My husband has family on Cape Cod, so we travel to Massachusetts at least once a year to visit. While the narrow roads and premium land value of Cape Cod don’t add up to it being a sought-after RV destination in my book, we looked into traveling with our camper for our summer of 2022 trip. Having our RV on the Cape was a game changer, and I don’t think we’ll ever visit the beautiful New England seaside any other way.
Where We Camp on Cape Cod
I was surprised when we began looking for RV accommodations how many campgrounds there are on Cape Cod. We found three choices in relatively close proximity (15 minutes) of our family mid-Cape. If you’re flexible about where you’re staying on Cape Cod, there are plenty of options.
We put off making our reservations for this year’s trip in late June until late March, and we (*knock on wood*) had no trouble finding availability – a pull through site for our 30′ travel trailer with full hook ups!
We stayed at Shady Knoll Family Campground in Brewster, MA. Our first three nights (a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) cost $78/nt, while our last night (Saturday) was $83. Lodging for four nights on Cape Cod for $317? Yes, please!
Looking ahead, (we’re considering one more visit in August) it looks like full hook-up sites run about $85/nt in what the Cape deems “high season”. Availability is limited, but with flexible dates it is still possible to book a stay of a few days for this summer!
For our 2022 trip to Cape Cod we camped at Sun Retreats in Dennisport, MA. We enjoyed our stay there but were swayed to try out other campgrounds for the lower price point and closer proximity to family. We enjoyed Shady Knoll just fine too – but we’re considering giving Old Chatham Road Campground a try for our next visit because of their pool. A pool is always a big hit with our boys.
Then again, camping on the Cape is different for us than any other camping experience.
Maybe it’s because we’re there to visit family, or maybe it’s because we’re drawn to SO many different activities on Cape Cod, but our boys don’t seem to mind a lack of kid-friendly amenities (i.e. jump pillows, playgrounds, splash pads, and pools) one bit. Shady Knoll did have a small playground area, but the boys only used the area to play wiffle ball a couple of nights while I was making dinner.
We ate all of our dinners at the campground and spent each night sitting around a campfire. The rest of our time camping on Cape Cod was spent out exploring.
Our Cape Cod Camping Itinerary
Day One:
Our trip to Cape Cod is 6 1/2 hours. After 2 fuel/rest stops and a little bit of traffic and road construction, we pulled into our site 7 1/2 hours after leaving home – at about 3 pm. After setting up camp, we met family near our favorite beach spot on the bay side, Mayflower Beach.
We spent a couple of hours enjoying the sun and sand. It was a windy afternoon and we had the best kite success we have ever enjoyed as a family, using a kite our youngest had gotten as a birthday gift back in November! The boys tried out a couple of skim boards their uncle gave them, we saw our first ever live horseshoe crab trolling about in the shallow water, and our oldest and my husband and his uncle played lots of wiffle ball while my youngest and I collected sea shells and played in the sand.
After the beach, we headed back to our campsite to make dinner, stopping at the Dennis Public Market (the DPM) to pick up a few things I had forgotten. (I didn’t pack the coffee!!!!) While there, I picked up a package of the store’s famous to our family “kitchen sink” cookies, and half a dozen ears of fresh sweet corn to add to our dinner.
We finished our day with a long dinner and enjoyed catching up with Mike’s uncle by the campfire until quiet hours began at 10 pm and all guests were asked to leave the campground.
Bonus points for Shady Knoll campground that guests may visit for free! They just needed to check in at the office and leave the campground by 10 pm each night.
Day Two:
I booked a kids fishing charter through “Cap’n Kids Fishing Adventures” a week before our trip. Our 6 yo is an avid fisherman, and was elated that he was going to get to fish in the big ocean.
We booked an 8:30 am charter for me and the two boys. Mike gets violent bouts of motion sickness very easily (he once spent a three hour layover after the first leg of a flight to Oregon on the floor of the airport terminal, and another time lost two entire days of a Disney vacation after riding “Expedition Everest”), so he sat the fishing charter out. Good decision too – the swells that morning were intense and that boat was rocking.
The Cap’n Kids fishing charter was awesome – the perfect fit for our family. At $50 per person, the $150 we spent to fish for the morning was far less than any of the other fishing charters I researched, which all ran in the $400 – $600 range. The crew was helpful, and willing to assist you as much or as little as you needed with baiting hooks, untangling lines, and removing fish from the hooks. My 9 yo and I each caught three fish: two scup and one sea bass each, while the 6 yo angler caught one very awesome, and totally new to us, sea robin!
