A sailboat or a fishing boat easing into the St. Lucie Lock is the view from a waterfront pad on the Okeechobee Waterway outside Stuart. The gates swing open, the boat settles into the chamber to be raised or lowered, and now and then a manatee locks through with it. Two campgrounds line that stretch of water, the Army Corps' St. Lucie South right at the lock and Martin County's Phipps Park beside it, and most Stuart RV weeks are spent parked at one or the other.
Once the motorhome is level it barely moves. Waterfront sites come with concrete pads and covered picnic tables, so mornings start with coffee while the lock cycles and evenings end at the fire ring as the canal goes dark. Beach days run out to Hutchinson Island and back, and the rig waiting at the river stays cool inside because it never came off shore power.
Phipps Park and St. Lucie South at the lock
Phipps Park is the county's campground on the waterway, and the easier of the two for a family that wants to stay put all week. Martin County lists 99 sites, 58 of them waterfront, each with 20/30/50-amp electric, water and sewer, so the tanks never decide when you leave. There's a dump station on site for the morning you pack up.
St. Lucie South is the Corps side, closest to the lock chamber and much smaller. The Corps lists nine RV/tent sites with electric and water, plus boat campsites for people arriving by water, and it stays open year round. With no sewer at the pad, a family week there includes one run to the trailer dump station partway through, a fair trade for waking up beside the gates.
Lock the pad before you book the rig, because a handful of Corps sites and one county campground serve everyone who wants to sleep at the lock. Neither the Corps nor the county publishes a length limit for these sites, so read the individual site listing before you settle on a long motorhome. If it's just the two of you, a smaller rig makes the site question simple.
Winter is the high season along this coast, and the Mets' spring-training weeks in Port St. Lucie pull on the same rigs and the same Treasure Coast pads, so a late-winter week here needs both bookings made early. The Port St. Lucie RV page covers the ballpark side of those weeks. Summer flips it, hot and inside hurricane season, and the electric hookup is what keeps the motorhome comfortable through the afternoon.
Hutchinson Island and Bathtub Beach
Out on Hutchinson Island, an offshore reef at Bathtub Beach knocks the Atlantic down to shallow, calm water that small kids can wade into. Pack masks, because snorkeling over the reef is half the day. Martin County lists free parking there but says nothing about whether a motorhome fits the lot, so check before you take the rig across.
Stuart Beach is the island's other county swim, and both beaches keep lifeguards during the county's posted guarded hours. The island works as a day trip with the nights back at the lock, though families who want to wake up on Hutchinson Island can ask Nettles Island and Ocean Breeze, the private resort parks there, about sites and rig length. South at Hobe Sound, Jonathan Dickinson State Park makes another full day out, and the West Palm Beach page covers it.