Walk the Bear Mountain summit and the Appalachian Trail turns to gravel, with stone walls at the overlooks and Perkins Memorial Tower on the rock. Perkins Memorial Drive is the road up, and from the tower the Hudson and the Bear Mountain Bridge take up the view. That walk is part of the first Appalachian Trail section ever opened. A night in Harriman State Park is how you stay on the ridge.
Beaver Pond is Harriman's only drive-in campground, and it is the overnight that matches the ridge. Lake Welch's swim crowds fill it on summer weekends, and the noise carries into the loops, so lock the site before you book the van. Select sites take a trailer or RV up to 30 feet with no hookups, and the campground runs mid-April through mid-October as of September 2026, per ReserveAmerica. If you need more sleeping space than a campervan, start with New York RV rentals.
Storm King Art Center's monumental sculpture in a rolling meadow and West Point's gray stone above the river are the days near Newburgh.
Harriman keeps going into New Jersey, and that side of the park is a Newark campervan trip.
The Shawangunks and the Trapps
West of Middletown the Shawangunks open as a white cliff at the Trapps, with a Mohonk Preserve carriage road along the base and climbers on the rock above. That wall is the one people come back for, even if you only walk the carriage road and never touch the climb. Minnewaska State Park Preserve and Sam's Point take the other days on carriage roads and footpaths, and there is no camping inside the Minnewaska preserve.
The overnight next to the climbing is the Samuel F. Pryor III Shawangunk Gateway Campground, run by the American Alpine Club and Mohonk Preserve. It is the overflow when Beaver Pond is full, and it only fits a smaller van. The preserve's day fee is separate from the site. New Paltz is the town under the ridge, and the Catskills from Woodstock are a separate Woodstock campervan loop.
Bethel Woods
The hillside at Bethel Woods is the slope the 1969 Woodstock crowd stood on, now an amphitheater bowl with a museum off to one side. Historic Camping puts vans on those original festival grounds, on gravel pads with 50-amp hookups and water.
Camping runs May through October as of September 2026, per Bethel Woods. On concert weekends the show and the pad share the same dates, so book the site before the ticket. Monticello is the town on that side.
Hawk's Nest and the Upper Delaware
Hawk's Nest on NY 97 is the cliffside stretch of the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway, the road bent into S-curves with pull-offs and the river below. Narrowsburg is where the canoe outfitters work, and Port Jervis is the other town on the water. It is a float or a drive, with canoeing, rafting and fishing out of Narrowsburg, and the corridor has no campground directory of its own.