Mount Greylock is the high point of Massachusetts, and from the overlook at 3,491 feet the Berkshire ridgelines drop away. On a clear day the view runs 90 miles. The van night is in the woods below at October Mountain State Forest, a short walk from Shermerhorn Gorge on the Gorge Trail.
October Mountain's pads take tents and RVs mid-May through mid-October. Massachusetts DCR charges $17 a night for residents and $54 for non-residents as of September 2026, with showers and a dump station on site, and the RV pads have no electricity. Lock the overnight first through ReserveAmerica, then rent the van.
Summer weekends collide with Tanglewood in Lenox, where the Boston Symphony Orchestra plays its concert season. Tanglewood crowds and ridge campers compete for the same vans and the same October Mountain sites.
The day on the mountain is the auto road to the summit. Massachusetts DCR prohibits vehicles over 22 feet on the Mount Greylock Auto Roads as of September 2026, and the road is open mid-May through late October. Sperry Road Campground is hike-in only, two miles from the summit, so the van does not sleep up there. If you need more length or sleeping space than a van, look at Massachusetts RV rentals.
The Mohawk Trail
Drive the Mohawk Trail on Route 2 through the northern Berkshires, an auto road built between 1912 and 1914. The named stop is the Hairpin Turn, a near-180-degree switchback cut into the mountainside in 1914, 1,700 feet up, looking over the Hoosac Valley and Mount Greylock. Leaves peak early to mid-October, right at the tail of camping season.
Savoy Mountain State Forest is the DCR forest on this corridor. Massachusetts DCR lists tent sites and log cabins. The van night stays at October Mountain.
The Big E in West Springfield
September fills the West Springfield fairgrounds with the Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, a working New England agricultural fair. Self-contained campers park in rows at Gate 9.
The fair sells camper parking daily for self-contained units, limited and first come, cash at the gates as of September 2026. It is parking, not a campground.
The Cape, Plymouth, Boston, and Worcester
Nickerson State Park and the National Seashore are on the Cape Cod campervan page, and the islands are off that shore.
South of the metro, the overnight is Myles Standish State Forest, on the Plymouth page. The canal shore lives there too.
The Boston metro splits the overnight by which side of the city you start from. Boston has Winter Island in Salem, and Quincy has Wompatuck State Park. Andover has Harold Parker State Forest, and Cambridge runs the Route 2 corridor west, with no campground of its own.
Wells State Park in Sturbridge is the central Massachusetts overnight, on the Worcester page. Old Sturbridge Village sits next to it.
New Hampshire and Vermont continue the ridge north of the Mohawk Trail. Connecticut and Rhode Island pick up south of the Pioneer Valley and the Cape. West of Greylock, the next state is New York.