Burlingame State Park

Overall Rating (1 to 10) : 6

Location: Charlestown, RI

Burlingame is HUGE, with plenty of sites to go around. We were there for the Fourth of July weekend, and there were still lots of sites available (though many of them weren't that desirable). You'd have to spend quite a while driving around to see all the open sites, so we asked the folks at the front to pick a good site for us. I guess they weren't that familiar with the site they gave us, because it was pretty crummy -- small and partially in a gully, with these weird enormous beetles running around.

This wasn't a problem, because there were several decent sites in the general vicinity, and we were able to switch to a better one. We settled on a fairly large site (my brother and some friends were with us, so we needed room for three tents). It was private, with a nice patch of woods (scrub brush, pine, and blueberry bushes) running behind the site. Being near the ocean (and in the Ocean State) the ground was very sandy and flat. Our friend brought hammocks, which we tied to the little grove of pines on the site.

The campground has a lake and a little beach (good for little kids, but not that exciting compared to the ocean). There's a busy little camp store and a recreation hall. It feels kind of like summer camp, actually. There were a lot of people walking around and hanging out, and kids riding their bikes around. It felt busy but safe (though I could see how it might get noisy, if you weren't lucky with your neighbors).

The downside: the bathrooms were quite far away, and there weren't very many of them. They placed port-a-potties around the campground (kind of unsightly, I thought, and also stinky) to make up for the lack of regular facilities. Also, the price seemed steep for a state run campground.

Things to do in the area: Go to the beach (it's right across the street from the campground). We drove to Watch Hill for the beach (because it's free, if you can find parking) and also because of the cute town and my favorite ice cream stand in Rhode Island. We also visited Ninigret Conservation area (just down the road from the campground) -- there's some nice easy trails here (good for kids) and a nature center (though it wasn't open when we were there).