Best RV Parks & Resorts near Gold Bar, WA

This is very much an RV park and not really a campground. Seems like a clean little park, but right in the middle of Lynnwood, so if you are looking for a rural setting this isn't for you. 

They offer weekly and monthly rentals, so this is more of a long-term sort of place. 

Website: Northsound RV Park

​Requirements from their site: 

• Your travel trailer must be year 2005 or newer 
• Pet friendly(limit 2) not to exceed 25 lbs. Aggressive breed restrictions apply. 
• No conversion vehicles - sorry van and bus life people 
• No trailers larger than 35' long, ideally.

There are several long term campers here. The grounds are kept immaculate and they regularly update the sites.  They hang wreaths for the winter holidays. Lawns mowed weekly. 

All are level gravel. All have grass area, some with patio pad. There is a dog walk area and they are currently creating a dog fenced area at the end orf the two rows. 

A caretaker is on site and will often help guide rigs into the sites (all are back-in). 

Close to Poulsbo (a cute, Norwegian heritage town), Seattle ferry via Bainbridge Island and just over an hour to the Olympic National Park via the Hood Canal Bridge.

It had been 15 years at least since I'd been to Jim Creek. Since then, they've done some nice upgrades. The rv pads are double wide concrete pads about 50 feet long with full hook-ups. All sites include a fire pit, picnic table, and grill with ash bucket and grill cleaning brush. The rv park is close to the recreation office that has a little gift shop with snacks and drinks. This is also where you can rent equipment such as bikes, fishing poles, boats, etc. They also have a movie theater upstairs that operates on Saturday. This building has a 24 hour lounge with free wifi, TV, dvds, books, markers, coloring books, games, and other things for visitors to use. The wifi was only supposed to work inside the building, but I could pick it up in my campsite once or twice during our stay. Verizon cell service is very spotty. When I did pick it up, I only had one bar. There are several hiking trails and you can drive about 5 miles back to Twin Lakes to fish or just take a rented boat out or just enjoy the view. Jim Creek is a Naval Radio station and is for active duty military, retired, DoD, and reserves. There is a gate and you must show id to get in. Because of this and the base police roll through once or twice a day, I felt very safe compared to a state park or even a private campground. We camped Tuesday-Friday and even when it started filling up in Thursday, it was still super quiet at night. Quiet like not even bug sounds. That was wonderful.

Since the reservation system does not allow same day reservations, we showed up hoping to grab one of the few available sights as first come, first served. There were 3 or 4 sites listed as available in the lower campground and we found one that was perfect for us. We had the choice between a full hook up site and a dry site and chose the latter as it was perfectly level and offered more privacy.

It’s interesting to note the different pricing levels from ‘popular’ to basic. Some sites were tightly packed and others were absolutely enormous with great views. Our site, 105, had a very tight neighboring spot on just one side (a no show which gave us a much roomier feeling) and an ample area with picnic table, fire pit, and enough room for two tents behind the pad. A short trail, albeit somewhat overgrown, at the back of our site lead right to the beach.

The campground, while quite full, was incredibly quiet. I’m sure things are different in the summer time with more families camping. The hosts and maintenance folks were all very friendly.

Perhaps my favorite part of this campground is the location with miles of beach to walk. I was surprised that with our frequent strolls on the beach with the pups, we only passed a small number of people.

The dump station worked as expected and had potable water available.

We stayed 1 night here for the maiden voyage of our recently purchased travel trailer, which was nice since it's only about an hour away from our place near Seattle. Arrived Friday early evening and it wasn't busy at all.

The check-in process was easy, even though their reservation system was down at the time. Filled up w/ some fresh water at the dump station, which was clean and well maintained.

Campsites in the RV loop were spaced out enough with vegetation between them so as to provide some privacy. Our site had a pull-through driveway, 30amp hookup, a fire ring and picnic table. Bathrooms in that loop were pretty nice... heated and very clean.

Took a walk down to the day use area by the river, which was easy for us, but some portions of the trails closer to the river were slightly overgrown w/ a few obstacles, which could be problematic for some. Didn't see any kids play structures down there, which would be nice to have for families.

We heard a couple trains while there, but the noise wasn't too loud. Never heard the fire siren that they warned us about. Overall, it was a good camping experience for a quick trip and would return!

Staying two nights in the "preferred" #17 campsite. Parking was wide enough to fit my RV and my son's big Panel Truck. Pay showers ($1 for 3 minutes) and clean restroom with air dryer, pet friendly, lots of trails to hike and a beautiful beach area with a playground, seasonal/weekend snack shop, outdoor shower by the beach and full-time host. We paid $37 (+10 for extra vehicle) for one of the few "camper preferred" sites, but the normal rate is $25 (least preferred site) and $32 (average preference)and the only difference in the sites appears to be where in the campground they are located. We were at the end of the campground next to the camp host and a disabled access site, directly across from the showers. Great cell coverage for my T-Mobile plan. ***Commercial jets landing at Sea-Tac fly directly above us at a low altitude and are VERY loud and VERY frequent (every 3-5 minutes), so if you don't mind the noise, or LOVE airplanes (like we do), this is an Awesome campground!!!

The Verlot campground is in a beautiful location within the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. This small campground showed us that sometimes camping down by the river in a van isn’t really a bad life decision. The campground themselves are 2 small loops that were nicely laid out with a good number of the 26 sites being on the water. Some of the sites are more secluded than other, and a few are setup to be combined with their neighbors to accommodate large groups. Our site (#13) was one of the sites which is more separated from the neighbors on both the left and right by fairly thick underbrush and mostly shaded with the river side being left completely open. We then had a little path right down to the river. Within the site itself you get a nice decent flat area for a tent or 2 and your standard table and fire ring with a grill. There are tons of potable water spigots located throughout the campgrounds and the restroom facilities were simple but clean and fully functional. This is a great location for either just relaxing and taking in the quiet sounds of nature or as a jumping off point to explore more of the National Forest and eventually the Northern Cascades National Park.

Amenities: standard picnic tables, fire rings + grill, flush toilets, potable water

Prohibited: pets off-leash

Nearby Hikes: Lake Twenty-Two Trail, and the Heather Lake Trail

My wife and I have been living in our camper for a few years staying at upwards of around 20 different RV parks from coast to coast. Lake Sawyer RV resort has placed #1 on the worst parks we’ve encountered list. There’s actually no other parks in it’s class!

The manager is running the place in such a shady manner that one of the front desk ladies told me even she doesn’t agree with their business practices. It was a nightmare right out of the gate but luckily I have a backbone and don’t let people dig into my wallet or jerk me around so they figured out the hard way you can’t steal from everybody.

Watch for them to drag their feet on your long stay application so they can charge you a ridiculous nightly rate for their “deluxe site” which had broken electrical receptacles and cracked water pipes.

As soon as they do approve you, they’ll ask you to move to a different site. If you confront them about why they would put you in a daily site when they knew your intentions were to stay long term their excuse will be, “there was a mix up between different departments”. Departments 😂 it’s just 3 ladies working there!

They also tried to start my time the day before I got there and will write down your CC info without your consent.

They are one of the only rv parks in the greater Seattle area with vacancy and now you know why.