Buck Hall Recreation Area Camping

Living in the western US our whole lives, we are very spoiled, and are not used to making reservations for camping. In the west, there is BLM land everywhere, which means free, always available camping.  Here on the east coast it is quite different.  You need to at least have an idea of what you want to do each night.  Our plan for last night was to stay in the Buck Hall Recreation Area campground.  They have about 5 tent sites, and probably 30 RV sites, and they also have overflow dry camping available.  So we didn’t make a reservation, we just showed up, and if all the spots were full, we figured we would just use the overflow area.  Well, think again.  Since it is “shrimping” season, the campground was completely full, and during “shrimping” season, they don’t allow overflow parking.  They did still have two tent sites available, and since we are in a van, and don’t require any hookups, we are able to use a tent site.  By the time we drove the loop and got back to the pay station, another van had already pulled in that wanted a tent site too, so our timing was impeccable.  We had a spot for the night, but just barely.  

Buck Hall Recreation Area is a very nice campground with restrooms, showers, a dump station and a boat ramp, right onto the inter coastal water way, which our site is right on as well. RV sites with electric and water are $28 per night, and the tent sites are $20 per night.

The RV sites are a nice level, paved pad in the grass, but since we are using a tent site, we have a designated parking spot with a picnic table and fire pit with a grill, and a huge grass area that backs up to the inter coastal water way.  Super cool.  We learned some history about the inter coastal waterway while we were here.  People had wanted all of the east coast waterways connected for years, but it had just never happened.  Then during World War II, it became a necessity to have an inland waterway for private and cargo ships to pass through without the risk of being bombed by the German U boats.  So the inter coastal waterway was dug to connect all of the natural waterways.  It was dug large enough for cargo vessels, but too shallow for the U boats to enter.  So smart.

There are lots of huge live oak trees, with beautiful Spanish moss hanging down.

Our lack of planning could have been bad, but luckily it all worked out OK.  We really like this camp ground, and even really like the tent site.  This will be our last camping spot of this trip before we head home.  It has been really nice.