Isle du Bois puts a campground loop behind a Ray Roberts cove, with trees standing in the water. Johnson Branch has that same morning on another shore of the lake, so you pick a unit and stay put. Paddle the cove, then walk back up to the van.
The Greenbelt Corridor takes the afternoon. It follows the Elm Fork of the Trinity River from the Ray Roberts dam toward Lewisville Lake, through prairie and bottomland. Stretches run in the trees, and other stretches open into grass. From a stay at Isle du Bois or Johnson Branch you hike it, bike it, or ride it on horseback, then come back to the same loop.
The Elm Fork is the river between Ray Roberts Lake and Lewisville Lake, and the Greenbelt follows it, so a Carrollton trip can be a Ray Roberts night or a Lewisville Lake night on the same stretch of river.
Busy season runs March through November, when the loops fill with people who came for the water and the trail. Both Isle du Bois and Johnson Branch have electric and water hookups. In summer those hookups are the stay, because afternoon heat on the lake is real. The rest of the year the loops are easy to book same-week, and the Greenbelt is still the walk.
Overnight reservations open five months in advance, and the most popular parks fill months ahead. Lock the Ray Roberts pad first, then book the van. As of September 2026 a burn ban covers the whole park, so cook on a containerized fuel stove and skip anything that produces ash.
Hickory Creek Park on Lewisville Lake
Hickory Creek Park lines the Lewisville Lake shore with electric loops in the grass and a boat ramp at the gate. People who stay here spend the day on that water, then come back to a powered site. You reach the park off I-35E through Lewisville.
Denton is the day from this shore, and this is the close campervan night out of Carrollton.
The overnight at Hickory Creek is an electric site, reserved on Recreation.gov. The park does not take walk-ups at the gate, and the primitive walk-in sites are closed as of September 2026, so you are not falling back on a tent pad. Book that electric loop first, then book the van that fits it. If you need more sleeping space than a campervan, look at RV rentals in Texas.
For a city lake night, Cedar Hill on Joe Pool Lake belongs to Dallas. Race weekends at Texas Motor Speedway are a Fort Worth trip.