After our 2 hour fishing charter, we went back to the campsite to eat lunch and pack up for the beach. We spent our afternoon enjoying the sun and sand on Mayflower Beach in Dennis on the bay side.
A light rain came in during the late afternoon, but we didn’t let it deter us from enjoying our annual Cape Cod mini golf game. We played 18 holes at Pirate Cove. Mini golf is the only request of our 9 yo on any of our vacations, and Pirate Cove on Cape Cod is a favorite spot of ours. This year he beat me, fair and square – ouch!
We headed back to the campground a little damp and chilled, and enjoyed visiting over dinner and a campfire.
Day Three:
We began our day with a run and bike ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. The CCRT spans over 20 miles beginning in Dennis, MA, and ending in Wellfleet, MA. We parked at the access point closest to our campground (just 1/2 mile up the road!). I got in a 4 mile run – running two miles out and back – and then jumped on my bike to head back out to catch Mike and the boys. I was able to bike the last two miles of their 6 mile ride.
After our ride we had lunch at our campsite and headed to Provincetown for the afternoon.
Provincetown is one of our favorite places on Cape Cod and our afternoon spent there on this trip did not disappoint. We saw a seal in the harbor, visited the Atlantic Shark Conservancy Museum for the first time, and found another horseshoe crab (and lots of hermit crabs) along the beach. (The beach is free access by the way!)
We window shopped down Main Street, enjoyed an ice cream cone, picked up a souvenir for each of the boys at the puzzle shop (a disc spinner for our 6 yo and a “Speedsolving the Cube” book for our 9 yo who has recently become really into, and really good at! solving the rubik’s cube). We scored front row benches for a fantastic street performance in front of Town Hall, and I picked up a used copy of Steinbeck’s “East of Eden” for $7 and change at Tim’s Used Books.
By the time we came back to our parking spot by the Pilgrim Monument, the Monument and new incline ride were closed for the day. Our boys were a bit bummed to miss out on riding the new incline and climbing the tower steps, but we assured them we’ll be back to explore on future trips.
On the way home from Provincetown, Mike’s uncle took us to Crab Creek Conservation Area. It’s a great little spot on the Cape where anyone can go and catch blue crabs. (25 blue crabs per person per day, no permit required according to the signs). Our 6 yo was in his glory watching the crabs scuttle around, and we all enjoyed the beautiful scenery and a stunning snowy egret sighting!
We almost opted to eat dinner out when we realized we wouldn’t get back to our campsite until 7 pm. But the majority vote was to head back to the camper for an easy dinner and another night by the campfire.
Day Four:
We woke up on Saturday – our last full day on Cape Cod – to some pretty heavy rain. The boys were exhausted after three big days followed by late nights by the campfire, and got to sleep in a little. Mike and I took turns getting a run in, and after lunch we decided we’d put on our rain jackets and make the most of our last day despite the weather.
We headed to Chatham – a first time visit in all of our years (nearly 50 years of visits for Mike!) to Cape Cod. We started at the Chatham Pier and Fish Market where we saw SO MANY seals, and got to watch a boat FULL of freshly caught dogfish be unloaded.
After the Pier, we headed to the Chatham Lighthouse, and then onto the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge. We began at the MNWR visitors’ center (free admission!) where we got to see exhibits of marine life and watch educational (and really entertaining!) videos on gray seals, horseshoe crabs, and piping plovers.
Then we headed down the road for a short walk before entering a single track sandy trail into the wildlife refuge area. We hiked the Morris Island Loop out onto the beach where we found large sails, blue crab, horseshoe crabs, and seals. The beach was gorgeous, and nearly empty – we only saw four other humans while we were out there exploring.
On the way back to the campground for dinner we stopped at Marion’s Pie Shop in Chatham for a small peach strawberry pie, a small pan of mac and cheese to add to our dinner, and some fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookies.
At the request of the boys, we ventured out after dinner at the campground for mini-golf round 2 of the trip. This time we chose the Skull Island course. Skull Island also offers an arcade, go karts, and a driving range.
We ended our night just as we had the three nights before: enjoying dinner and catching up with family by the campfire.
