Tom Sawyer’s RV Park in West Memphis: A Campground Review

We had been itching to stay at Tom Sawyer’s RV Park in West Memphis, Arkansas (just across the river from Memphis, TN) for a long time. We had, in fact, booked two stays there in the past, both of which had to be canceled for assorted reasons. You have to call to book, and apparently they keep your name in the system forever once you make a reservation, so I was so nervous that we might have to cancel a third time for some reason that we waited until relatively late to actually book our spot.

I feel like this is sort of an RVers RV park: it doesn’t exactly have buzz the way a big shiny new RV resort might have, but it seems like everyone knows of it as a great overnight stop or as a great base for exploring Memphis. It is indeed those things, and we were happy to finally get to stay there while we checked out Memphis.

Location

West Memphis is right across the Mississippi River from Memphis, and the most charming and interesting thing about Tom Sawyer’s RV Park is that it’s right on the river itself. We loved the river views and walking the dogs along the banks.

One thing about the river location to note is that the campground floods with some regularity and can force it to close anytime between December and June, but most often in April and May. The good news is that these aren’t unpredictable flash floods, but are instead caused by rainfall farther up the river, and they get plenty of advance warning. The website links to National Weather Service charts that predict river flooding, so you’ll know in advance if you need to worry about it or not.

The drive into Memphis is just about 15 minutes, so it’s a great location for touring the city. And the campground is pretty convenient to I40, so it’s a good overnight stop if you’re heading west or east.

There’s really not much in the immediate area other than the RV park; it’s near an industrial area and a few minutes drive from shopping and restaurants in West Memphis.

Booking and Arrival

As I mentioned, you’ll have to call to make a reservation here. We booked a couple of months out and had no trouble getting a spot (and were able to add an extra night when we ran into van troubles). The most desirable sites, right on the river with an unobstructed view, will book up the earliest, but we were very happy with our site one row farther back. The campground was pretty full while we were there, but there were always at least a few open sites. Rates range from $32-59/night (all sites are full hook up), with the sites closest to the river at $45 for gravel and $59 for concrete. Most are pull throughs. Directions from the interstate are pretty easy and straightforward; the roads going to the shopping areas in West Memphis get very bumpy, but you shouldn’t need to drive on those if you’re coming straight to the campground from the interstate.

Campsites

Most of the sites here are long pull-throughs close to the river, although there’s a wooded section farther back that seems to be mostly seasonal sites. We stayed in site 88 and were perfectly happy with it:

Honestly, there’s not a ton of difference in most of the sites; they’re all very long and have good separation between sites (though not much privacy). The concrete sites are $14 more/night but are identical to the gravel sites aside from…having concrete, so we booked a gravel site to save the money. We noted that site 100 would be a really great one, with a huge yard and an unobstructed river view. The section farthest to the left as you come into the campground has more shade, but maybe less separation between sites:

Basically, it’s hard to go wrong, at least with any of the sites near the river.

Amenities

The main amenity is the river itself. There are no activities here, no camp store, no pool or playground, not even an office that’s open to the public right now. But you can walk along the river and watch the barges all day long. Also these cute little birds. Killdeer! We’d never seen them before, but ended up encountering them again later in the trip. They pretend to be injured to lure predators away from their nests. So smart!

There are benches all along the river:

There are a couple of other trails that go around the campground, too, but we found those to be fairly overgrown and hard to navigate.

You’ll also see a number of treehouses as you walk around the campground. Some of these have ladders up to them with “climb at your own risk” type signs and are clearly decorative:

While others are more elaborate and, while showing no signs of life now, look like they were maybe available as rentals in a past life? I tried and failed to find out more about these online.

The bathrooms are slightly odd, as they’re in trailers that can be towed away should flooding occur. But they’re individual bathrooms with shower/toilet/sink all in one private room, which is my kids’ favorite kind, and they were clean and well maintained.

I’m saving the best amenity (except for the river) for last: free laundry! It’s true–there are free washers and dryers here. No catch–they work fine, and we didn’t have any trouble finding free ones to use.

So–glad we finally made it to you, Tom Sawyer’s RV Park! We had a lovely stay.

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