Car Camping Adventures for Families

A blog detailing the ins and outs of car camping with children throughout the Carolinas region and beyond. Learn about kid friendly campgrounds, fun camping activities and healthy, tasty camping food that your kids will love!



Sunday, June 6, 2010

Stone Mountain State Park, North Carolina

Camping trip number two is officially under our belts.  We decided to head to Stone Mountain State Park in North Carolina for our Memorial Day weekend holiday.  

If you haven't visited this park before and live in the area, you should consider it for a quick family camping getaway.  The campground itself was very nice.  The pads were decent sized, the majority of them were wooded, and the bathrooms were well maintained with hot showers and a nice large sink for cleaning dishes.  

If you like a bit more privacy, I'd recommend campsites 10-24 as my top choices.  All of these sites are wooded and back to more trees vs. more campers.  The only ones I wouldn't recommend are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, or 8 as they back to the RV section of the park and have a fairly steep drop off which I wouldn't have felt comfortable with having small children.

There were plenty of activities to entertain the kids as well.  Be sure to bring your swimsuits and your fishing poles.  We, of course, forgot both, but still managed to make do and have a fun time in the water. Some of the highlights of our trip were hiking to the top of Stone Mountain and playing in the waterfalls and slides that exist naturally in the park.  There are also some really great ranger led activities in the summer time as well as some great trout fishing for the anglers in your family.

Here are some pictures to share from our trip to give you a better idea of what the park has to offer.

Setting up Camp.  You can see the bathrooms in the back.  We were on pad 7 and had about 1000ft. between us and the showers.




Hiking to the top of Stone MountainThere were a whole lot of steps on this hike.








Enjoying some waterplay at the waterfalls.  You can see the natural slides on the left side.  Kids were wearing plastic bags on their bottoms to slide faster.



Finally, a few fun pictures taken of the boys around camp and the park.







The one thing that I will remember about this campsite that I want to share before finishing up this post is the number of daddy long legs we had at tent pad.  


These guys were everywhere.  Big ones, small ones, all colors and shapes.  When we went to take down our tent two days later there were at least a bakers dozen on top of the tent under the rain flap.  Just to give you an idea of what we found:

Yep, there's four in a row just on that one side alone.  So keep your tent zipped or you may be having some visitors.  Next month we're planning to head to Grandfather Mountain and will most likely stay at our first private campground.  So be on the lookout for that review!

Also, In the next couple weeks, I'll post a few recipes from this trip that will make your mouth water without a lot of work.  

Happy Trails!



13 comments:

  1. Julie, my nieces live in North Carolina. We've been wanted to visit and take them camping in the mountains. i appreciate your review.

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  2. Thanks betty! I don't think they'll be disappointed. It was a very family fun campground.

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  3. Cool! I hiked Stone Mtn when I lived in Charlotte and Grandfather Mtn when I lived in Boone. I LOVE Blowing Rock, too. You'll have to stop and have some ice cream. We're hiking/backpacking the wild Rockies in the west these days but miss the Smoky Mtns and Blue Ridge.

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  4. Wow they are some cool and amazing pictures. One of the things I really miss about living in the States is being outdoors all the time and the great campsites! Thanks for stopping by my blog on SITS Pot Luck Friday!

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  5. That looks really cool! We love to camp to and live in New York State. Visiting from Lady Blogger's Society.

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  6. Stone Mountain is Great. Brings back memories. We've been stuck in a rut heading to the coast. I love the Carolinas and the Charlotte area. Now the juices are flowing and I'm psyched to get back to Stone Mtn. Thx, Like your blog.

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  7. I use to go camping with my family when I was growing up. Looks like you guys are having a great time and what great nature.

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  8. Do you take your pack & play with you camping? We are going tent camping next week - first time as a family. Matthew (11 mos) will probably spend a bit of time on my back in the Mei Tai, but I'm thinking I should take my P&P too. I'm not sure where to put it, though - do you set it right on the ground, or on a tarp or something? Or just leave it in the tent? I could use some advice for camping with an almost-walking baby.

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  9. Hi! I am so glad that we both have the most beautiful name in the world, Julie. You have a wonderful camera. It CAMPtured everything about your adventure perfectly.

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  10. Oh! thank you for this blog! I’m out the door for another adventure – but got to go alone. The second best thing to getting out there is coming back and reliving it through photos and blogging!

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  11. Nice! Happy holidays to everyone.

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  13. It's so great to see the kid's happy face.

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