What We Ate While Camping on Cape Cod
In all of my visits to Cape Cod (13 years of marriage and a few years of dating worth!) this was the first time we didn’t eat out at least once. I couldn’t have imagined a trip to Cape Cod being complete without a fried shrimp plate and coffee frappe, but as it turns out, a successful (and really enjoyable) trip to Cape Cod IS possible without eating out. Enjoyable, and far more budget friendly.
We ate all of our meals at the camper.
Breakfasts looked just like they do at home: some combination of English muffins, cereal, toast, and fruit smoothies.
Lunches consisted of dinner leftovers and delicious sandwiches. Cape Cod is riddled with small deli markets, and seemingly ALL of them sell Boars Head deli meats which are, in my humble opinion, delicious and worth every penny. A pound of turkey breast (the cracked pepper was amazing) and a half pound of provolone got us through the trip with enough to spare that we had sandwiches for lunch at a roadside stop on our travels home AND sandwiches for two days after our trip.
We packed our large camping cooler in preparation for the trip and had nearly everything we needed for dinners on the trip brought from home. I do love the small Cape Cod markets, though, and so we supplemented a little bit through four stops at three separate markets. The market stops provided us with our coffee (because I somehow forgot to pack it from home, sigh), deli meat and cheese, a large bag of Cape Cod potato chips, sweet corn, coffee ice cream, fresh baked cookies and bread, a package of stuffed clams in the shell, a bottle of white wine, and a 12-pack of Cisco Brewery “Gray Lady Ale” – one of our favorite beers brewed on Nantucket.
Every dinner was cooked and eaten at the campground.
Night One:
Salmon and vegetables cooked in foil packs over the campfire with couscous and sweet corn on the side. Dessert was coffee ice cream – and s’mores, of course.
Night Two:
Our second night on Cape Cod we attempted our first ever campfire pizzas. They were both a failure and a success. I topped four naan breads I brought from our home Aldi with a combination of sauce, mozzerella, parmesan, fresh tomatoes, and left over grilled vegetables. I tented each of the four pizzas in foil packets and placed them on the campfire grate.
I had intended to bring my pizza stone, heat it well over the fire, and warm the flatbread pizzas on top of the hot stone. But I forgot the stone.
The failure: about half of the pizza made came out inedibly charred. Even after I checked them regularly for burning!
The success, though, is that the pizzas that were not charred were absolutely delicious. Lesson learned, and we will definitely be taking our pizza stone and planning a campfire pizza night on our next camping adventure.
Night Three:
Our third dinner came after a really long day out exploring Provincetown. Getting back to our campsite at 7 pm, I decided on an easy pasta night. We grilled more vegetables on the campfire while the pasta boiled, and enjoyed our penne and tomato sauce dinner with grilled veggies and a fresh baked loaf of ciabatta bread from a local market.
For dessert we finished up the kitchen sink cookies from the DPM and the coffee ice cream.
Night Four:
I had planned for a taco (shrimp and beef) night while camping, but A) I didn’t have lettuce or coleslaw mix to top the tacos and I didn’t want to have to buy them out (when I knew we wouldn’t use it all and coleslaw, in particular, would be difficult to transport home). And B) we just weren’t feeling tacos.
After four long days of sea adventures, our 6 yo was asking for seafood. We grilled more vegetables and heated stuffed clams and over the campfire, boiled the 2lbs of frozen shrimp I had brought along, added rice, fruit, the rest of the of the ciabatta bread, our Marion’s Pie Shop mac and cheese, and a smattering of random left overs from the week, and had a delicious meal.
For dessert we enjoyed Dairy Queen Mike’s uncle brought us – DQ ice cream sandwiches and butterscotch Dilly Bars – yum!
We’ve visited Cape Cod so many times, but this year’s trip was my favorite so far. It is amazing how you can visit a place over and over and continue to find and see new things. The Monomoy Wildlife Refuge, Chatham Pier, Blue Crab Conservation Area, and Cap’n Kids Fishing Charter were all home run adventures. Our visits to Provincetown are always enjoyable, but the few hours we spent there this year were idyllic.
We’re excited to try and fit another visit to Cape Cod in August, maybe trying out Old Chatham Road campground.
Have you traveled to Cape Cod by RV? We’d love to hear about your favorite campgrounds or family activities for camping on Cape Cod!
