travel dates: June 2023
Newfoundland has a grand total of one KOA, but it’s a good one. We ended up staying at the Gros Morne/Norris Point KOA for an entire week after we cut a few days out of our Viking Trail plans, and it was a great base camp for exploring the northern side of Gros Morne National Park.
The biggest complaint you’ll see in reviews about this KOA online is that the sites are packed together with no privacy. This is true if you book one of the full hook-up pull-throughs at the front of the campground, but the sites farther back are mostly huge, W/E back-ins….tucked into the woods with tons of space and privacy, and some of them are waterfront like the one shown above. These sites might be tricky for bigger motorhomes or 5th wheels, but we had no issues getting our 32 foot trailer into ours, so they’re not just for tiny trailers by any means.
Location
This is a great location for all the big draws on this side of Gros Morne. Norris Point is the closest town with some restaurants and shopping, but it’s also less than 10 minutes to the bigger tourist hub of Rocky Harbour. You can read about all the stuff we did while we were staying here in this post.
Booking and Arrival
We booked our initial stay here pretty early, because this our way, but we were able to add our extra nights on very last minute. This was in June, so shoulder season, but I did just peek at some random days in July 2024 (writing this in May 2024) and there was still a lot of availability.
I’ve mentioned before that the road from the Trans Canada Highway to Gros Morne is a little on the harrowing side when you’re towing, but it’s manageable with some caution and some downshifting. And the views make the grades worthwhile. The road to the campground is totally fine, and the campground is well-marked, easy to find, and easy to check in to.
We paid $39CAD/night for our W/E site, which was one of the highest prices we paid in Newfoundland and still dirt cheap by American standards.
Campsites
I already talked about this a little, but for my money the W/E sites farther back in the campground are definitely the way to go! If you need a quick in and out with full hook-ups, the pull-throughs up front are fine, but much more your standard KOA type sites, without much separation or privacy. We were in site #53, right across from the lake, and it was huge, lovely, wooded. A very long site with a big fire pit area off to the side and trees all around–enough that we couldn’t see any neighbors. Most of the sites back in this area are pretty similar. The waterfront sites along the lake looked like the pick of the campground if you can snag one of those.
As I said, we have a 32 foot trailer and got into this site just fine. But we were right across from a row of cabins, and we might have had some trouble if those had had cars parked in front of them when we got there (they filled up over the weekend). So a trailer bigger than ours might be iffy in these wooded sites. I’d call and ask when you book to make sure you get an appropriate site. They’ll be very nice and helpful, because they’re in Newfoundland!
Here we are leaving, for reference about the proximity of those cabins:
All sites have a picnic table and fire pit, and I believe they’re all gravel. It does definitely get buggy here in the summer, and I imagine both the more wooded sites and water proximity accentuate this, so be aware. Mosquitos became more and more of an issue the farther we got into summer–I suspect we wouldn’t have been able to sit outside at all if we’d been here a week or two later. Oh–bathroom access is one thing to think about with site selection. The camp ground is really big, but there are only two bathhouses–one by the front office and the other back fairly near the lake–on the map, it looked like we were pretty close to the second bathhouse, but it was a hike. Which can make a difference if you only have W/E hookups (and if you have one bathroom for five people in your trailer).
There are also cabins to rent and “glamping domes” right on the water:
Amenities
There’s a lot going on at this KOA, but one thing you won’t find is a pool. Because Newfoundland. But they do have a jumping pillow, game room, decent laundry room, playground, dog park, camp store, etc. There were some planned activities going on when we there, too, so you should find that on weekends during the summer. The bathhouses were good, very clean, and with private shower rooms:
The nicest amenity, though, is the pond with boat rentals, swimming, and a lovely little hiking trail around the perimeter.
I’ve been to a lot of campgrounds with ponds where you can rent a paddle boat, but this one is by far the nicest. And we did actually see a few people in the water, though I’m sure it was very chilly.
We went for walks on the “Moose Path” several times, although we didn’t see any moose. Fergus did have a lot of fun hunting for toads, though.
Overall, definitely recommend the KOA for exploring Gros Morne. There’s also a campground in Rocky Harbour that we didn’t get a chance to look at (we actually had originally booked it instead, but switched to the KOA after much deliberation). And there are campgrounds in the national park, including at least one with hookups…but this one was already full by the time we remembered to check.
2023 Newfoundland Trip Posts
Visiting Newfoundland: Overview and General Thoughts
Grand Codroy RV Park and Codroy Valley
Water’s Edge RV Park in Gros Morne
Gros Morne National Park: South
Port Au Choix and the Great Northern Peninsula
Gros Morne National Park: North
Sanger Memorial RV Park/Grand Falls-Windsor
Fogo Island/Brimstone Head RV Park
Twillingate and Dildo Run Provincial Park
Pippy Park, St. John’s Campground Review
Four Days on the Bonavista Peninsula
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