We've visited North Mills River a couple times now as it's close to our home base of Asheville and reservations are fairly easy to come by. The river is close to the campground and shallow enough to enjoy playing in, though it's far enough away that you can't supervise young children from the campsite. We love the ranger talks on the weekends, perfect for entertaining kids around the dinner hour. We have made crafts and learned about turtles and raptors during our stays. The biggest downside for us is it is not very clean. We usually spend several minutes picking up bits of trash in the campsite when we get there - pieces of plastic, a broken flip-flop, etc. The main bathroom is okay, but the floor is always very sandy. There are a few composting toilets spread throughout, and they are quite disgusting, you can smell them a mile away and they often have huge insects perched in the corners. On the upside, the camp hosts are friendly and drive around selling firewood at night.