Mount Sunapee State Park's beach is sand under a wooded ridge with the lake in front of it, a boat launch and rentals at the park, and in winter the ski trails cut down that same slope at Mount Sunapee Resort. Sunapee Harbor runs cruises on the lake.
The park's own campground is tent camping only, lean-tos and platforms, so the van doesn't sleep there. Pillsbury State Park is the overnight after a Sunapee day, a primitive woods campground with no hookups and a dump station. Take a standard site, one RV per pad, because the remote sites are walk-in or canoe-to. Reserve that pad before you count on a beach weekend.
Quechee Gorge and the Upper Valley
The overlook at Quechee Gorge puts you 165 feet above the Ottauquechee River on US-4. Quechee State Park is the close overnight, with sites that fit large RVs, a dump station, and no hookups, open Memorial Day weekend through the second Monday in October. A longer Vermont trip starts on the Vermont side.
The Northern Rail Trail leaves Lebanon along the old Mascoma River towpath, through Enfield and Canaan and past Mascoma Lake. You can ride or walk it out of town. Hanover and Dartmouth are just upriver from Lebanon, and New London and Claremont are the other towns in the valley.
Storrs Pond Recreation Area is on the Hanover line. Electrical hookup is for RVs no larger than 50 feet, with a dump station, and camping runs mid-May through Columbus Day. If you need more sleeping room or a longer rig than a campervan, look at RVs for rent in Lebanon.
Woodstock in Vermont and Mount Ascutney make a second Vermont day, an observation tower and a hang-glider launch over the Connecticut River Valley. Sleep at Mount Ascutney State Park if you keep going, a dump station and no hookups.
Mount Cardigan
Mount Cardigan is a treeless granite summit stacked with cairns, with Monadnock, the White Mountains, Camel's Hump, and Pleasant Mountain on the horizon. Cardigan Mountain State Park has no van camping. The gate closes around the end of October, and after that it is a quarter-mile walk in from outside the gate.
Wildwood and Lost River Gorge
NH-112 follows the Wild Ammonoosuc into the Moosilauke corner of the White Mountain National Forest, through Kinsman Notch. Wildwood Campground has wooded sites along the river, first-come, no hookups, open mid-May to mid-October.
Lost River Gorge is a walk through boulder caves and past the gorge mouth on that same road. Reservations are required for a timed arrival, May through October, as of September 2026.
Franconia Notch and the Kancamagus are the next range over, and that is the New Hampshire trip proper.