Lake D'Arbonne opens across 15,250 acres of water, and the shoreline climbs into forested hills. Fishing and paddling fill the day on that water, and they fill a second day if you let them. Five birding trails climb those hills when you want ground under you, and two observation towers look back over the lake you just crossed.
Canyons cut through the hills above the water. You sleep on the improved loop at Lake D'Arbonne State Park in Farmerville, the public hookup overnight closest to Monroe.
Summer is hot and humid, mosquitoes work the shoreline, and a water-and-electric pad matters more than shade. Spring and fall ease off that heat, though early fall can still bring heavy rain from hurricane remnants.
Book a water-and-electric site through Louisiana State Parks. Do that before a fishing weekend fills the loop. If you need more sleeping space than a campervan gives you, Monroe also has RV rentals.
Inside Monroe, Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge puts a cypress-and-tupelo boardwalk over a 1,600-acre lake, with alligators and great blue herons off the Wildlife Pier.
Poverty Point World Heritage Site
From Monroe, the earthworks are the day a lake weekend does not replace. The ridges and mounds were laid down 3,400 years ago, and the largest is a five-story rise on open ground, with nothing around it built on that scale. It has been a World Heritage Site since 2014.
A tram loop runs the earthworks so the ridges read as one design from above. You walk after the tram, between the ridges, so the figure you just saw is now under your feet.
There is no camping on the World Heritage grounds. Sleep at Poverty Point Reservoir State Park, about 20 minutes from the mounds, on a water-and-electric loop with sewer on the premium sites. Book that pad for the night you do the earthworks.
Chemin-A-Haut State Park
Chemin-A-Haut State Park in Bastrop is the high bluff above Bayou Bartholomew. This is a creek weekend, not another lap of D'Arbonne. Kayaks and canoes pass 1,000-year-old cypress below the bluff. Rent a kayak or canoe for the paddle, then sleep on the hookup loop, with water, sewer, and electric on the pad.
When Lake D'Arbonne is full, Chemin-A-Haut is the other hookup overnight north of Monroe. Book that loop before you leave Monroe, because it is the overflow that still gives you a creek morning. The drive is a similar run north on US-165, with Jimmie Davis State Park on Caney Lake the farther water overnight.
Kisatchie National Forest, Caddo Lake, and Shreveport are on the Louisiana campervan page. Use that page when the trip leaves the Monroe parks.