A Hidden Gem Campground in Virginia: Thousand Trails Chesapeake Bay

We spent the end of October at the Thousand Trails Chesapeake Bay campground in Gloucester, VA. We had spent the week before at the Colonial Beach Campground, which you can read about here. We moved to the Gloucester one so we could be a bit closer to Richmond which is where we needed to be on Tuesday night to see Straight No Chaser in concert. We’d seen some good reviews on YouTube of the Gloucester location and were excited to get there.

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What we’d heard was pretty common in the Thousand Trails network was that when you arrive you leave the camper at the entrance and a staff member will take you for a ride in the golf cart so you can pick a site out. That was not the case at the previous TT location, but was here. We decided to put our stay in Jesse’s hands and let him pick the site. What he picked out was perfect! It was a pull-through site across the road from the laundromat and store (with great ice cream). It was a short distance from the mini-golf course, and basketball and pickleball courts. And it was spacious!

We had so much room for our dog fence and all of our chairs and bikes, etc. From the picture above you can see all that was our space. Standing right behind me taking the photo was a fifth wheel, but there was a lot of room between us. He really couldn’t have picked a better site for us.

After we got leveled and the dog fence set up, we went for a ride on our Lectric Bikes to tour the campground. Check out our video of the campground (we’re improving on our videos!).

While on that bike ride, we realized just how much we loved the campground and how spread out it all was! It was right on the Piankatank River which was beautiful to look at it, as well as several catch-and-release fishing ponds.

One of the advantages of being a Thousand Trails member is that once the membership fee is paid, we can stay at these campgrounds for free and stay for up to 21 days at a time. In this little ride around the campground, we immediately knew we wanted to stay here for more than 3 days. We called the membership center and extended it for a week and a half (12 nights to be exact). It was quick and so easy and we were in! After only staying at the prior campgrounds for 4 to 5 days, we were excited to sit still for a bit. And anytime we’ve had to call them it’s been quick, easy, and painless. Very helpful!

Our main reason for originally choosing this campground was because it was the closest to Richmond, which is where we had concert tickets. It was about a 55-minute drive to the city on the Tuesday night of the campground. We left early enough to grab dinner first at Olive Garden. The girls were strongly against this dinner choice as they are die-hard Kraft Mac n’ Cheese fans. But ever since that dinner, they’ve been begging to go back! Unlimited breadsticks are now a no-brainer for them!

The highlight of the evening, however, was the concert. We’ve loved Straight No Chaser for a long time! And none of us had gone to a music concert, so this was a first!

The theatre was beautiful inside and not too packed. We were all singing along, clapping, laughing, and taking pictures of course. There were some prior favorites (like the Christmas Can-Can) but also some new music we hadn’t heard before (like a 90s medley). Catch a video of one of the songs here.

Dinner was good. The concert was good. And parking was cheap, even in the city. We had a great evening and will definitely be finding another concert to go to on our travels.

We spent a lot of time walking and biking around the campground. There were quite a few RV sites, but there were also waterside cabins. They appeared to be a bit different in variety, but all were looking out either at the river or at the catch-and-release pond. They would certainly be cute and cozy to stay in, especially with the fall foliage that was happening while we were there.

I could stay there for a week, any time of year! Check them out if you either don’t have a camper or find yourself away from the camper for a few days.

Speaking of a break, while we were here Miss Aliyah had her 11th birthday, in which we had planned to go see the horses of Chincoteague. We were going to stay just the three days here then head to the coast for horses. Since we decided to stay longer, we decided instead to leave the camper behind for a few days and rent a cabin on the coast. We were booked here in Gloucester for free, so might as well keep the camper there and just pack for a couple nights away.

Having been in the camper for a month and a half in which we always had all of our belongings with us, we hadn’t actually had to pack anything in a while. Nor do we have suitcases with us. We each packed a change of clothes and packed them in shopping totes. It’s what we had!

We stayed at the Sun Outdoors in Chincoteague which was awesome. We wrote a whole post about that trip which you can read here. Or watch the video walk-through of the cabin:

It was a cozy little cabin looking out at the water. We got to sit rooftop and drink coffee! And the highlight: seeing the wild horses on Assateague Island. So neat to see, and to wrap up the girls’ learning on the book series of Misty of Chincoteague. We’d been listening to the audiobooks in the car since we left Vermont. Being able to see the Bebe Farm, the horses, and the museum of Chincoteague was a perfect hands-on experience for us all.

This short trip also gave us all a little taste of island life making us all excited for our next stay in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Even just two days on an island had us ready to buy a Jeep, dread our hair, and load up on sunscreen!

Another short trip we took from the campground was to Fort Nonsense. We’d seen it show up on a map, so Aliyah did a bit of research on it. This wasn’t a highlight of our historical trips, but was kind of neat. She basically learned that it was really just put in a bad location so really didn’t serve too much of a purpose.

How the girls preferred to do school work from this campground – book in hand, lawn chair, and a view of the water. Who could blame them?

The swimming pool here was closed seasonally, however would have been nice to be able to use since it was 80 a couple of days. Luckily, they served large portions of Hershey Ice Cream in the camp store. Mint, coffee, and Cocoa Cappuccino were the favorite flavors we chose.

What no one was a real fan of – we tried dragonfruit while there. The kids may be sticking to the ice cream and breadsticks before eating more dragonfruit. Too bad it doesn’t taste as pretty as it is!

The pickleball courts were a favorite of ours here. There were four courts here and they were lit up at night. Our pickleball set is still holding up perfectly that we bought this summer, and is way better than waiting to take it out from the camp store.

We got plenty of practice in many of the days, playing for about an hour at a time. Look at this photo captured of Aliyah playing. We aren’t quite sure what her back hand was doing or how she was hovering off the ground, but it was the week of Halloween…

We were pretty excited to find the indoor hot tub here, as most are outdoors and close seasonally with the pool. This was indoor and open all day long. And HOT. You don’t want to stay in it for more than 10 to 15 minutes but definitely helps ease the sore muscles from pickleball and biking.

What else was exciting for us here was that we could get mail and had ordered some new decals for the camper. People can now scan our QR code and see what socials we are on. Bring on the followers! We think they look great. Soon will be adding on our Trip Advisor and Google Review stickers. More to come on that! What to put on the door now…

All in all, we had a great time in Gloucester and would definitely recommend this campground in the Thousand Trails network. It is definitely on our list of campgrounds to return to. Our map is filling in nicely! Make sure to keep an eye on it on our homepage as it’s updated with each stay!