RV Camping Along the Blue Ridge Parkway: From Asheville to Shenandoah

Welcome to the Blue Ridge Parkway, 469 miles of America's favorite drive stretching from the Great Smoky Mountains to Shenandoah National Park. The Blue Ridge Parkway is a 469 mile road connecting the Great Smoky National Park with Shenandoah National Park. Today we're at the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center and that's at mile marker 384. We're taking that all the way to mile marker zero near the Shenandoah National Park. I kind of wish we were driving the entire Blue Ridge Parkway but this is a good place to start as well. As you know I love my visitor centers. Yes you do. It's always nice to pick up a handy guide plus we learned about some road closures on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The park ranger was nice enough to mark all the road closures for us and point out the closed visitor centers. So we've got lots of good resources to get us started. Now we've given ourselves a few days to do the drive. We don't want to rush it but before we get on the road I've got to make some coffee. So the designers of the road wanted to give the people who are experiencing the park or the parkway no matter where you went some sort of vista or view or make it look like the rolling hills were almost endless and from what I've seen in this little bit so far that's pretty much true and you do get to experience most of it at a fairly sedate pace of 45 miles an hour for most of the drive. There are a lot of places to check out along the Blue Ridge Parkway. I don't know if going to film and show you all of them but first stop for us is the Folk Art Center. I think we made it all of less than a mile down the road. There's a lot to see. No photography so you'll have to come and check it out for yourself. Most if not all of the stuff in there is actually for sale. It's like a giant folk art gift store. Really really cool handmade stuff and they had a whole section dedicated to things made in the Appalachian Mountains. It's kind of impressive so if you are driving by check out the store. Now I did read that RVs are welcome on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I think they said the only real limitation are some of the tunnels can be a bit short but you can always drop off of the parkway go around the tunnel and then get back on if you did find one so van life tip of the day when emptying your toilet don't lean over look directly into it and then open up the valve because as I wasn't thinking we're at elevation and the air pressure in there I got a nice mist right into the face and all over my shirt and everything else so stand back release pressure and then go dump it. Got your new shirt on? Yep. Wash my face and hands and everything else. I'm good. I'm toilet free now. I think I've noticed on our drive is every now and again you'll see a branch that's growing into the roadway or it's hanging down pretty far and for a normal car it wouldn't be a problem but for a taller RV you may just have to be careful and keep your eyes open going around the parkway. One of the stops that I really wanted to make on the Blue Ridge Parkway is Mount Mitchell because it is the highest point east of the Mississippi River. It's getting dark or let me rephrase the sun's going down and we're getting clogged in yes so we should probably start looking for a place to camp for the night. Well the nice thing about having the mode is that we have a roof deck so we're on top of the roof deck and we have an amazing view into this valley behind us and yes we need to find a camping spot but sites like these are worth pulling over taking your time and really enjoying the parkway. I think we're only going to make like 50 miles today. So far we've gone I think 25. All right we got groceries and a parking spot for the night. We went in asked the Walmart manager if we could spend the night in the parking lot they said yes so this is where we're spending tonight. Tomorrow earlier start so we can cover more miles. And I've got dinner cooking it's all done let's eat. We're having rice bowls for dinner. It's a DIY make your own rice bowl. This is going to be a weird mixture of stuff don't judge me by what's in this bowl. I have white rice a can of sardines and olive oil jalapenos and soy sauce oh and spaghetti sauce. Good morning sunshine. Good morning. Somebody's still in bed. Are you having an underwear day? I'm enjoying sitting in bed this morning. Okay well I've got my coffee already. I'm going to enjoy that and then we can go to the mineral museum. Okay we don't typically sleep at Walmart these days but this was a pretty good one. That was very quiet. Enjoyed it. Yeah and we got to get some fuel and if you're wondering we've been getting about 11 miles per gallon on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Well it's very mountainous. There are almost no straightaways so it's all curves. I love rocks. I don't know what it is. Every time I go into a rock and mineral museum or place I think of the movie Long Long Trailer. Apparently you married one. I'm a mineral. All right let's get some miles done. We're at the Museum of North Carolina Minerals Visitor Center which is mile marker 330.9. We have that many more to go till we get to the northern end. Let's see how far we get on day two of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Hold them out to the side. We're driving