Best Cabin Camping near Sparta, NC

The staff here is INCREDIBLY friendly and the check-in building/store is small but mighty, offering items like local honey, local preserves and camping/swimming/tubing accessories.

We stayed in the camping cabins located on the hill behind the store. It was so quiet & offered a beautiful view of the river from the picnic table. We took part in one of the offered tubing experiences and it was so cool. You can rent a tube to place a cooler inside of so you can tube down the river with beverages and snacks in tow. The end of the rafting experience puts you right there back at the campsite.

This is a great place.

Grandfather Campground is located about 15 minutes south of Boone NC and less than 10 minutes from the trailhead to Grandfather Mountain.  

There is a new sign for the Grandfather Campground directly off HWY 105.  Pulling in, you drive over a bridge with a beautiful view of the creek and immediately see an office to your right and a large grassy area and private gazebo to your left (I do not think the campground owns this gazebo).  

RV's and tents occupy the first loop past the office.  On the left side of the road are several tent sites (too close for our preference - but in a pinch - it works!) On the right side of the road are RV sites that back up to the creek.  A bathhouse is centrally located for this loop.  As you continue on, you pass several simple camping cabins and then a variety of different sleeping arrangements depending on the size of your group.  There is  fishing and a playground but to us, the most valuable amenity of this site is the proximity to Grandfather Mountain.  We can be at the trailhead within 10 minutes for a great hike to the top of Grandfather Mountain!

Hungry Mother State Park, Royal Oak Campground, Marion VA...site 3. https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/hungry-mother

Campground Overview: Located outside of Marion VA

Hungry Mother State Park is somewhat split up and fragmented on either side of a local highway and the first campground is distanced from the other two. So a little different than most parks but not necessarily a negative.

The Visitor’s Center is on the left after the first campground (Camp Burson) and across the roadway from the reservoir and beach area. The remaining two campground loops are past the beach area...one to the right along a feeder stream (Creekside Campground) and opposite that is the third loop (Royal Oak Campground) on the side of a hill with wooden platforms for tents.

I was hoping to paddle this meandering reservoir but it was being drained for bridge work...so it was six feet or so lower than normal. Even the migrating geese weren’t too happy about it, as they waddled around on the mud.

During the peak of the summer season, it appears that it would be very popular with s nice swimming beach, paddlecraft rentals, cabin rentals, conference center, ample covered picnic pavilions and both paved and dirt trails.

I stayed on site 3 in Royal Oak Campground, pitching the tent on a 20’x20’ leveled wooden platform. Several pros and cons to elevated platforms.

Pros: It’s level and large enough for any tent I’ve ever seen. Water drains pretty decent between wood decking, so no pooling. D-ring lashing points were attached to the decking to assist in securing tent or rainfly.

Cons: When the cold wind blows, it’s hard to retain heat in the tent...360 cold. While there are D-ring lashing points, they don’t accommodate every tent of rainfly. Previous knucklehead campers drill Tapcon screws or nails in the wood decking and rails to secure their tent...then leave them there so everyone else snags or rips their tent on them.

It rained for 12 hours straight with cold, high winds...so it was a bit chilly, but still enjoyable.

What I enjoyed: deer wandering through the grounds, the Molly’s Knob Trail and Vista Summit,

The ugly: the lake (reservoir) was drained. Heaters weren’t on in the shower rooms...37 degree showering gets tricky.

Fancy Gap CC is a great small campground with a rustic hotel, cabins, tent camping, and RV/Trailer hook ups. I've stayed here before tent camping, which was nice. This time I was caught in traffic and they had a cabin available, better than pitching a tent in the dark and rain. The cabins are sturdy, very clean, pet friendly, and complete with a refrigerator/microwave and coffee maker. The bath house is relatively new and kept very clean. The whole campground is tidy. You can tell tell the owners love the place. If Fancy Gap is relatively close to your travel plans, I highly suggest you visit for yourself.

We stayed here during ski season and it was great! Not very busy, which was fine and only 15 mins to the ski slopes. That trip we had a great experience.

On another occasion, over Labor Day weekend, we tried to get a spot but they were ful. So we decided to rent one of their cabins. Upon arriving, we found out that they had switched our cabin to a different one then the one we had originally booked, and it was so small (which would have been okay, but we had a young baby who needed to sleep in a port-a-crib, which did not fit anywhere in the cabin) but the real issue was that there was mold on the ceiling and coming down some of the walls. We immediately went down to the office, at first we were told there was nothing they could do. After I went momma-bear on them and let them know I would not be staying in a moldy cabin with a baby and demanded my money back, they finally agreed and gave us a refund. Luckily I was able to find a hotel that still had a room available.

So long story short: great for camping, beware of cabins.