Sleep at Pocahontas State Park and you are in woods around Swift Creek Lake, trails peeling off the shoreline past the boat launch while the James still waits in town for the next day. The park is built around that water. You come for the lake and the dirt miles, and the pads are how you stay to use them.
You can leave the boat launch in the morning and still be on park dirt at dinner. The trail system out of Swift Creek Lake runs 90-plus miles, and the launch is there for boats too.
The campground stays open all year with electric and water and no sewer, which is the setup you plan tanks around in a Richmond summer. Pocahontas State Park caps electric-and-water sites at 40 feet and buddy sites at 50 feet, as of September 2026, and takes reservations through ReserveVaParks. The park puts itself about 20 miles from Richmond off I-95. If you need more sleeping space or a longer rig, look at RV rentals in Richmond.
Richmond walks onto the James on a pedestrian span under the Lee Bridge. Belle Isle is a mid-river island of old quarry granite, reached from Historic Tredegar, with climbers on the cut and fishing at the quarry pond. The river here runs from flat water to Class IV, and Belle Isle is the stretch the James River Park System flags for dangerous rapids, as of September 2026. The island is a day with no camping, so the van stays at Pocahontas.
Powhatan State Park
River Bend Campground at Powhatan State Park is the lake weekend west of Richmond, electric and water in the trees and no river view from the campground. The campground is open from early March through early December, as of September 2026. Powhatan State Park tells you to follow its posted directions because some GPS units send you the wrong way, and you book through ReserveVaParks. Bear Creek Lake State Park, inside Cumberland State Forest, is the second electric-and-water night on that Cumberland side of town, with a swimming beach and a boat launch on the lake.
Williamsburg and Chippokes State Park
Williamsburg takes the day, and you sleep at Chippokes State Park, a working farm since 1619 with an antebellum mansion and formal gardens across the James from Jamestown's shoreline. Chippokes State Park has electric and water from early March through early December, as of September 2026, with Loop A for rigs up to 30 feet and Loop B up to 50 feet. Colonial Williamsburg and Busch Gardens are the other days the park points you toward.
Kings Dominion in Doswell is the theme-park day north of Richmond. Kings Dominion does not run camping on site, as of September 2026.
If the trip turns north, Fredericksburg is the next van night. West to the Blue Ridge, Roanoke is the mountain night.
Norfolk and Virginia Beach take the coast. Petersburg is south of Richmond, and North Carolina is the handoff if you keep going.