Boat trailers back down Piney's two ramps while kids wade off the campground's swimming beach and someone works the fishing pier. All of it is inside the campground, so a family can spend the week on the water without unhooking the motorhome. Piney holds down the Tennessee end of Land Between the Lakes, the long wooded neck of Forest Service land between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. Clarksville treats it as a weekend habit, and families driving in from farther off stay the week.
Midweek, the motorhome comes off its pad for the Elk and Bison Prairie at Golden Pond, on the Kentucky side. Elk and bison roam free across 700 acres of tallgrass there, with wild turkeys and butterflies in the grass as well. The road through it is a 3.5-mile paved loop open to enclosed vehicles only, so bikes, motorcycles and walkers stay out. That turns the rig itself into the viewing car, kids at the side windows and the windshield full of whatever is grazing near the pavement.
Piney's sites, and which rig they suit
Piney is the booking to make before the rental, because its site types decide what kind of rig the week wants. The campground lists 44 electric-water-sewer sites and 283 with electric only, offers 30-amp and 50-amp service, and says most of its sites can handle large motor homes. A full-hookup site lets a family-size motorhome sit through the whole week without a run to empty the tanks, while an electric-only site fits a shorter stay. The lakefront pads put the water outside the dinette window, and the wooded ones trade that view for shade.
The week works as base-and-drive because the rig moves once, for the prairie day, and comes back to the same pad that evening. Two people after a single night at Piney rather than a parked week will find that trip on the Tennessee campervan page.
Farther up the peninsula, Energy Lake camps beside a small inland lake that an earthen dam holds apart from Lake Barkley. Hillman Ferry, at the Kentucky end, is the big campground for families who'd rather base the week on the northern half.
Loretta Lynn's Ranch at Hurricane Mills
On Stagecoach Hill at Loretta Lynn's Ranch, paved pull-throughs line a shaded rise that stays lit after dark. Below them, the lower campground spreads along Hurricane Creek around a 10,000-square-foot pavilion and an in-ground pool. The Ranch pulls Clarksville families two ways, as a parked week on the hill and for the event weekends on its calendar, FallJam, TN TrailJam and the summer and fall horseback trail rides among them.
Stagecoach Hill has 55 full-service, 50-amp pull-through sites, paved and built for large RVs, and the lower campground's water-electric sites run on 30-amp. Every site goes first-come, first-served, with staff deciding where each rig is placed, so the Ranch is the one stop on this trip you can't lock ahead.
On event weekends, the Ranch's crowd and families after a quiet week on the hill chase the same pull-throughs and the same rigs around Clarksville. Check the Ranch's event calendar before booking the rental. If the Ranch leaves everyone in a country-music mood, Nashville's parked city week is on the Nashville RV page, and the Tennessee RV page covers the rest of the state.