Claytor Lake's Dogwood campground is an open flat above 4,500 acres of impounded New River, and only a scatter of trees stands between the picnic tables and the water. The gravel pads are level. Once the rig is on one it stays there for the week, while the days go to the shore below camp.
A motorhome earns its keep here because nobody has to break camp all week. Dogwood and Birch both run water and electric hookups, which keeps the air conditioning going through a July afternoon on the water, and the rig becomes the shade everyone drifts back to for lunch. When the lake is the first leg out of Roanoke, it's also the first night, with no stopover in between.
Dogwood or Birch at Claytor Lake
Claytor books by specific site, so lock the site first and pick the rental second, since the loop you land on decides what size rig to bring. Dogwood takes units up to 40 feet on mostly pull-through sites, room for a long Class A or a fifth wheel. Birch tops out at 30 feet on mostly back-in sites, which suits a Class C or a shorter trailer and a driver comfortable reversing into a spot.
Neither loop has sewer hookups. Dogwood has its own dump station and Birch's is over in the Cedar campground, so a family on a full week plans one run to the dump mid-stay and another on the way out.
The Blue Ridge Parkway south to Rocky Knob
South of Roanoke the Parkway follows the crest toward North Carolina, and the night to aim for is Rocky Knob at milepost 167.1. The campground sits in forest on 4,000 acres, the trails around it are lined with rosebay rhododendron that blooms from late spring into early summer, and just below the ridge Rock Castle Gorge drops away 1,500 feet into its ravine.
On a late start out of Roanoke, Explore Park at milepost 115 makes the close-in first night, with RV sites alongside its cabins and yurts. The run south from there has no tunnels to clear, because the Parkway's only Virginia tunnel is far to the north and the rest begin well into North Carolina.
Rocky Knob has no electric hookups, and its dump station and drinking water run only in season, so the ridge is a dry stretch between hookup nights. The easy order is Claytor first, leaving the lake with empty holding tanks and a full fresh-water tank, then the ridge, with a stop at Rocky Knob's dump station on the way back down.
North of the city, Peaks of Otter at milepost 85.9 is the Parkway campground worth turning the other way for, a pair of peaks above a small lake and a stream running right through the campground. It's dry like Rocky Knob, with no electric hookups and a seasonal dump station.
The rest of the ridge above Roanoke, along with Smith Mountain Lake State Park, McAfee Knob and Douthat State Park, makes a good two-person trip in a smaller rig, and the Roanoke campervan page covers each one. The Virginia RV page has the state's other rig weeks, from the lakes to the coast.