The night is Rosehip, a first-come loop at mile 27 with 37 sites, water, and a boat launch on the grayling water below, but no hookups (Alaska State Parks). Sites run 20 dollars as of August 2026 (DNR fee schedule), and if it's full, Tors Trail at mile 39 is the fallback, with its trailhead right in the campground. Neither one takes a reservation. Rosehip, Tors Trail, and Red Squirrel fill in the order people pull in, so you are booking the van against dates and not against a site number; the only thing you can hold ahead up here is a public-use cabin through Reserve America, and a cabin is not a van pad.
In town, don't count on the Chena River campground. The state has it and its dump station closed for now (park status).
The two hikes split by how far you want to walk. Angel Rocks is a 3.5-mile round trip from mile 48.9 up to granite outcrops above the North Fork, and it's the one most people do; the Granite Tors loop is a 15-mile alpine day from mile 39 past the Plain of Monuments, where the pillars stand up to 100 feet high (Alaska State Parks). Bring bug repellent. Leave the bikes in town, because neither trail allows them.
At the end of the road, Chena Hot Springs Resort keeps the open-air rock lake, a gravel-bottomed pool fed by the springs. You don't have to stay to soak; a day pass runs 20 dollars for adults, and the resort's own campground has 24 first-come sites with water and a dump but no hookups, open May 15 to September 15 (Chena Hot Springs). Through the solstice the sky here never really goes fully dark, so aurora isn't a summer trip (Explore Fairbanks); the nights return by late August, and these same campgrounds sit far enough from town lights to catch them.
All three Chena campgrounds take rigs up to 40 feet (Alaska State Parks), so if you'd rather have a bathroom and more bed than a van, the Alaska RV options run the same loops.
The Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle
The other trip out of Fairbanks goes north, and it's the one you can only take from here. The Dalton Highway is the gravel haul road that supplies the North Slope oil fields, and the campervan version of it ends at the Arctic Circle sign and viewing deck around mile 115. That's nearly 200 miles from Fairbanks and five to seven hours each way (BLM), which makes it an overnight rather than a day trip.
Arctic Circle Campground sits right at the sign, with 19 gravel sites at 12 dollars a night as of August 2026, first come first served, and vault toilets and bear lockers but no water, power, or dump. You pay through the Recreation.gov app, so download it in Fairbanks, because cell service is gone long before the Yukon River. The only RV dump on the whole road is back at Five Mile Campground near mile 60, which has an artesian well and charges nothing (BLM).
If you'd rather point the van south, Denali National Park is 120 miles down the George Parks Highway (NPS), and that overnight has its own Denali campervan guide. The rest of the state's routes sit on the Alaska campervan hub.