Walk down from the blockhouses at Fort Abraham Lincoln and you are in On-A-Slant Village. The Heart River meets the Missouri under that bluff, and reconstructed Mandan earthlodges fill the grass on those bottoms, with the Custer House still on the rise. You tour the village on your own in summer and walk the house as living history, then sleep on the river loop at the foot of the slope.
Summer is the camping season here. Winter still works for a walk or for skiing, just not for a van overnight at most of these pads.
The campground is on the river, and sites book on a 95-day window through North Dakota Parks and Recreation as of September 2026, and every vehicle needs a state park entrance permit year-round, on top of the campsite. Book the pad first, then the van.
If you need more sleeping space than a campervan, look at North Dakota RV rentals for this overnight.
For a first night inside Bismarck, General Sibley Park is the city campground on the Missouri. The State Capitol and the North Dakota Heritage Center take an afternoon in town.
Cross Ranch State Park
Old-growth cottonwoods shade the Missouri bottoms at Cross Ranch State Park, and bison graze the nature preserve next to it. The campground is in that shade with the river right there, and cabins and yurts book on the same state park window.
Lake Sakakawea State Park and Garrison Dam
Open water and shortgrass drop away from the visitor center overlook at Lake Sakakawea State Park, and the Garrison Dam intake structure is out in the distance. The state park campground is on that shore for a boating weekend, and the dam is at Garrison. Below the dam, the Corps' Downstream Campground on the east bank of the Missouri has sewer and electric.
West of Garrison, Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Medora are the Badlands trip.
Beaver Creek Recreation Area on Lake Oahe
Mixed-grass prairie runs down to Beaver Bay at Beaver Creek Recreation Area, a Corps shore on Lake Oahe south of Bismarck. A boat ramp and docks handle the bay. It is about 53 miles south of town on Highway 1804, and sites are reservable up to the day you arrive as of September 2026.
Knife River Indian Villages and Fort Mandan
Knife River Indian Villages keeps a reconstructed earthlodge on the bottomland where the Knife meets the Missouri near Stanton. The walk is the confluence and the lodge.
Downriver in Washburn, Fort Mandan reconstructs the log-and-mud fort where Lewis and Clark wintered in 1804. The interior common room is furnished for that winter, the season the expedition met Sacagawea. It is staffed daily May 27 through September 30, and by appointment otherwise. Neither site has camping.
East of Bismarck, Fargo is the Sheyenne valley and the Red River.