What are the Best Virginia Beach Campgrounds

If camping is your thing and you love to pitch a tent, fish in an open stream or trek miles of trails consider Virginia Beach as a camping trip sometime in the near future.

Besides being a great vacation spot for families, Virginia Beach offers a wide variety of popular campgrounds, RV campsites, RV sites, and tentsite options where you and your family could enjoy some time together in nature.

Some of the individual campsites, backcountry camping are considered primitive campsites but there's hundreds of campsites and tent camping sites to choose from depending on what your tastes are.

Camping along Virginia’s coastline has its own unique appeal, but there are plenty of options for camping in the state.

You can enjoy the smell of salt air, hike among a maritime forest, paddle an estuary, take a walk astride the beach, or camp anywhere along the coast. It's also a great place for history lovers who want to learn about American history.

There are lots of good camping options with major facilities in Virginia, including some remote ones near False Cape in Virginia Beach; quieter spots on the Eastern Shore, and even on the big tidal rivers feeding into Chesapeake Bay.

With a selection of various coastal campgrounds highlighting more than 2,000 campsites combined you're sure to figure out which will be the best one for you to create the perfect Virginia Beach camping experience be it a holiday weekend or anytime.

Check these popular Virginia Beach campgrounds below and start packing up your gear, grill, and much more or book a place that has major facilities.

False Cape State Park

To see the unspoiled wild Virginia coastline visit this untamed peninsula where nature reigns and amenities are limited, and miles of trails and hiking trails do discover False Cape State Park.

Overnight campers and outdoor enthusiasts visiting this Virginia state park must arrive by foot, bicycle, or boat. There is no public vehicular access. Furthermore, you must go through Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge to reach False Cape.

Once you arrive you will be up close and personal with a wild life coastline where dunes rise, ponies run free, there's plenty of popular hiking trails, abundant wildlife, and windswept maritime forests shade in the interior. On the Atlantic side, the park offers some of the best beach combing in the Old Dominion and other sites to enjoy for history buffs.

There are four camping areas available for tenters – two along the bay side of False Cape and two on the Atlantic side of the peninsula. Be caution as mosquitoes and biting flies can be an issue when tent camping here and when going down biking trails.

The park offers 12 tent sites, drinking water is available in three locations. Bring your own water containers. Also, open fires are not permitted; camp stoves may be used for cooking.

Outdoor lovers can reconnect with nature here at False Cape and the trail system is fantastic. Check out the Atlantic, Back Bay, and the inland wooded sections via footpaths, biking trails, natural bridges and the boardwalks when exploring the area.

Pathways in the park cover 15 miles open to hikers for miles of trails and bicyclers can use most of the biking trails, too.

Do plan carefully before camping here and before setting out, read the False Cape State Park camping information for specific details to make sure you are ready as there aren't a lot of major facilities here.

Nearby Attractions and Outdoor Activities:

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Cape Henry Lighthouse

Military Aviation Museum

Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

First Landing State Park

Another wonderful place to go that has special features for camping near Virginia Beach is the First Landing State Park. It's known for its beach frontage and its convenient to many Virginia Beach attractions.

First Landing continues to be Virginia's most popular state park thanks to its beautiful scenery, unspoiled beaches, miles of trails and biking trails and its great location — beach frontage overlooking the entrance to Chesapeake Bay, where it melds with the Atlantic Ocean.

The campground here is in an attractive oceanic setting for overnight campers, amid dunes that give way to a scenic maritime live oak hammock.

The park's beach has 1.25 miles of beachfront, looking out on Chesapeake Bay, a wide sand beach gives way to sea oat covered dunes that rise to 75 feet in elevation, the highest point in the far east of Virginia.

Two boardwalk beach accesses cross the dunes and let beachcombers and others enjoy the attractive locale where ships pass regularly in the distance.

The campground — with water and electric sites throughout — is strung out parallel to Chesapeake Bay and US 60. It offers a real mix of sites and most of them are good. The campground is overlain on a series of wooded dunes that offer hills and vertical variation. Beautiful wind sculpted oak trees and miniature cypress swamps add scenic variety to the camping area.

The sites closest to the bay have less vegetation for shade but get better breezes. The bay sites are the most popular and the campground fills daily in summer and on holiday weekends. Reservations are highly recommended.

While here enjoying watch the massive ships plying the bay as well as abundant wildlife in the park. The biologically rich area was named a National Natural Landmark in 1965. Moreover, you can explore the natural vastness on its major trail system of 19 miles that draws locals for day use as well as tent campers from all over.

