Off the Van Buren boat ramp, Taylorsville Lake opens in coves you can paddle all afternoon. Taylorsville is the weekend lake loop out of Louisville, the lake you come back to through the season. Sunset from the ramp hits the lake surface, then the ridge above it. A horse trail follows that ridge and looks down on the same water, and you can ride that ridge after you paddle.
The campground at Mount Eden is the overnight on that lake, and it is the first night out of Louisville. You stay put after the paddle instead of driving back into town for the night. The paddle ends at the same lake where you sleep.
Kentucky State Parks lists about 45 electric-and-water RV sites at the Mount Eden campground, plus 15 primitive sites, 10 equestrian sites, and a dump station. The season runs early April through mid-December. Sites book on Reserve America, and summer Saturdays and Derby week go early.
Closer to downtown, the trails at Jefferson Memorial Forest run under a hardwood canopy. They are the closest trails to downtown Louisville, and Tom Wallace Lake has a rebuilt boardwalk and kayak launch in that same forest. The Horine Reservation is tent-only, with walk-in tent camping behind a coded gate off Holsclaw Hill Road.
Kentucky Derby week at Churchill Downs
On the first Saturday in May, Churchill Downs fills its lots with sprinter vans and RVs under the twin spires. Oaks is the Friday card, and Thurby is when those lots start filling for the weekend.
Churchill Downs sells advance parking passes by vehicle class, with a sprinter-size van as its own mailed pass for Oaks and Derby days. The pass covers race-day parking. If you need more sleeping space than a high-roof van, look at RVs for rent in Louisville.
Derby Park Campground & RV Park sells RV sites about a mile from the track for the week, and as of September 2026 the Kentucky Exposition Center RV lot takes wait-list requests only. Derby week and Thurby compete for the same vans and the same pads across the metro, including the Taylorsville loop. Book that pad before you book the van.
Whiskey Row, Bardstown, and Bernheim
Whiskey Row downtown is copper stills and tasting rooms behind the storefronts, and Bardstown is a distillery day out of town. Distillery days have no camping tied to them, so you sleep at Taylorsville Lake or Otter Creek.
Bernheim suggests $15 a car for non-members to walk the Forest Giants Trail, where Mama Loumari, a house-tall troll built from recycled wood, is seated against a tree.
Otter Creek Outdoor Recreation Area
From Otter Creek you look out over the Ohio River from the bluff campground road. Mixed electric and water hookups are in the trees above the river, and Meade County operates the park. Next door, the General George Patton Museum of Leadership at Fort Knox is free. It is open Tuesday through Friday and the first and third Saturday each month.
Red River Gorge and the Daniel Boone National Forest are eastern Kentucky, and the Kentucky campervan page covers that trip.