Smith Mountain Lake State Park

After spending longer than expected winding through some narrow roads, we got to the park and checked in with the rangers at the welcome center. Quickly registered our motor home and car, then headed to our site. A nice level, back-in gravel site with water and 30 amp electric. The bath house is centrally located in the camping loop. There were no camp hosts during our stay, but their site is near the bath house. There’s no WiFi and there is dense tree cover, so StarLink might have trouble, but we had decent cellular reception on our Verizon phones.
The beach doesn’t open until April 26, but it looked quite nice when seen from the boat landing. Campsites are not waterfront, but the beach, picnic areas, and playground at the Discovery Center are very close, with ample parking.

No check-in, hosts came to our site with our pass. Camp hosts were extremely helpful. Nice pea gravel, level sites.

About 40 miles from I81. 15 miles to any restaurants. It rained all 3 days we were there, so we have little advice to offer. Even with all the rain, our site drained well.

2-3 bars of usable AT&T service, no HDTV channels.

Hey, we stayed five nights on two reservations and had to move sites in between. They have site specific reserved sites and site classes that are reserved but not site specific. We are a large 42' long fifth wheel so we need a large site. In this campground, Site 9 was the best site for us (site specific reservation) but the other pull throughs would work. Site 14 worked but tricky on exit of site due to the large drain on the left of the exit. It worked, but you had to be as far right as possible leaving. In any event, Site 9 was great and site 38 also looks like easy entry and exit, but with a smaller picnic area. Both sites had large separate picnic areas a few steps uphill from the rig. Mostly shady. No full hookups - you have to use dump station if you stay long enough. We used the bathhouse for showers, huge shower rooms. You can use dump station and make a loop to come back into your spot if needed. Fairly small campground for a huge state park. Quiet and very wooded. Site 9 was 50amp site, site 14 was 30 amp service. We were visiting family so basically used the RV as bedrooms and breakfast and showers. T-Mobile service was decent ranging from 2-3 bars at our site. If you are coming in from the north, we would recommend I-81S to Exit 150A US-220 ALT S to US-221 N/US-460 E to US 460E to VA-122 toward Moneta to Rte 608 to White House Rd to State Rte 608/State Rte 626. Much less mountainous than other routes. It's not as complicated as it sounds when you look at the map.

We were able to snatch a last minute spot after someone canceled just days before our visit. I just checked the map on Reserve America and got lucky as I suspect this campground gets booked up far in advance. It is a very popular State Park as it sits on the well-trafficked Smith Mountain Lake. There was a lot of traffic through the campground and throughout the park on this hot summer day in June, but it did not seem to effect our experience.

The campground has many tent sites and several RV sites with electric and water hookups. No sewer at the sites but there is a dump station in the campground. Also, it seems they only offer 30 amp service, so bring an adapter if you normally run on 50 amps. The sites are a bit close together for my liking, but not terribly close. There is often vegetation between sites, but not enough for a lot of privacy. All of the sites offer plenty of shade which was great for 90 plus degree weather we had.

The usual amenities are available at this Virginia State Park campground such as a bath house, firewood, ice, etc. Sprint / T-mobile Cell signal was strong.

Trails lead directly fron the campground to all other areas of the park, including the boat launch, beach area and Discovery Center (still closed on June 2021 due to Covid-19). This is a very boat friendly park as there are multiple launches and docks. You can also launch your canoe kayak at these locations. There is also spacious overflow parking adjacent to the campground where many folks park their boat/trailers. Do not expect a quiet wilderness lake setting as the motor boats and jetskis race around all weekend.

Best sites: 1, 13, 38

Cell signal review based on the use of the WeBoost RV 65 kit inside the RV.

We camped Thursday-Sunday. Campsite was level with fresh gravel. Site was a back-in with easy access. Our travel trailer is 25’ L, and we had plenty of room to park two cars on our site. Site was provided with water and electricity (30 Amp). Site also had a picnic table and fire ring. Thursday and Friday were very quiet. Weekend was busy but campground was still quiet during evening hours. Bath house was clean and had individual showers. Plenty of activities within the park and outside it!

​This is a large and well-maintained park. You have to take a lot of back roads to get here, and there aren’t too many signs for it. The visitor center is the first thing you’ll see, and it’s really nice. It’s a short drive from there to the campsites. Ours was fairly level and had fresh gravel on it.
The bathrooms and showers were clean as usual for a Virginia state park. There are a lot of hiking and biking trails around here and the nearby town has lots of fun boating activities. Best to come during the warm months to enjoy the water.