Best Tent Camping near Shelby, NC

On the Blue Ridge Parkway, nestled in the trees and mountains of North Carolina, this campground is an older style NPS campground, but has been well maintained. Sites are back-in and pull through on the side of site. Most sites will allow for 30’ rigs. All sites have picnic table and built-in fire pits. There are no hookups. There are no showers in the trailer (RV) loop, but does include a couple comfort station with flush toilets. Campground Ranger was helpful and very friendly. Sites are split between first come first serve and reservations. Payment made with Ranger by cash or credit card. At $30 per site per day, the price is a little steep.

Jacob Branch: Three sites arranged around a clearing. Two pit privies and a BEAR BOX! Woot!! The sites are a bit difficult to pitch on, due to the abundance of roots, hardpan earth, and slope, but you’ll find a spot. I didn’t hang, but there are certainly spots that would be suitable. Water is just down the hill. It’s ample and clear, as of May 2023. There are several ways to hike in, as many of the South Mountains SP trails intersect and wander around a bunch giving a bunch of options for how to get in and out. The variety makes for a nice loop instead of just an in-and-out. Get inventive. Trails are broad and veeeeeery hilly in places. If your knees complain, bring the trekking poles. You’ll thank me.

Shinny Creek: Perfect trip if you have kids…or just want something close by. It’s only a bit over a mile to these four sites (see video tour) nestled by a stream. Clear, flat sites. Bear box. Critter-proof trash bin. Pit privy. Water access from every site within ten paces, so water and entertainment are always available. The trail here is easy peasy rolling hills that follows the river past Bear Falls all the way up to the sites.

South Mountain State Park, NC From I-40 Exit 104, you twist and turn, up and down but keep a sharp eye for the small, brown State Park signs or you’ll pass your right hand turns. 

The South Mountain Visitors Center is very spacious and attractive but doesn’t offer a great deal. There is a cool 3D topo map display of the state park. At present, this is a 23,000 acre State Park...and ever acquiring more land. 

The family campground is a short distance further inside the park on the left side(approx 2 miles) marked by a small brown sign...and is situated at 1400 ft elevation. 

The campground is tiny and narrow, running between a creek and the state park roadway. The sounds of the creek melodious, the road traffic noise-not so much. I would definitely advise selecting the creek side campsites as they lay deeper in the wood line out of sight of the roadway and have the creek noise to cover roadway noise.(note: the roadway dead ends at the trailhead/picnic area, so the only traffic are day visitors and park staff) Be forewarned, Cell service is nonexistent. Your site will have a WiFi password for internet at the Visitors Center, but you need to be at or in the building for it to work. 

PROS:

•Small campground with few amenities

•Mountain/creek location

•Nice modern facilities

•Water

•Adjoining trail network

•No cell service

•80’ Waterfall•Interpretive Hemlock Nature Trail

•Beautiful Day Use picnic area 

CONS:

•Road noise for sites 10-14, during working hours and day use hours.

•No cell service 

Site 13 backs up toward the roadway, and without much understory, passing traffic is very visible and noisy(the high shoals falls and trail network are popular day use attractions). On the sites between the campground roadway and the State Park roadway, you are much closer than the website maps post, and without understory vegetation, you have direct visibility of several neighbors and normal conversations can be heard. Night noise restrictions, on our visit, were observed so it wasn’t an issue. My visit was Wed, Thurs. midweek Oct 7-8. 

Our site was an“leveling,” octagonal, elevated, crushed gravel pad, surrounded by landscape timbers...an elevated fire ring with a swing-over, non-adjustable grate, a picnic table and metal lantern pole. It worked fine but I used a small two-man tent. Depending on wind direction, fire ring embers would present a problem for a larger tent. Our site parking area was 45’ from the raised timber to campground roadway. 

The restroom/shower house is a monstrous, mountain lodge style modern facility...very clean, spacious and well-stocked. 

Walking the Family Camground my future site picks would be 5 or 7. Site 5 is a park and carry but it did not appear to be more than 50’ and it sat on the creek. Site 7 is on that same small loop but had a larger rectangular raised pad, for keeping tents distanced from fire pits. 

Some sites have a deep enough gravel drive for a small camper or popup. And a few have electric. 

Several trails lead from the NW end of the family campground parking lot and vary in length and difficulty. Most notable is the Raven Rock Trail to the High Shoals Falls Trail, which, depending on your level of fitness could be deemed a moderate to strenuous 2.35 mile climb and descent to the upper falls and then wooden boardwalk and steep steps down to the gorgeous 80 ft High Shoals waterfall. Smaller falls and cascades continue on the descent. Our total loop mileage was 5.5 with nearly a thousand foot of elevation gain. 

