America's coolest campgrounds

By Scott Bowen

updated 3:41 p.m. ET June 24, 2008

This might be the summer that you camp in your own backyard—or somewhere pretty close. With families reining in expenses and gas prices making heads spin, exploring close to home and using the gear you’ve got (tents, sleeping bags, or maybe a camper) could make for the most fun you’ve had in a long time.

There are thousands of campgrounds around the country, many of these in national and state parks and forests. Privately run camps, such as those in the KOA system (“Kampgrounds of America”), charge some fees, and a number of public lands require permits of various kinds. But if you take a do-it-yourself approach to everything else, you can manage to pull off some adventure on a sensible budget, with a little planning.

To pitch a tent in ocean breezes, your best bet for scenic coastal camping on the West Coast is Kirk Creek Campground in the northern section of California’s Los Padres National Forest. It’s situated on a bluff 30 miles south of Big Sur, and trails from the campground lead down to the rocky beach. If you somehow manage to tire of this place, go explore the sandstone formations in the Rancho Nuevo area (in the Dick Smith Wilderness), Morro Rock and the Seven Sisters, and the Piedra Blanca-Gene Marshall Trail, all in the southern section of Los Padres, southeast of San Luis Obispo.

The East Coast has Acadia National Park, on an island just south of Ellsworth, Maine. Seawall Campground sits at the southern end of the island, so it often sees less of a crowd than the campsites near Bar Harbor. A short stroll from Seawall takes you to the rocky shore, where fishing access can be found everywhere. Acadia also offers something not seen in many places: sea-cliff rock climbing. According to Acadia’s Information Park Ranger, Wanda Moran, all the climbing routes will be open this summer.

A cool destination around Lake of the Ozarks is the Cotter Trout Dock fishing camp on Smith Island, at the confluence of the White and Buffalo rivers. Anglers who camp here make day-long, guided forays along both, and have very good chances for a bonanza of brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout in the cold White River, and for some serious smallmouth in the warmer Buffalo.

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“We should have good, high water through September, because the Army Corps of Engineers is being prudent about water releases from the dam into the White River,” says Debbie Gamble, co-operator of Cotter Trout Dock. “We should be able to do a lot of drift fishing for trout.” She adds that 30-fish days are not unusual, and the brown trout can get big—upwards of five or six pounds, with a few fish going to eight—a massive trout anywhere in America.

Wildlife watchers who sometimes think that Rocky Mountain National Park seems to be a bit overrun with people who shout about or at every animal they see should keep moving northeast to Colorado State Forest, in the Medicine Bow Range. The state forest has less than half the acreage of Rocky Mountain, but it’s got great backcountry camping on what are called “dispersed sites.”

Paul Tessier / iStockphoto.com Best alternative to Yellowstone: While there are four areas of developed campsites in the Colorado State Forest, the 60-odd first-come, first-serve "dispersed" sites scattered around the County Road 41 and the Bockman, Montgomery Pass and Ruby Jewel road areas provide some of the best seclusion and allow for spur-of-the-moment access to adventure.

“A lot of our visitors are repeat users, but the state forest is still a bit unknown to some folks on the Front Range,” says Kent Minor, the manager for Colorado State Forest.

As for as wildlife watching, Minor says, any of the backcountry roads, where most of the dispersed camp sites are located, offer good chances to see elk, moose, deer and occasional black bears, among much other fauna. The dedicated moose-viewing platform off County Road 41 usually doesn’t get crowded. “On any day I can see as many or more moose here in the state forest than in other forests or parks elsewhere in Colorado,” Minor says.

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