Travel dates: July 2021
We don’t often stay at a big, bustling, activity-filled campground when it’s actually bustling and activity filled. We stay in quieter or at least less amenity-filled campgrounds more often than not, and when we DO opt for resort-style campground it tends to be in the off or shoulder season (like our June stay at Normandy Farms–the week before all the activities got going).
So sometimes we forget how fun it can be to be at a campground that always has something going on, particularly for Abe.
Location
The Lincoln/Woodstock KOA is just outside the town of Woodstock, NH and a few minutes south of Lincoln, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It’s very convenient to Franconia Notch State Park, and it’s a good location to use as a home base for day trips all over the region. This is what we did, although some people would opt to split the stay into two campgrounds in different parts of the White Mountains to cut down on driving to destinations.
There are plenty of restaurants in Woodstock and in Lincoln, as well as shopping and touristy things. We enjoyed the Woodstock Inn Brewery one evening, and we also enjoyed checking out the little park on the river in town while we waited for our table to be ready:
Booking and Arrival
We were here over July 4 weekend, so the campground was quite full (by the end of our stay; there were still some open sites in the days leading up to the weekend when we first arrived), and we made sure to book early. Prices vary widely depending on the type of site; it looks like we paid around $60/night for a pull-through in summer, 2021. The campground is close to 93, and, despite the mountains, nothing tricky or harrowing about getting to the campground. They have a nice big entrance area with plenty of room to park for check-in.
Campsites
There’s a big range of sites here; from fancy patio sites near the pool to smaller, wooded back-ins along the perimeter. We had a pull-through close to the pool and office and were happy with it. Interestingly, it was a W/E only site; I think we did that to save some money, but it was also gave us a good location near everything. I believe it was site 14.
Here’s our site when there was no one parked next door to us. As you’d expect from a KOA in a popular tourist area, the sites are not huge; ours went to about where you see those trees, so we had space to set up our chairs, but not much left over. And we had to park the van sideways in front of the trailer to fit it.
Here you can see the patio site that was right next to us; the patio sites were mostly sort of mixed in with the regular sites. This one right next to us is a premium patio site, which gives you a good bit of extra space…but our row was mostly regular patio sites which are the same width as a regular site, I believe…i.e. the kind I don’t think are worth paying extra for.
Here’s the back of our trailer + the pool/store/basketball court, for perspective on how close we were. It would have been handier if it hadn’t rained most of the time we were there. But, still–the little people on the basketball court are Abe and Ari.
Thing to note if you visit on a busy weekend: we were right across from one of the two tent areas, and it was completely packed. I think it was mostly taken up by some sort of big family reunion like group; they all seemed to know each other. It was fine, but it did make things feel very busy and crowded. The biggest impact on us was that we only had W/E at our site, so we were using the bathhouses a lot…along with the many, many tent campers. The staff kept the bathrooms remarkably clean on the very busy, very rainy weekend, but there was a lot more traffic than there would have been otherwise (this was also the bathhouse adjacent to the pool).
Some other pull-through sites right in the middle of the campground:
They have cabins available, too:
Amenities and Activities
They have all of the amenities and activities here! The aforementioned pool, basketball, mini-golf, jump pad, playground, dog park etc. etc. There’s a big store, with camping supplies, groceries, and souvenirs. You can check out movies there or order pizzas delivered to your site (which we took advantage of one evening).
There’s a trail in the back of the campground that takes you down to the river.
I gather the activities were lower key than usual while we were there because of covid, but there were regular rides on the little train thing and on the old fire truck they have. Abe took advantage of both and had a great time:
I mentioned the bathhouses and the holiday weekend crowds before, but another shout out to the staff for keeping the bathrooms sparkling despite the relentless traffic and rain. We used the laundry room as well and found it also well maintained.
So all in all we had a great stay and can definitely recommend the Lincoln/Woodstock KOA if you’re spending some time in the White Mountains.
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