New River Trail State Park, Virginia

We've been threatening to escape the noisy fireworks that go all night in our neighborhood near Charlotte, NC on July 4th for about 8 years. This year, we finally did it and a week before the July 4th, I was able to reserve the last available tent site at New River Trail State Park in Virginia.

Best 4th of July ever! Somehow we scored the BEST site in the Mill Race Campground over July 4th weekend. It was SO beautiful and you can camp right beside the river.

We spent 2 nights at this VERY nice state park and used it as a testing ground for our brand new backpacking gear before leaving the park on Saturday for our first overnight on the Appalachian Trail.

All 5 of us slept in Eno's hung near the river. Plenty of trees for your hang!

Mill Race Campground

This campground is for tent campers only - so you won't have to deal with noisy RVs. If you're a car camper accustomed to a bath house, don't let the "primitive" sites scare you away. They have very nice latrines a short walk away. If you don't mind missing a shower or two, you'll do just fine.We warmed a little water on our camp stove and were able to wash up and wash hair at our campsite. Other people bathed in the river - but something about that doesn't seem actually clean to me.

Mill Race Campground offers very nice wagons that you can pull to your car to help tote all your gear down to your site. Easy peasy.

Canoeing and Biking

Just a few steps away from the campground, the park has a very nice camp store at Foster Falls where you rent bikes and canoes. We paid $35 per canoe for the shuttle upstream and LOVED floating down the river for about 2 hours. Peaceful, easy and beautiful. And after we canoed for 2 hours, we rented bikes and biked about 8 miles on the New River Trail - an easy trail with about a 2% grade. But, the canoeing was WAY better than the biking - you get a way better river experience for a lot less energy!