From a pad in Stanley you look straight across the meadows along Valley Creek to the Sawtooth wall, jagged and close. The meadows go to shadow first, then the peaks turn black against the last of the light. Down the road, Redfish Lake sits under the same peaks, and early mornings there smell of pine and cold water before the day warms up. It's the part of Idaho people name first and book first for July and August, and with a family in a motorhome it runs best as a parked week: one base in Stanley, the lake as the day out, and a night or two by the water if you can get it.
Idaho's other rig weeks follow the same pattern of one good base and short days out, whether that's Yellowstone from Island Park, the lakes at McCall, or the desert down south in spring and fall.
The Sawtooths and Redfish Lake, from a base in Stanley
The week falls into an easy rhythm, with coffee under the peaks, the day spent at Redfish or out along Valley Creek, and the rig waiting back in town for the evening. Stanley RV + Camp is the base that makes that work, with 29 full-hookup sites in Stanley itself, open late May to mid-October as of September 2026. A small park with a short season goes fast, and it's the booking the rest of the trip hangs on.
With Stanley settled, a night or two down at the lake is the treat. Glacier View and Outlet are the two loops to reserve for a rig. Glacier View is the larger, with a season that ends in late September, and Outlet sits by the visitor center, where the dump station empties the tanks before the drive back to Stanley's hookups.
Leave Point off the plan. The Forest Service doesn't allow motorhomes or trailers at that loop, so the lakeside nights for a motorhome are the other two.
Island Park and the Henrys Fork, at Yellowstone's west entrance
Island Park is how a lot of Idaho rigs do Yellowstone: park among the lodgepole on the Idaho side, drive into the park on geyser days, and come back to the river at night. Yellowstone RV Park at Mack's Inn puts the motorhome a block from the riffles of the Henrys Fork, with full hookups from late May to mid-October as of September 2026. Summer here runs on Yellowstone traffic, so the pad is the first thing to lock down.
For a Forest Service base, Buffalo Campground spreads along the Buffalo River under the pines on paved loops, with electric hookups in one of them. It's a big campground, better as the week's base than a one-night stop on the way to the park.
McCall, Payette Lake, and Lake Cascade
McCall wraps around the south end of Payette Lake, and the week here is the slow one, long days on the water and cool nights under the ponderosa pine. Ponderosa State Park has RV sites with electricity, a dump station, and reservations, which makes it the easy base for a parked lake week.
Down the valley, Lake Cascade State Park goes a step further at its Poison Creek and Ridgeview campgrounds, with power, sewer, and water at the site, so the rig doesn't move all week. The Nampa RV page leads with this lake week and covers it closer up. Farther north, the panhandle has lake weeks of its own at Priest Lake and around Coeur d'Alene, and those live on the Coeur d'Alene RV page.
Craters of the Moon and City of Rocks on the Snake River plain
Down on the Snake River plain the trip trades pine and lake for black lava and pale stone spires, and it's a spring and fall run, when the desert isn't baking. Craters of the Moon is the night to build a route around, with the Lava Flow campground set right in the basalt, broken black rock heaped around the sites. It's a dry night with seasonal water and flush toilets, and the stars come out hard over all that dark ground.
City of Rocks is granite spires and a dark sky over a small pad, and here the length cap decides the rig. The reserve's RV sites run to 18 or 28 feet, many sites take no RV at all, and reservations are required year-round, so book the site and then choose a motorhome short enough for it. The Smoky Mountain campground nearby has 9 pull-through sites, so check its posted lengths when you reserve.
For a trip for two, a smaller rig handles these short sites more easily, and the smaller rigs have their own Idaho page, which also covers Shoshone Falls and the rest of the Snake River desert.