If you prefer your campground reviews in an audio format, you can hear me talking about Willow Valley and the surrounding area over on the RV Atlas podcast.
We came across Willow Valley RV Resort because we were looking for a campground near Clayton, Georgia that wasn’t Black Rock Mountain State Park. Black Rock Mountain is lovely…and located at the top of a very steep, windy road…not the best choice for those pulling a 34 foot toy hauler.
The good news for people with big RVs, though, is that Willow Valley is a great alternative: a shiny new campground just 6 minutes down the road from downtown Clayton, with spacious campsites, nice amenities, and lovely views.
Booking and Arrival:
Willow Valley has an easy online reservation system; we didn’t have any trouble getting a nice site in July reserving a few weeks in advance, and I checked before writing this and it looks like they have good availability for the holidays as well. I would guess fall weekends when the leaves are changing would be their busiest time.
Rates range from $36-69/night, depending on the type of site and the season.
Despite the mountain location, it’s an easy drive on good roads to Willow Valley, and the roads inside the campground are wide, paved, and easy to navigate.
Campsites:
There are about 80 full hook-up sites at Willow Valley–more now than when we stayed there, as they’ve recently opened up a new section. We had one of the sites along the back, numbered in the 50s and were happy with it (although our site in particular, site 50, wasn’t super level). These are big spacious gravel sites that back up to a field. There’s not a lot of privacy because of the lack of trees, but there’s great separation between the sites. Some of the sites in the middle section nearer to the office looked a little more cramped; they’re mostly back in sites that back up to another site, which is never my favorite. The new section has some long pull-throughs and some back in sites along the river.
All campsites have a picnic table, but no fire rings (at least not when we were there). They are available to rent, though, or you can bring your own.
Our site:
Amenities and Activities:
One of the reviews of Willow Valley I read talked about all the great activities they have for kids…but we were there in the time of Covid and saw no such activities. We hope to get back sometime when fun activities are safe again. But they do have a full slate of nice amenities, including a small playground, pool, camp store with fancy hipster popsicles, dog park and dog wash station, community fire pit, etc. etc.
We didn’t use the bathhouse or the laundry, but they are, like everything, new, and they looked very nice from the outside anyway.
Local Area:
Willow Valley has a really nice location, very close to several state parks and nice mountain towns, and an easy day trip to places like Highlands, NC or the NC side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I talk about everything we did while we were staying there in this post.
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