Trailer

This was a 3-day weekend trip, Saturday through Monday, and our destination is close enough (200 miles or 3.5 hours non-stop) to do this with ease. Assateague Island is a barrier strip with half in Maryland and half in Virginia, and it being an island on the East Coast it has the Atlantic ocean on the East and the bay on the West side. Both have their beauty, though the bay is naturally more buggy . In mid October the insects are pretty much gone (except flies), especially on the ocean side, making it a great time to go there. The island is well known for its wild/feral small horses that roam freely and steal your food.

There are several ways to stay there, unfortunately boondocking is not one of them. Developed campgrounds exist in both the State Park and the National Seashore Park. The latter is cheaper but requires you to pay the Park entrance fee (they take the national park pass) since the campground is located inside the National Park. The State Park campground costs $10 more per day ($20 more if you want electric hookups), but the lots are somewhat larger (or they seem to be). By the time it occurred to me to make reservations (which they only take up until mid October, incidentally) the National Park was full and the State Park gave me a choice of only one spot (D15) for $30/day, which I promptly grabbed after inspecting their campground map and realizing that it's one of the best spots I could ask for - closest to the ocean, and a huge back lot should I need more room. Here is a Google Maps link to the exact spot. My brain, pre-programmed for suspicion, naturally asked "What's wrong with this spot that nobody wanted it?", but I squashed it with "can't be choosers" concept, and it turned out to be a great site indeed.

There are alternatives to getting paved spots in the parks - backcountry camping (read: hike 2.5-15 miles carrying all your fresh water) is permitted but not reservable. I have friends who have done this, and this is probably not a beginner backpacking adventure unless you're in great shape - walking on the sand with 50lbs on your back can be a challenge. Alternatively, the park offers OSV (Over Sand Vehicle) permits, though I couldn't quite figure out if you can overnight (seemed like a "NO" unless you are actively fishing. What does "actively fishing" mean, exactly?) or if you can bring a trailer onto the sand (seemed like a pretty strong "NO"). I am pretty sure my truck could do it, though I'd probably not let someone like me onto the beach

Getting there was uneventful, my old Garmin C330 had no trouble bringing me directly to the park entrance (Assateauge is in its database), and the people are quite nice. Their access control system boils down to an automatic gate with a 3 digit code, which they give you with your parking hang-tag. We traveled with our fresh tank empty since there is a dump station and faucet available in the campground. Note that there are no camping spots with full hookups, meaning that as you get close to the 11AM checkout time, a pretty sizeable line of RV's forms at the dump station, which handles just one vehicle at a time. We were leaving on a Monday, but the line was still at least 15 RV's long, so we found a free dump site along our way home (Dover Slots) on sanidumps.com and that had no wait.

Now about the park: