Assateague's horses use the campground as pasture. They come through the drive-in loops at low light, and you sleep with the Atlantic on one side of the dunes and the bay marsh on the other. Keep 40 feet from the horses. From Oceanside you hear surf all night, and Bayside looks over the marsh, with B Loop posted as a Generator-Free Zone.
The National Seashore's loops open six months out on recreation.gov, and Assateague State Park's open a year out on the Maryland system. You sleep in a drive-in site, then walk over the dunes to the ocean. Ocean City is the town next door, and when it fills, both campgrounds fill with it. Lock the site before you book the van.
Oceanside Loop 1 on the Seashore closes mid-November through mid-March. Loop 2 stays first-come in the off-season. Mid-summer brings greenhead flies and heat, plus Atlantic hurricane season.
Deep Creek Lake and Swallow Falls
Muddy Creek Falls drops 53 feet through a hemlock gorge at Swallow Falls. The walk is 1.25 miles, and you see the drop from trail level with hemlocks over the water. Deep Creek Lake is the other half of the same western weekend, swimming and boating along a long shoreline under Meadow Mountain.
The van overnight is Meadow Mountain Campground inside Deep Creek Lake State Park, in the trees above the water. Meadow Mountain stays open mid-April through mid-December, with a dump station and freshwater fill on site. Nights in western Maryland stay cool even in summer, which is why this works as a July lake weekend when Assateague is flies and heat.
Swallow Falls camps in the woods on the Garrett and Tolliver loops. Individual sites go up to a 30-foot trailer or RV, as of September 2026, so if you need more length or sleeping room, look at Maryland RV rentals.
Cunningham Falls, Catoctin, and Greenbrier
Off I-70, a waterfall trail drops through Catoctin Mountain hardwood and ends at Cunningham Falls in the creek below. The parks are closer to Baltimore and Washington DC than Assateague is, so this is the inland weekend when you do not have island days.
Owens Creek at Catoctin Mountain Park is tent-site camping only. The park sends RV campers to Cunningham Falls State Park next door. The van night is Cunningham Falls, or Greenbrier State Park down the same corridor.
William Houck at Cunningham Falls runs April through October with electric sites, a dump station, and freshwater fill, and the park lets a rented rig be delivered and set up before you arrive, arranged through the park office. Greenbrier is a forest campground on a 42-acre lake with a swimming beach, electric hookups, and a dump station.
Point Lookout
The Potomac meets the Chesapeake at the tip of southern Maryland, a restored lighthouse on the point and Civil War earthworks along the river. This was a prisoner-of-war site. People fish the pier and walk the earthworks, then sleep on the peninsula.
Summer is humid, with mosquitoes, and the peninsula takes tropical-storm weather when that season runs. Tulip Loop keeps 26 full-hookup sites for self-contained campers only, and that loop has no restrooms.
Baltimore and the states around Maryland
Patapsco, Elk Neck, and Susquehanna are the Baltimore-side overnights, on the Baltimore campervan page. For a Washington DC trip, the nearest campervan page is Alexandria.
Delaware continues the same Atlantic shore as Assateague, on the Delaware campervan page. South of the Potomac, use Virginia campervan rentals.
North of the I-70 parks is Pennsylvania. West of Deep Creek is West Virginia.