Best RV Parks & Resorts near St. Albans, WV

Amy and I spent the Labor Day Weekend in Fayetteville, WV. The New River Gorge area is amazing. We camped at Rifrafters Campground. It is family owned and operated. The owners were great and made a point to stop by our site and see how we were doing. The campground is clean, well maintained and conveniently located. It is only about 7 minutes from the New River Bridge welcome center.

There were several long term campers, sites were very small and close together. Fire ring and picnic table ended up under our awning. Water, electric and cable service and a few sites had sewer. Campground WiFi was weak at our site (#27).

While this was a positive stay, we prefer State Parks versus RV campgrounds.

It's rare to find free RV camping, especially sites with 30 AMP electric hook-ups!  The City of Saint Albans has a roadside park with three RV sites where you can camp for 2-days max in a 14-day period.  The sites are first-come, first-serve, with donations encouraged.  Sorry, no tent camping....

Each RV site has electricity, a picnic table, and a trash can.  There's a sewer dump site nearby with drinking water available.  The public park restrooms offer flush toilets, but no showers.  There's a nice picnic shelter and a huge playground with some handicap-accessible swings.  A shopping center is directly across the street with a grocery store and other amenities.

This park also has a public boat ramp which is part of the Port of St. Albans.  The ramp gives you direct access to the Kanawha River which is primarily used by coal barges, speed boats and vintage paddle wheelers.  For kayakers like me, you should bare left at  the bottom of the ramp and head toward the Coal River where you can enjoy a nice, peaceful paddle without the fear of being swamped or crushed.  BTW, St. Albans is home to the annual Yak Fest, mid-June, where participants in the Tour de Coal gather to enjoy live music and local eats after a 12-mile float.

A little historic trivia.  George Washington owned 2,000 acres in the Kanawha Valley, including what is now the City of Saint Albans.

The main drawback to this roadside park is that it's butted up to MacCorkle Avenue, which is a busy roadway, so I'd describe this as urban RV camping.  On the plus side, you're 15-minutes from the capital city of Charleston, WV, which is worth a visit to see the beautiful gold-domed capitol and WV State Museum.

We visited in the end of October 2021. The colors and the views were spectacular. The drive into the park was very curvy mountain back roads. The site included a fire pit with grill and a picnic table. There was a fair amount of space between sites. Approximately 50-75 feet apart. The bath house was nice but could use a little refreshening. There are many activities including a shooting range, frisbee golf course, swimming pool, playground just to name a few. With Verizon as our service provider no cell signal was available at the park. Overall, we give 3 stars. Minus one star for no cell service and minus another star due to maintenance. Overall, very nice park.

The St. Albans roadside park is for pull behind campers only. No tents allowed. About 6-7 sites for campers. You are literally about 20 yards from the main road, which is the only negative thing with road noise. On the other side is the kanawha river. Each site has a fire pit and electric/water hookups. There are two shelters at the park with chimneys for cooking. There is a fenced in playground that is very nice. If you're a boater there is a boat slip a hundred yards away to get onto the kanawha river. There are plenty of food choices and a grocery store located on the other side of the main road.

The campground was very quiet and peaceful. My 25 year old son was the youngest person there, except for 2 hours when 1 year old came to visit his grandparents. Most of the campers are there long term and were gone for the time we were there. We only saw people in about 10 of the campsites. The grass was beautifully cut and maintained. We had a pull thru site by the lake, it had to be about 100 yards long and nicely graveled. There are three small bathrooms around the grounds, that are single use rooms (sink, toilet and shower) one for women and one for men. If someone was using shower, no one else could use bathroom. They were clean but it seems they don’t get used very often by the long term campers. They were VERY musty. My wife would not go in them. The big multiple use bathroom by the entrance was much better and air was fresher. The office people were very nice and drove a golf cart to show us where our campsite was. We would stay there again, but still confused why there were so many trailers and so few people.