Grandfather Campground

We were visiting friends in Banner Elk, and this was the closest campground. The sites are incredibly close together, but if you can get creek side, it adds a nice amount of privacy. Probably would look elsewhere next time!

Great location, cell service, not all RV sites are flat but have plenty of room.

We loved our stay here in early July 2019. The place was well maintained and had excellent views of the mountains. Very fast 4g signal here too!

Beautiful view of the surrounding mountains from my site which sets up on a hill. Liked this particular site with a deck and lovely view. It was across from the bathroom/ shower, however, they did not clean the bathroom daily. Very dirty! No soap the first night, broken glass on shower floor for days. Gravel road coming in dusty and rutted. Liked the location, but would not stay again due to dirty unkempt bathrooms,

After a re-route to escape the coastal heat, we stayed five days, four nights at the Grandfather Campground. It really is a beautiful setting. Our site backed up to a grassy field that was perfect for our daughter to run and play. Our site also had a great wooden deck, and the accompanying grill and picnic table were down a few steps in the grassy field. We enjoy several breakfasts at the table watching the fog lift from the surrounding mountains. The location is great, as it’s a convenient ride to Grandfather Mountain as well as Boone and Blowing Rock. We drove the Blueridge Parkway to Linville Falls (highly recommend!). One comment about the bath house, one of which our site was adjacent. On the campground guide, the wording says, “we appreciate all the compliments we get on our bath houses....”. This is mildly ironic as on the day we arrived the me so restroom was disgusting (toilets clogged with waste and some had waste on the seats), and the bath house near the creek had also not yet been cleaned that day. My husband told one of the employees, and from that point on it was better. The bath houses are old, have very lower shower heads (literally hit my shoulder), and not always clean. It was just ironic that the campground compliments itself on paper, but the bath houses are not actually that nice. It was a minor blip, but overall we really, really enjoyed our time there. I would love to return!

We stayed a week over Labor Day. The campsite was level, hard-packed gravel. The sewer station was a bit uphill, which was annoying. Camp store/office staff was pleasant. The camp was full. The roads are gravelly/dusty. Overall it was a good stay, close to mountain biking and hiking.

As the nearest year-round campground to the Sugar and Beech ski resorts (15 minute drive to Sugar), and just off a US Route, it provides great access to winter pass times. The spaces just into the park and across from the office, along a babbling brook, are effectively on top of each other, which makes neighbors seem a bit more noisy. Sites are crusher run with railroad tie edging and the site I was placed in was slightly off level front to back, forcing me to lower my tongue nearly to my lower travel limit. A bath house is just a short walk deeper into the park, with two showers and a laundry facility. It appears to be of slightly above average cleanliness as compared to other campgrounds, but limited lighting and gray and charcoal tiles makes it difficult to truly assess.

This campground has a decent mix of long-term residents and weekend warriors. Weekends were full; it cleared out a lot during the week (this was in late April/early May).

Pros of this campground:
- Good Verizon cell
- GREAT location to tons of hiking, Boone, Blowing Rock, Grandfather Mountain
- Average cost (some campgrounds in this area are extremely expensive)
- Nice views ///

Cons of this campground:
- Laundry room was extremely dirty - dog hair lining the washers/dryers, garbage overflowing with lint full of dog hair.
- Laundry also overpriced at $3.50 per wash (and again, borderline disgusting - like, the machines were the dirtiest we have ever seen throughout our travels)
- Not too much room between sites, but we had a large field behind us where we let the kids run around, so we didn't mind too much.

Overall we would stay here again because of the location and strong cell signal for work. It was a good experience overall minus the laundry situation.

Great location for all the mountain towns and hiking. $25 for water electric. Hot showers and newer bathrooms. Sites are close together but we are weekday campers so it's not very busy. Definitely would stay again. Great cell service. Negative: right off main road so traffic noise is louder than the creek right next to our site.

Pros:
The staff is great and friendly and responded very quickly during a flash flood and with clean up after
The location- so many activities and hikes nearby with grandfather mountain, the blue ridge parkway, beech and sugar mountains and a quick drive to Boone for anything you need
The views- if you are up on the hill you have great mountain views and the river front sites have river front views

Cons:
Overall this place needs a little TLC, it is a bit of a hodgepodge of random sites and cabins all over the place with seasonal sites randomly throughout the park. It also seemed like a lot of rigs were just being stored in sites with nothing set up outside and nobody there- but it’s possible people did this in preparation for the all the rain.
There are 3 bathhouses that are in completely different conditions- 1 is newly renovated but dark and the entire floor was always soaking wet, 1 is slated to be updated next and I would avoid at all costs, and one feels more like a state park bathroom- bare bones but functional and at least has light.
We were there when the leftovers from tropical storm Fred came through- with 4-8 inches of rain in 36-48 hours forecasted. We asked the workers when we arrived how the area does with flooding and they said it’s does get flash floods with heavy rains but usually just washes out the road a bit and does no major damage. Which turned out to be an accurate description- at the worst of it there was about 6 inches of water under the river front rigs and the staff knocked on all their doors at 9pm to get them out of there in case it got worse. 12 hours later they were already repairing the three sites that needed to be releveled and spreading gravel back on the road way.

Internet speeds were great with AT&T and Verizon other than it briefly dropped during the storm