Book the Army Corps campground at Franklin Lock and the Caloosahatchee ends up on nearly every side of you. W.P. Franklin North sits on a piece of ground the river almost encircles, out at the lock in Alva, where the water is wide and slow and pleasure boats stack up waiting on the chamber most of the afternoon. Get the pad before you get the van. There are 29 of them, the coast keeps no public campground to fall back on, and the van is the booking you can hang on whatever dates the loop gives you.
Recreation.gov lists 29 RV sites and 8 boat sites, all on 50-amp electric and water, with a boat ramp, a dump station, and a fishing pier, about 10 miles east of Fort Myers. People drift out to that pier once the heat comes off. The same listing puts the gate at sunrise to sunset, so time the drive back from the coast. The Corps charges $30 a day for the RV and boat sites as of August 2026.
The pads are all reservable, and the window opens 180 days ahead and closes three days before arrival, so the campground is the part of this trip that runs out first. Lovers Key, Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel are days you drive to and come back from, so nothing on the coast covers you if the loop is full.
The boat sites are worth knowing about even if you are arriving on wheels. They get the same power and water as the pads, which means a share of your neighbors pull in off the river, and the whole place runs on fishing hours rather than checkout hours.
Fifty amps is also the difference between sleeping and lying there. Southwest Florida nights in summer barely cool off, the humidity stays with them, and a van's air conditioner wants shore power if it is going to run until morning. Spring and late fall are the easy months for that reason, not because the beaches change.
That is the trade on this coast. The beachfront between Fort Myers Beach and Bonita is day-use parks and private resorts, and the public campsite is up the river.
The pads are not uniform, and each site listing carries its own length, so read the one you are booking rather than assuming any van fits anywhere. If the group needs more berths than a campervan gives you, an RV out of Fort Myers uses the same loops.
Lovers Key State Park, the Gulf day
Lovers Key is the beach you drive to, out on the barrier islands between Fort Myers Beach and Bonita Beach. The boardwalks are the good part of it. They run out over mangrove and back bay, over water that usually has something moving in it, and then the tree line quits and the open Gulf sand starts.
The park runs 8 a.m. to sundown and charges $8 per vehicle for two to eight people as of August 2026. There is no camping in it.
Load the van's fridge before you leave the campground. A new concessionaire is still being selected, so as of August 2026 there is nothing to buy at the park, no rental chairs, no paddling gear and no lunch. The tram no longer runs either, so you get to the sand on foot or on a bike from the entry points.
On the way down, Koreshan State Park in Estero holds the settlement the Koreshan Unity built along the Estero River, white frame buildings and planted grounds you can walk in an hour. Plan it as a day stop. South of Bonita, Naples keeps its own overnight, and the rest of the Florida coast picks up from there.
Sanibel and the Ding Darling Wildlife Drive
The other day runs west, out McGregor Boulevard under the royal palms and over the causeway to Sanibel. The island lies east to west instead of north to south, which is the reason the shells pile up along it the way they do, and why people are out on the Gulf beaches bent over at first light.
The Wildlife Drive through J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge is a four-mile one-way road, $10 per vehicle, closed every Friday as of August 2026. Go early and go slow. The road is one lane with pull-offs along the impoundments, and low tide is when the wading birds come out onto the flats to work.
There is no public campground on the island, so Sanibel stays a day trip.