Otter Creek Campground

If you’re looking for swimming pools and mini-golf, this isn’t your place. But if you’re looking for an (almost) bare bones campground to unplug & unwind, Otter Creek is fantastic. The campground is quiet & minimally tended but the sites & bathrooms are all clean & well-maintained. The creek offers great background noise for sleeping and looks like an awesome spot to cool off in the summer. Very near amazing hikes like Sharp Top & Rocky Row. Also near a nice put-in (or take out) kayak spot at the James River Foote Bridge. We thoroughly enjoyed the almost-deserted feel and isolation.

One of eight campgrounds operated by the National Park Service within the Blue Ridge Parkway, Otter Creek Campground is a convenient stop. Improvements were underway at the time of our visit. Campsites are not big rig friendly. There is no Verizon or AT&T cellular service at this location. See our campground video tour uploaded here on Campendium.

This is one of the smaller campgrounds along the Blue Ridge Parkway - and either your first or last depending on the direction you're heading. It's also at the lowest elevation.

There's a handful of creekside spots - some first come first serve. On a summer Friday evening, we were able to snag one for our van.

It felt a bit crammed in-between two larger adjacent pull throughs, and we ended up with lots of large groups and generators surrounding us that evening. We might have been happier finding a site on the tent side if we didn't want the creek (vans are allowed without generators).

There is a hiking trail here along the creek, that is lovely. We opted to take our bikes along the park way for a short ride back to the visitors center to explore the historic lock.

There's really no cell signal here that will register on devices, but after a bunch of fiddling we were able get 9 Mbps down and .6 Mbps up on Verizon using a combo of a booster and band locking router. We were not successful with other carriers.

One night stopover on drive down the Parkway. Adequate campground and facilities. Trail at the end of abandoned restaurant parking lot was difficult to locate then crossed the creek with no bridge so had to go around into tent sites to find the trail that way. Checking in was a process as the envelopes were well hidden and place to put your envelope with money was hidden even better. Cell service was a no go on AT&T. Motion detector in bathroom barely worked and if you sat for more than five minutes it timed out so bring your night vision goggles!

Smaller campground.
Most of the spots are fully shaded.
Creek is near by and sounds lovely.
Really probably better for tent camping, but the rv loop does have some larger spots.

Our site was pretty sloped even though the parking area was nice and flat. Would probably recommend a site on the inside of the loop so your table and fire pit is closer.

Restrooms and dump were decently clean.

Cars on the road are a bit noisy, but go silent after dark.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to come to this campground but if you already in the area it’s a pretty nice spot for a few days.

Also, I’m not sure who got cell service at this spot, but even with our weboost we couldn’t even get 1x with Verizon or ATT