A beach week at Indiana Dunes puts you on Lake Michigan's southern shore, behind a 200-foot dune and more than three miles of sand. The dune climbs straight off the water. Wind off the lake keeps the sand moving, and the water stays cold long after the air has warmed.
This is Indiana's only overnight on the big lake, and two parks share the shoreline. Indiana Dunes National Park charges a per-vehicle entrance fee, and Indiana Dunes State Park keeps its own gate with an out-of-state rate. Dunewood is the national park's drive-in loop, with no hookups, a dump station, and a season from early April through early November. The state park holds the electric loop, which is the overnight if you want power, and its guarded swim beach closes after Labor Day.
The Dunes campgrounds and the Notre Dame weekend are on the South Bend campervan page. From Illinois, Chicago campervan trips already use this shore. The next regions are a day's drive south, on SR-46 into the hills and on US-36 toward Sugar Creek. From Indianapolis, those two roads are the first-night runs.
Brown County, Patoka Lake, and the Ohio River hills
Fog fills the ravines on October mornings, and a 90-foot fire tower looks over the ridges in color. Those October weekends book out, as do holiday weekends at state parks across Indiana. RVs and trailers use the west entrance on SR-46, where the north gate's covered bridge has a nine-foot clearance and a three-ton limit.
If you need more sleeping space or a taller rig, an Indiana RV is the other rental. Sleep on the ridge, at Monroe Lake, and in Hoosier National Forest through Bloomington.
Patoka Lake is an 8,800-acre reservoir on a 25,800-acre property, with electric camping in seven recreation areas. The loops spread around the water. This is the shoreline overnight in the southern hills, south of the Brown County ridges, when the trip is a lake week rather than a ravine walk.
At Spring Mill State Park, a pioneer village stands next to the mouth of Twin Caves, where the boat tour launches into the spring. The Grissom Memorial is another stop on that loop. Electric and full-hookup sites are in the river-bottom behind that.
Clifty Falls drops toward the Ohio at Madison. The overnight is electric or non-electric, and Brough's Tunnel is closed indefinitely after a rockslide. Clifty Falls is the last Indiana overnight before the river corridor continues toward Louisville and Cincinnati.
Turkey Run, Shades, and Sugar Creek
Sandstone cliffs drop into ravine streambeds along Sugar Creek, with ladders, stairways, and a suspension bridge over the water. Canoes and tubes drift the creek below. Turkey Run holds the electric loop as the overnight, and Shades is the quieter non-electric one in the same bottoms, humid in summer.
Sleep on Sugar Creek through Indianapolis. Leave the trailhead lots for the day hike, and come back to the loop at night.
The Indianapolis 500 and the metro
The Speedway infield fills with rigs before dawn on race morning, a camping village around the oval. Month-of-May camping at the Speedway sells out months ahead as of September 2026. That weekend collides with every campground within an hour of Indianapolis, the same vans and the same sites. Book the Speedway lot or a public site first, then the van.
North of the oval, Carmel is the suburb overnight. The White River county campground is the close pad for that stay. Use it when the Speedway lots are gone.
Northeast of Indianapolis, Shipshewana is a flea-market day of buggies and shops, not a camping weekend of its own. The night is Pokagon State Park's electric loop on Lake James. The refrigerated twin-track toboggan run there operates weekends from the Friday after Thanksgiving through February. Across the state line, Michigan campervan trips cover the lakes on that side.