Ideas for a short camping trip?

[voyager35]

I wanted to take my family away for a few days next week. Either in the middle of the week till the weekend, or something where we go for one week, but get back before Labor Day, I hate the holiday traffic.:burn:

Would like to go anywhere from Pa to Virginia. One requirement is that the place must be near some type of water so we can get some fishing time in. Salt or fresh is equally attractive.

Live in Ocean county area, so north or south is no big deal. Looking to go on a low budget, no fancy hotels or anything like that, mostly thinking about camping or renting a camper. Any advice?

[pinhead44]

Hither Hills campground at Montauk, have to get reservations ahead of time, nice family place, peaceful, right on the water.

[clamchucker]

You could camp at Island Beach if you have the permit, but I guess you know that already. Maybe you're looking for somewhere further away.

How about Cape May? Nice family place, campgrounds in the area, though not exactly on the water, but close.

[cowherder]

How about High point state park? Went there a while ago, think we camped on Sawmill lake or pond. Tent sites were like $20/night, cabins maybe $60/night. Can't beat that price, beautiful water and trails.

[bababooey]

Spruce run. Awesome lakeside camping, only $15/night, and you can't beat the wiper action, usually turning on now around sunrise and sunset.

[bunkerjoe4]

Here's a comprehensive list of state parks for folks who might be interested. Look for this to be added at the top of the main forum.

http://www.stateparks.com/usa.html

NJ State parks:
http://www.stateparks.com/nj.html

[DarkSkies]

I used to go to Cherrystone campground in Cheriton Va with some friends. Good times, lots of families and good fishin. Croakers are everywhere. Haven't been there in a while, but here's the link for the site, hope it's ok to post it.

http://www.cherrystoneva.com/

Campsites are around $30/night, cabins are around $50-60 depending on how they're set up, and you can rent a trailer if you want, though it can be expensive. When we went, they were just starting to rent the trailers, A/C, heat, ets, and they were all new.

Plus, you are close to the CBBT, some great fishin there also. Good luck.

[captnemo]

Great article in today's Star Ledger about camping the Delaware River.

State parks a big family attraction

Posted by Mark DiIonno (http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/about.html) August 23, 2008 9:03AM



The 12 cabins at Lake Ocquittunk are booked. So are most of the 24 tent sites. Over at the Shotwell area, business is good, too. Tent sites, platform sites (for those who are squeamish about the ground) and the enclosed lean-tos -- 36 in all -- are mostly spoken for through the rest of this year.

Stokes State Forest is open for business and thriving, even after a threat to close state parks last spring threw some people's vacation plans to the wind. But Gov. Jon Corzine decided to keep the parks open despite budget concerns, and the people who use the parks have come out -- just as they always do.

"My father brought us here to camp and I've come up here every year since I was 5," said Stan Yashay, a 47-year-old Linden fireman, who was at Lake Ocquittunk with his son, Scott, and their dog Gretel.

On this day -- one of clear blue skies and crisp temperatures more like New Jersey's late Septembers than August dog days -- Yashay wasn't camping. He and Scott came up from their home in Scotch Plains just to enjoy the day, and let Gretel splash around in the lake. The camping trip was the week before.

"We were right down there by the (Big Flatbrook) stream. It's a great site. You have to make reservations early, because everybody wants it."

To most, summer vacation in New Jersey means "down the Shore." Often overlooked is New Jersey's other coast, the Delaware, and the 35-mile contiguous stretch of great outdoors in the northwest corner of the state. Forty miles of recreational riverfront -- pristine, quiet and open to the public -- is roughly the same distance as Sandy Hook to Seaside.

The three state parks -- Worthington (6,584 acres), High Point (15,827 acres) and Stokes (16,067 acres) -- abut the 40,000-acre Delaware Water Gap national recreation area on the Jersey side. In acreage alone, the three parks are about 10 times bigger than Long Beach Island, but with 1/1000th of the people. Roughly.
And while the ocean certainly has its own allure, so does the tranquil woods, the stream and mountain lake.

Eric and Jill Hammarberg of Maplewood talked about this while having lunch with their three children alongside Lake Ocquittunk, where the only human voices they could hear were their own, and the only people they could see were kayaking in the distance.
They had a family-sized tent, and three mountain bikes leaning against a tall pine.

"Bikes, hikes, fires, mountains," said their son, Stowe, 14, in describing what he liked about camping.
No texting, iPods, hand-held video games, which the family disdains generally.

"They come with a book and a drawing pad and they're never bored," said Jill.

The family had just completed a 5¤½ hour hike up Sunrise Mountain, the second highest peak in New Jersey after High Point.
"From some of the ridges looking west, all you could see was green," said Eric, an architect who is a native of western Pennsylvania and a transplanted New Yorker. He and Jill, who is from Long Island, moved their family to Maplewood from Greenwich Village six years ago. Both were pleasantly surprised by the vastness of the New Jersey woodlands, and the family has previously camped at High Point and Allaire.

"It has given us a great appreciation of the state," Eric said.
"We were the king and queen of Jersey jokes," said Jill, a former designer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Now we are completely converted. We love where we live; we love the outdoor areas."

For the Van Sweden brothers, formerly of Wayne, but now of Sussex County, the Stokes cabin experience is also about passing an appreciation of the state down to their children.

"We have timeshares, so we go to the Outer Banks (North Carolina), Florida, Aruba," said Caryn, while floating in a kayak on the Ocquittunk shore. "But to show them what they have right here is important. It really is. I'm loving it."