Price Lake at Julian Price Campground has rhododendron on the bank and the Linn Cove Viaduct curling around Grandfather Mountain across the water, and fall color hits those same banks. From there the trip is the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Lock the overnight first, because the van is the second booking. Parkway campgrounds take reservations up to six months ahead, with some first-come sites, and they stay open late May through late October. None of them have electric hookups.
The day from that pad is Grandfather Mountain's Mile High Swinging Bridge, a summit-road drive to the parking area and then a walk. The entrance road bars any RV over 28 feet and any hinged vehicle. If you need more sleeping space than a campervan, look at RV rentals in North Carolina.
Linville Falls Campground is the other Parkway night, a pad above the gorge and a backup if you roll in late and Julian Price is gone. You walk to the falls and into the gorge from there. Some trails in the area remain closed after Hurricane Helene.
Moses Cone Memorial Park has no camping of its own. You walk the carriage roads around Flat Top Manor and the Southern Highland Craft Guild shop, then sleep back at Julian Price. Boone and Blowing Rock are the towns when you want a night off the Parkway.
When you want hookups in the High Country, New River State Park keeps trailer and RV sites at its river accesses, some with electric, water, and sewer. The New River is a National Wild and Scenic River, and you paddle it from the same pads you sleep on.
Carolina Beach, Cape Lookout, and the Croatan
You sleep at Carolina Beach State Park on trailer and RV sites with hookups, and Venus flytraps grow in the park. Fort Fisher is the day next door, a four-wheel-drive beach with no camping of its own.
You reach Cape Lookout's lighthouse and undeveloped beach by water. Passenger ferries leave Harkers Island. The vehicle ferry from Davis is how the van reaches South Core Banks.
Cedar Point's Tideland Trail runs a boardwalk through the salt marsh, and the campground behind it has electric sites. Neuse River Campground at Flanners Beach is the other Croatan pad. Both can close ahead of hurricanes, typically June through mid-November.
Bear Island at Hammocks Beach State Park is four miles of undeveloped Atlantic beach, and you reach it by passenger ferry. Camping is tent sites only, backpack or paddle-in. The van stays on the mainland.
Lake James in the foothills
You come to Lake James for a foothills lake weekend, at Paddy's Creek or the Catawba River access. Camping is tent-only, with no trailer or RV sites, so you spend the day on the lake and the van sleeps elsewhere.
Old-growth cypress and Spanish moss hang over the blackwater at Lassiter Swamp in Merchants Millpond State Park, and alligators live there at the northern edge of their range. The tent and trailer campground is closed for construction as of September 2026, so there is no van night there.
From the Smokies to the Outer Banks
The park's North Carolina side is the Great Smoky Mountains trip. Keep south of Linville on the Parkway and you are on the Asheville trip. Hanging Rock is the Winston-Salem night.
From Concord you get Charlotte Motor Speedway and the Uwharries. From Charlotte you get Lake Norman. From Holly Springs you get Jordan Lake, from Raleigh Falls Lake, and from Durham Kerr Lake.
Hatteras and Ocracoke are the Outer Banks's. A drive west continues into Tennessee. North of the High Country is Virginia, and the southern coast continues into South Carolina.