A week at Nickerson Beach starts the same way for everyone: the rig backed onto gravel in Lido Beach, the awning rolled out, a beach bag waiting by the door. Mornings go to the sand and the hot middle of the day to the air conditioning. By evening the grill is out front while the campground's one-way road goes quiet. Nobody packs up anything until checkout, which is the whole appeal of a Nassau County beach week for a family with a long summer to fill.
It's the ocean beach nearest the city, so July and August weeks go early, and September is the calmer version of the same stay with the water still fine for swimming. Hither Hills on the Montauk ocean bluff, Wildwood at Wading River and Heckscher by the Sayville ferry are state-park nights the Long Island campervan page covers in full.
Getting a Nickerson Beach site for the rig
Book the site first and the motorhome second, since both Nassau County campgrounds require reservations and Nickerson takes its bookings by phone through the summer and winter office. The county sets aside 74 sites for RVs, and the Nickerson Beach Park page lists a mix of sewer, electric and water-and-electric sites with a dump station, open April to November.
Nickerson publishes no pad length, so ask the office what fits before you settle on a class. Every RV site is back-in only, on the gravel in front of the unit, and with the roads running one way, arrival is one slow lap and a single back-in. The same rules cap RV stays at 14 days and send grey and black water to the sewer sites or the dump station only, so a family on a non-sewer pad plans a trip to the dump partway through.
Indian Island on Flanders Bay, with Cathedral Pines as backup
Out east in Riverhead, a white-sand causeway runs to what used to be an island at the mouth of the Peconic River, with Flanders Bay opening up beyond it. That's Indian Island County Park, 275 acres with trailer sites, showers and a week's worth of bay to watch from a camp chair. The North Fork's farm stands and wineries are a day out from here, and you're back at the water by dinner.
Suffolk's campsite matrix lists 37 electric sites at Indian Island against 100 basic ones, so a family that wants the air running on a July night should lock an electric site through the county reservation site before choosing the rig. Cathedral Pines is the fallback, with 10 electric and 142 basic sites on the same list. Neither park publishes a pad length, so check with Suffolk Parks before committing to a longer motorhome, or size down to a campervan if it's two of you heading east.
On the south shore, Smith Point County Park in Shirley lets self-contained rigs camp on the outer beach right beside the sand, and its 79 full-hookup sites are the only ones on Suffolk's matrix. Cedar Point lists basic sites only, and both are written up as overnights on the Long Island campervan page.
Battle Row in Old Bethpage, open all year
When Nickerson is booked or the beach season is over, Battle Row in Old Bethpage keeps going as Nassau County's RV-only campground. It makes the close-in first night before a beach week, a base in the middle of the county for a few days of driving out, or a winter weekend in the rig when everything in Suffolk is closed.
The county lists 64 campsites, 52 of them with water and electric at 30 or 50 amps, with sites up to 40 feet, the only pad length any of these county campgrounds publishes. Bookings go through Nassau's online recreation catalog. Some towable listings deliver to Battle Row and set up on the pad, so nobody in the group has to tow, but that's arranged listing by listing and the site reservation is still yours to make.
For RV trips elsewhere in the state, from the Finger Lakes parks to the Adirondacks, the New York RV page lays them out.