Pier 51's restaurant floats on Keystone Lake, the Arkansas River water held by the dam, and campground roads share the shoreline with the boat ramps. Tournament bass boats use this lake. You eat at the marina and sleep on a loop on that shore.
Keystone State Park has RV sites with 30- or 50-amp full hookups in more than one campground, plus cabins, reserved online. That reserved pad is the first night. If you need more sleeping space than a campervan, look at RVs for rent in Tulsa; those pads take them.
Turkey Mountain's trails are in town, and the River Parks Authority does not allow overnight camping there. When the Tulsa State Fair runs its ten days, Expo Square's RV park fills and the lake pads with it.
Illinois River at Tahlequah
Rafts, canoes, and tubes ride a gentle current between wooded banks, and the take-out is camp chairs on the gravel. Tahlequah is the town that starts the float. In the warm months you float, then sleep where you climbed out of the river.
The outfitters run those campgrounds. Illinois River Outfitters has RV hookups and primitive tent sites, and a van takes a hookup pad at the river.
Natural Falls State Park
The waterfall drops through rock into a narrow valley, the same falls that showed up in Where the Red Fern Grows. You walk to the railed platform, look at the water in the slot, and go back up to camp.
The park books RV and tent sites and yurts on online reservations and stays open year-round, with 24-hour camper access if you roll in late. When Keystone is full, this is the overflow night.
Route 66 still runs through Tulsa, and the Blue Whale at Catoosa is a picnic stop beside its pond, a smiling whale with a slide. Swimming in that pond is no longer allowed.
Grand Lake and Bernice State Park
At Bernice State Park a swim beach and wildlife-watch towers share the Grand Lake waterfront with the campground, in the town of Disney. You swim and use the towers, then sleep on the same shore.
The park's RV sites with water and 50-amp electric take reservations online. Grove is the other town on this lake.
Osage Hills State Park
You camp under rocky bluffs and a forest canopy at Osage Hills State Park, in the hills near Bartlesville. Native-stone CCC cabins are in the same park. The van uses hookup sites, with water shut off from November through April.
Pawhuska is the day for the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve's bison loop, open grass and a herd on the horizon. Camping is not permitted on the preserve.
The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is an Oklahoma City trip. Beavers Bend is Oklahoma's.
