Camp on the sand where the Carp meets the Ottawa, at Fitzroy Harbour, the beach in the V of the two rivers. Fitzroy Provincial Park's family loops are in the white pine behind that beach, with electrical sites and a boat launch onto the Ottawa. You swim off that sand and sit by a fire under the pines. Pull-throughs are not offered, so if you need more sleeping space or a longer rig than those loops, look at Ottawa RV rentals.
Book the electrical site before the van. Ontario Parks accepts reservations up to five months in advance of the arrival date, and summer weekends on this river are worth grabbing when that window opens. As of September 2026, campsite-expansion work in Two Rivers campground brings weekday daytime noise and takes some sites out. Rideau River Provincial Park is the close-in first night if you are not driving out to Fitzroy Harbour.
Rideau River Provincial Park
From Kemptville you put a canoe on the Rideau Waterway and move past lock towns on a UNESCO canal, then sleep on a level, shaded bank at Rideau River Provincial Park. Ontario Parks calls the park only 40 minutes away from Ottawa, and the loops include pull-through and electrical sites. Muskie and bass are the fishing, and a motorboat works on the same water if you would rather not paddle.
The Rideau is slow and tree-lined here, and you can make a day of paddling and still be back at the van for dinner. Book the site first on the same Ontario Parks system. Gatineau Park is the forest overnight on the Quebec side.
Murphys Point Provincial Park on Big Rideau Lake
Murphys Point Provincial Park is camp and swim on the Big Rideau Lake shoreline, with the mouth of the Silver Queen mica mine in the trees above the water. The park runs car and RV camping on that shore, and Silver Queen Mine tours run from late June to Labour Day. The mine is an early-1900s mica working, a walk into the hill above the lake. In winter the campground closes and the hiking trails are groomed for cross-country skiing.
Calabogie is the other lake people name west of Ottawa. Algonquin's east side at Achray is the rest of Ontario.
The National Gallery and the Rideau Canal
Spend the day at the National Gallery of Canada and along the Rideau Canal, boats working through the downtown locks. There is day parking for both, and no overnight on the canal.
In winter, when the provincial-park campgrounds are closed for the season, the NCC turns that channel into what it calls the world's largest skating rink. Packed ice fills the canal between the office towers, roughly January to early March when the weather holds.
If you keep going east, Montreal is the next city. If the week is Lake Ontario instead of the Ottawa River, Toronto is the start.