Park employees both at the Visitor’s Center desk and in the field were very friendly and pleasant. The NC State Park Ranger was very informative and helpful, as well as giving much appreciated suggestions for great and often lesser traveled hiking trails. 

Roughly 16.5 miles of mountain bike trails intermix with hiking and equestrian trails. There is a separate equestrian campground between the Visitors Center and the Family Campground. Note: there are several backcountry backpack-in campsite areas(Upper Falls Campsites offer picnic tables, fire ring and a couple pit latrines).

Nice, quaint campground off the BRP, near Little Switzerland {which offers the lovely Little Switzerland Cafe, open 11am to 4pm, with an adjacent general store, next to that is a cool eclectic bookstore with art, coffee & treats.}

Campground is non electric, no showers - flush toilets. The bathroom is usually rather unkempt - but tolerable.

Rv loop, tent loop - one car per tent sight. Extra cars must park in the overflow.

There’s a picnic area to the right and up a ways as you exit the campground. It’s lovely and offers a bit of a look out.

There’s an open area in the tent site loop with inner and outer sites, the outer ones seem more private.

Small picnic table and fire ring at sites, across to water.

Dog friendly, alcohol prohibited. $20 a day.

Be warned: Tent pads are small.. and you must keep tents on the pad so if you have a large family sized tent the pad may not accommodate.

You can hike to the stunning Crabtree Falls from the campground.. it’s about 45 mins to an hr round trip.

Walmart is in nearby Spruce Pine for fuel and supplies as well as a farm stand & BK.

NC Gem museum is closeby as well as Grassy Creek Falls, one of my favorite waterfalls.

Roaring Fork Falls is close, off the 80.

There’s plenty of look outs on the BRP..

It’s definitely worth a stop.

We enjoyed our stay. The park office had everything well taken care of. We arrived late almost at sundown but they had an envelope waiting with instructions, a parking tag and a map. This is a hike in campground so we were in a hurry. The campground had lockers with firewood and you could leave the money in the envelope at the trailhead. The site was very private with a fire ring and picnic table and two pads for tents. The only complaint (and this isn’t the parks fault) is you aren’t far off the beaten path so car exhaust and jet noise was prevalent throughout the night. All in all happy with the stay and it served us perfectly as we were just passing through the area!

Really cute campground just a short jaunt to the beautiful multi-level Catawba Falls hike in the Pisgah National Forest. We stayed in a tent site VERY close to a rushing creek of cool water. The sound definitely helped put me to sleep!

The tent sites all have a tent pad, camp ring, trash can, and picnic table provided. This site had a bit more privacy than others we saw and was on the other side of the property from the RV area, which also included a playground, bathrooms, showers, and small store. There are also small tiny cabins to rent out which is great if you had a large group and not everyone was down for roughin' it. Some tent sites were also close to shared pavilions which were very nice to use during the rainy weekend we experienced! We appreciated the hot showers since we were outside hiking all day but wanted to hit up some sights in Asheville that evening without looking too worn out.

The people who run the camp were extremely nice and helpful -- we arrived later than expected in a downpour thunderstorm and they were able to accommodate us and transfer us and our bags from the car to the site via golf cart.

We decided to try this campground since it was halfway from home and we never stay near Asheville since it is so close. Since it was the day of, all sites were first come, first serve.

The road up to the mountain was gravel but our Jeep did just fine and we saw smaller cars at the campground so even though the road might seem sketchy I think most cars can make it.

The campsites aren’t very private but you also have plenty of space at each one where you aren’t on top of one another. They have primitive sites by the river that are very nice and a wheelbarrow is provided to walk your belongings to your campsite with ease. Dispersed camp sites are available as well on the way up to the campground.

There’s a bathroom (one women and one men) but no showers. There is a water faucet near the bathrooms for water. Both bathrooms were very clean and smelled nice.

The campground host is very nice and welcoming. He walked up to me as I was filling out the envelope with site details since it was first come first serve and we didn’t make a reservation online.

We stayed in site 11 which was wooded on one side. There was only one other group in a site across the way and campers in 2 primitive camping spots so we still felt secluded even though the campsites are pretty open.

There’s no electricity or sewer at any of the sites and I didn’t see a sanitation dump either. Sites are too small for campers anyway but are nice and flat if you have a pop up or teardrop trailer. Each site has its own designated picnic table and fire pit.

We had our 4 person tent and 2 person tent on the tent pad and it fit fine. It was very quiet and ended the day with a nice fire in the fire pit while listening to the creek nearby.

Alcohol is prohibited and there’s no firewood sold at this campground so make sure you get some at the grocery store (Frisby’s) 2 miles down the road before heading up the mountain to the campground.

I didn’t have any cell reception going up the mountain or at the campground but In town it was fine (Verizon)