past Glenville Falls because Joe already went a couple of days ago. It was gorgeous. I got some good video of it. It was a it was a strenuous hike though down to the bottom. My first time driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. Well we just made it 120 miles from where we started yesterday. Making progress today. We are but we're still not even halfway. We still have time. Yeah it's a good thing we're not in a rush because there's so much to see and do along the parkway that if you're taking your time and you're enjoying it you're going to need a lot of time. All right we got a bit of a detour. I was reading the guidebook about the grist mill that we passed about eight miles ago and apparently it is the most arguably the most picturesque destination on the Blue Ridge Parkway. So we're gonna call an audible and try to find a campground so we can spend the night and then drive back tomorrow to check out this awesome mill. I'm kind of happy about that because I think it would have been good with it. My fingers crossed hoping that the campground is not full. It's pretty open. Yeah. Yay. So we have to find a site that does not have a reservation. Considering I've only seen three campers so far I think we kind of have our pick of sites. So I'll let you decide where you want to park. Okay um there are some sites up there by the bathrooms. It's a little chilly. Since we're not going to the gym tonight do you want to just shower in the van? I'm definitely gonna have a quick rinse. I'm not gonna wash my hair but I will shower. Okay I'll shower too then. Okay do you want to turn the front seat around? Sure. Before you come in. While you're doing that I'm gonna put our hot water on. Let's see. Come on in. I don't think we need to put this screen up tonight. No. There's nobody over there right? No. Okay well the hot water is on. Do you want to shower first? Do you want me to shower first? You can shower first. Okay. At least then I'll have someone to blame for all the water being on. Hey we have what does that say? Uh 63 percent. Did you notice if there was a water fill here? I did see something. I don't know what kind of fill it is. If there is a water fill then that means I can take a much longer shower. I'm sure we can find water somewhere. We're about to take the toilet out. There we go. The shower is ready. Thank you for putting up the shades. You're welcome. Now here's a tip. Don't turn your shower pressure water pressure on all the way. Because it's really good. Oh it's hot. You have to turn it down. Yeah it's a little hot. All right well I'm gonna step out of your shower now. Okay thank you. Got our bourbon. Cheers. Good night everyone. We'll see you in the morning. It's 11 and we just got out of bed. Well no we've been up for a little bit but it's been a slow morning because it was raining. We're enjoying the just slow getting started morning. It's always nice. All right well we're off to the mill. Day three. Blue Ridge Parkway. Well I am sufficiently stuffed. That was a great call on breakfast. Yes. I will say the biscuits and gravy delicious but your sweet potato pancake was probably the best I've ever had. Yes and I have leftovers for lunch. All right well let's go check out the mill and then we can get back on the road. The mill is definitely worth it. I'm very glad that we spent the night last night and drove back because I would have been pretty sad to miss this. Plus the sweet potato pancakes delicious. But that's the real reason she's so happy that we came back. We showered. Hair was getting a bit. That is the one thing I don't have to worry about and I haven't had to worry about it in a long time. That's why I really enjoy not having hair for so long. Oh I feel you. I enjoy not having it at all. Look at that rainstorm rolling in. That is awesome. Hey pretty. There have been a lot more deer I've noticed on the side of the Blue Ridge Parkway. They're all over the place. Either that or they hunkered down yesterday because of the storm. Decided to come out today. They've been all over the road today. It's been fun watching their white tails bouncing around. About to approach mile marker zero. This is it. This is mile marker zero. Well that was anti-climatic. There's no sign. No big like zero congratulations. You made it. Just uh okay. Not even. No acknowledgement. We did it. We did. 384 miles. Yeah. Yeah. 384. Well worth it. I guess 384 because they're not telling us we made it to zero. We made it to zero. If you can tell them a little bitter about this. Look the sign says you are here. North end of Blue Ridge Parkway. Okay. If you go on that road you're in the Shenandoah National Park. Well then I guess we made it. That is the end of this video. Thank you all for watching. If you enjoyed it please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe if you haven't already and if you want to see more cool content head on over to our website at and I guarantee you it's less anti-climatic than mile marker zero on the Blue Ridge Parkway. So that is it. Goodbye. See you next time. Okay so I semi-amend my previous close. We found this sign across the bridge entering the Blue Ridge Parkway. So it's not totally anti-climatic but you were you were expecting a reward. Yeah. Thank you for driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. You're at mile marker zero something. That would be nice. Yeah. All right this is the end of the video. Goodbye.