Overnight campers often use First Landing State Park as an oceanic base camp to explore other attractions of the Virginia Beach area.

Nearby Attractions and Outdoor Activities:

Virginia Legends Walk

Cape Henry Lighthouse

Virginia Beach Horseback (Seasonal)

Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center

Kiptopeke State Park

Kiptopeke State Park is located at the South end of the Eastern Shore and is a wonderful place to camp as it offers a nice bluff-backed unspoiled beach and plenty of outdoor activities for outdoor enthusiasts.

Kiptopeke State Park features more than a mile of bayfront, good camping, abundant wildlife, quality beach and bay access and other amenities such as being a major birding locale on the Eastern Flyway. Kiptopke State Beach makes for an excellent place for outdoor enthusiasts to spend time on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

As mentioned Kiptopeke features more than a mile of sandy bayfront with high bluffs dropping down to rolling wooded dunes then reaching an unspoiled beach overlooking Chesapeake Bay. The center of the bayfront is a developed area.

Other outdoor adventures and historic sites for history buffs that include seeing old concrete ships from World War II located as a breakwater about 150 yards offshore when you decide to camp or visit here.

The park campground is a terrific destination and has tent campsites for tent campers and RV campers in need of an RV park.

The campground is divided into two areas, one for RV campers who want an RV park and the other for tent campers. The RV area has campground amenities like electric, water and sewer campsites. The tent sites do not have water, electricity and sewer, but are cheaper. Two large bathhouses serve the campground. Reservations are highly recommended at Kiptopeke during the summer. From Memorial Day through Labor Day, the park is full every weekend and usually on nice weather weekdays.

Kiptopeke is known as an important birding area and is situated on the Eastern Flyway and birders crowd the park in September and October. Four miles of park trails combine boardwalks with standard footpaths.

Besides birding, fishing is also popular here, whether you use the park pier or launch your own boat or for jet skiing. The park fishing pier has 1,000 feet of space and is lit at night to attract fish.

Nearby Attractions and Outdoor Activities:

Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge

Cape Charles Beach

Cape Charles Museum

Chesapeake Bay Tunnel

Chippokes State Park

Camping at the tidal portion of James River south of Williamsburg is the beautiful Chippokes State Park.

Campers and visitors had here because of the bucolic coastal farm with a charming beach and a true camping oasis.

Chippokes State Park stands on a hill overlooking the wide, picturesque and tidal lower James River. The tract is purportedly a part of American history as it is America's oldest continually worked farm, operating since 1619.

The dramatic setting and camping oasis is worthy of the noble plantation building and the surrounding gardens on site. The Italianate brick home, which you can tour, was built in the 1850s another part of American history.

The shoreline of the James River is sandy, lying below a bluff and although narrow, the sandy strip is an unspoiled beach and goes a long way – and it will be a lot less crowded than other destinations. Small shells are embedded in the sands. Access the beach from the rear of the visitor center or along the College Run Trail and enjoy many outdoor adventures and recreational opportunities.

As for camping, the quiet park features two campgrounds a little inland from the James River, in a mix of pines and hardwoods. Paved pull-ins make parking your car or RV for overnight RV camping easier. Bathhouses serve both campgrounds. Campground A is shadier and preferred by tent campers as one of the best tent camping sites around while Campground B is set up as an RV campground area for RVs, though all campsites have such campground amenities like electric and water.

If you are not in the mood for the beach, the park also has other popular activities such as swimming in the Olympic-sized swimming pool, plus hiking trails that trace old farm roads. The park's farm museum is also a fun  Located on the grounds, the displays include antique farm implements, logging tools, cotton raising and ginning gadgets, everything from seeding to cultivating and processing that which grown from the ground. A special section is devoted to items used in the farming home life.

Another added plus when visiting here is that historic Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg are located across the James River. A free ferry is located at nearby Scotland, just a short drive from Chippokes State Park, allowing easy access across the James.

Nearby Attractions and Outdoor Activities:

Bacons Castle

Colonial Williamsburg

Historic Jamestown

Fort Boykin

Tons of Fun

You don't have to look far for tons of outdoor fun, or even RV parks near Virginia Beach, because there's plenty and this is just the main ones.

There's a campgrounds for almost every nature-loving activity you can think of, not to mention historic sites and attractions that highlight the area's 400 years of American history.

Whether its the oceanfront campgrounds that lure you to Virginia Beach – where the first English colony was established by Jamestown settlers – or something more rustic, you won't be disappointed with Virginia Beaches amazing campgrounds and things for history buffs that await campers and of all sorts.

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