail network around the area, with trails within the park to the beach. 
• Clearwater RV Resort – Clearwater, FL – A great RV park in an urban setting, with fantastic easy access to the network of bike trails around the Tampa area. 

Biking Around Sanford, FL

And then there’s Sanford, FL – which has been our home base since the start of the pandemic.

Besides all the awesome local dining, drinking and entertainment – an amazing bike trail around Lake Monroe keeps us coming back.

Biking to Gemini Springs with Marc & Julie of RVLove

Friends Sabine & Eckhart

Lake Monroe Trail

Gemini Springs Trail

Moonrise over Lake Monroe

If you want to explore around Sanford by bike, here’s some places to stay along the bike trail we love so much:

• Downtown Sanford Marina – Sanford, FL – Walking distance to the historic downtown, this where we’ve been aboard Y-Not. The riverwalk trail passes right by our marina, and is part of the 27 mile loop around the lake. We use this regularly for biking, walking and running.  (Note, due to the 2022 hurricanes, there is currently no dockage availability for transients).
• Lake Monroe County Park – DeBary, FL – Just four miles down the waterfront trail from downtown Sanford, this park is technically one county over. It offer sweet little campsites and the bike trail passes right through it.
• Blue Spring State Park – Deland, FL – A little further away, this state park has been our local get-away. It has direct access to a biking trail network that connects in with the same trials we access from Sanford.

So these are some of our favorites – what are yours?

We are always looking to find awesome new trails to explore – so share your favorites with us here!