The Paluxy at Glen Rose is a riverbed walk with dinosaur tracks under your feet and cypress on both banks. Dinosaur Valley State Park has the improved campground next to that river, and you walk the bed in the morning from camp. Glen Rose is the town beside the park, the Dinosaur Capital of Texas.
Stay on the improved loop, the one with water and electric. Walk-in and hike-in sites in the park are a different kind of night, and they do not fit a van. As of September 2026, Dinosaur Valley's campsites cap trailers at 35 feet on that loop because of winding roads and trees. If you need more length or sleeping space, look at RV rentals in Fort Worth.
Lock the pad before you book the van. The site is the first reservation, and the van is the second. Texas Parks and Wildlife lets you reserve overnight camping up to five months in advance, as of September 2026. The busy stretch runs March through mid-November, and summer nights on this river want those hookups and some shade.
Fort Worth Stockyards
The Fort Worth Herd walks Exchange Avenue on brick, longhorns moving through the Stockyards while you watch from the street. The Stockyards call this the world's only daily cattle drive, and they run it twice a day. There is no RV camping in the district, so you come in for the day and sleep at a pad.
If the weekend leans east of town, those nights belong to Dallas.
Benbrook Lake
Holiday Park is the hookup loop on Benbrook Lake, open shoreline with wooded bottoms running out to prairie, reached from US Highway 377. Use it for the first night when you want to stay in town. Bear Creek takes the overflow when Holiday is full. Holiday Park and Bear Creek both have utility hookups, and Holiday Park has a trailer dump station.
Book the site on Recreation.gov. Mustang Park is tent-only, so skip it for a van.
Granbury is a historic town down US Highway 377, and Possum Kingdom is the further-out lake if you keep going for another night on the water.
Lake Mineral Wells State Park
The sandstone conglomerate at Penitentiary Hollow stands 20 to 40 feet above the lake. The park calls it one of the few natural rock climbing venues in North Texas. The improved campground below has water and electric, and you sleep there to climb in the morning.
Check in at headquarters before you get on the rock. The park does not allow bouldering or free-climbing.
Texas Motor Speedway
Race weekends fill the infield and the trackside camping rows at Texas Motor Speedway. Treat the speedway pad as the overnight for those dates. Lock the track camping and expect Benbrook and the state parks to be full too. The speedway lists camping from tent sites to full hookups for event weekends in spring and fall.