Put the first two nights at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound, north of West Palm Beach, and the rest of the trip arranges itself around them. Get those nights before you get the van. There are 142 pads across the park's two campgrounds, winter is when everyone wants them, and the van is the half of the trip that can still move. The park runs to more than 10,000 acres of coastal sand hills, sand pine scrub, and upland lakes, which is not the Palm Beach County most people show up expecting. The Loxahatchee River cuts through the middle of it, narrow and tea-dark under the cypress, and it was the first river in Florida named Wild and Scenic.
Sixteen natural communities are packed into that acreage, so a morning on foot goes from open sand hills into pine flatwoods and back out along the water without ever leaving the park.
Hobe Mountain is the high ground, a sand dune with a boardwalk running up the back of it through the scrub. The observation tower at the top is posted closed until further notice (Florida State Parks, as of August 2026), so the walk is the reason to do it.
Farther upriver, Trapper Nelson's homestead and cabins still stand on the bank where he lived off the Loxahatchee. You reach them by canoe, by small boat, or on the park's tour boat when it is running. The park also keeps a grassy swimming beach on the river, which is the closest thing to a pool either campground has.
Pine Grove and River Campground at Jonathan Dickinson
There are two family campgrounds, and choosing between them is the only real decision the park asks of you. Pine Grove is the front one, 90 sites near the ranger station with water, electricity, and sewer at every pad, and the dump station is right there. River Campground is the quiet one, 52 sites about four miles in near the water, with water and electricity at the pad but no sewer, so dumping means a run back to Pine Grove (Florida State Parks, as of August 2026).
Both have tiled restrooms with hot showers, a washer and dryer, a table and grill at every site, and both take dogs.
Check length before you reserve. Pine Grove takes rigs to 40 feet and River Campground to 36 (Florida State Parks), which a campervan clears without anyone thinking about it. If you need more beds than a van carries and you are willing to plan around those two caps, an RV out of West Palm Beach is the other way to run the same trip.
Camping is $26 a night plus tax, with a nonrefundable $6.70 reservation fee and a $7 nightly utility fee on RV sites that covers the water and electricity. Day entry is $6 a vehicle for two to eight people, and the gates are open 8 a.m. to sundown every day of the year (Florida State Parks, as of August 2026).
Reservations run through Florida State Parks, and if the booking that opens is River Campground, the dump run back up to Pine Grove comes with it. When the night has to stay near town, John Prince Park in Lake Worth is the county overflow rather than a substitute for the park you came for.
Aim for winter if the dates are yours to pick. Summer out in the scrub is hot, wet by afternoon, and thick with mosquitoes come evening, and the same site in January is a different campground. Everyone else picks that window too, so the winter weekends and the holiday stretches go first.
John Prince Park on Lake Osborne
When the night has to be close to town, John Prince Park Campground in Lake Worth is the county's answer, 48 acres of campground on the west side of Lake Osborne inside a much bigger park. There are 301 sites, all of them with water, sewer, and 20/30/50-amp electric, and 51 of those face the lake (Palm Beach County, as of August 2026).
The boat ramp is inside the campground, so a kayak on the roof or a skiff on a trailer goes straight in the water with a Florida freshwater fishing license. Swimming is not permitted on the lake here. Onshore there are campfire pits, two playgrounds, and four restroom and shower buildings spread across the loops.
The gates lock on a code handed to registered guests, laundry and a dump station are on site, firewood and ice come from the office, and dogs stay on a six-foot leash.
For a day off the campground, John D. MacArthur Beach State Park in North Palm Beach runs a boardwalk over the estuary at Lake Worth Cove and out to the sand. There is no camping there, so plan it as an afternoon.
Farther down the coast
South of Palm Beach County the chain keeps going. Fort Lauderdale has the old cypress county campgrounds, Miami is the base for the Everglades, and the Florida hub covers the rest of the state.
