Generally when we’re looking for a campground, we’re looking for one near some attraction or national park or whatever. But this time our main objective was to be close to Dave’s parents’ house in West Lebanon, NH. If someone were looking for a campground near our house, they’d be hard pressed to find one closer than 35 or 40 minutes away. But Dave’s parents live in a scenic part of New England, close to lots of different tourist hotspots, so we had no trouble finding a great campground only fifteen minutes away from their house–the Queechee/Pine Valley KOA.
Since time with family was our priority for this stop, we didn’t even realize until we booked that we were going to be here the same weekend the Quechee Balloon Festival was happening right down the road. We ended up not going to the balloon festival, so what this meant for us, practically speaking, was that we were at the campground on a weekend when it was completely full. And I’m happy to say that they were totally prepared for the crowds, and everything ran very smoothly while we were there.
Booking and Arrival
We booked our site way back in late summer/early fall for our June stay (Father’s Day weekend) and none too early, thanks to the balloon festival. I just (in mid December) checked the site for NEXT summer’s balloon festival weekend, and it looks to be completely booked, but there’s still a good bit of availability for other summer weekends. We paid $203 for three nights, which is pretty standard New England private campground pricing, from what we’ve seen.
Dave and the younger kids were coming here from Cape Cod, and Ari and I were coming from some college visits in western Massachusetts, so we arrived separately, but we were just a few minutes behind them. So I missed most of the backing in and setting up part, but Dave indicates all went smoothly. We were getting there at a very busy time, and the campground kept a very tight ship, guiding people to sites and getting them in quickly. In fact, I’ve never seen so many employee operated golf carts in a campground as I did this weekend. They were EVERYWHERE!
Campsites
We had Site 45, a very nice water/electric back in site close to the office and right across from the pool.
Our site was in a fairly small row of sites to the left of the office, but we kept seeing more and more RVs pulling past us, headed to their sites, and we couldn’t figure out where they were all going. It took us until our second day to figure out that there’s another section past our section and up a hill, tucked into the woods.
So there’s the section we were in, all W/E sites, then the heavily wooded section of terraced sites on the hill, and then a third section to the right of the office: that section is more open and has a number of really nice deluxe sites with decks or patios. I thought I might have a picture or two of these sites, but I don’t seem to….so here’s the section we were in instead:
Amenities and Activities
The campground has the usual array of KOA amenities. We swam in the pool one evening:
Abe liked the pirate ship themed playground:
There are some nice, wooded walking trails that the dogs enjoyed, including one that goes by the small pond. They also have a dog park (we noted that the gate to the dog park is unusually high off the ground, so that smaller dogs would be able to fit under it. Just a head’s up to be aware of that).
The bathhouses here are pretty nice, but they suffered in comparison to the awesome Atlantic Oaks bathrooms we’d just left. Where was my piped in music?! But, for real, they were completely nice and more than adequate:
Location
This campground is ideally located for seeing Quechee Gorge, of course, and the balloon festival, and Dave’s parents. But there’s a ton of other stuff close by, too. You can read about what we did while we were in the area here. There’s hiking, quaint New England towns (like Woodstock, VT), and Vermont’s only National Park. And it’s within a few minutes of plenty of supermarkets and other shopping, too.
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