Kiptopeke SP, VA?

[bmbkamp]

DW just booked us for Kiptopeke State Park in VA for next week.  Anyone been there before?
 
Thanks,
 
Bob

[Joe Buskirk]

DW just booked us for Kiptopeke State Park in VA for next week.  Anyone been there before?
 
Thanks,
 
Bob

My family and I stayed there July 15-20 for the first time.  We were in the full hook up sites which are 1-94.  This is first come first serve campground and since we arrived on Friday night we could not get a shaded site so we were in the open field sites.  That being said, the beach is nice, life guards are on duty on a limited basis.  Not much to do but is relaxing and you can go fishing or crabbing from the pier but they do charge a fee(I think $3.00) for fishing/crabbing from the pier.  Enjoy.

[bmbkamp]

Thanks, Joe.  Much appreciated.  We're scheduled to show up on Sunday, so hopefully I'll get a decent site.

[bmbkamp]

Here's my review:
 
Kiptopeke was nice. The campground is fairly small - about 100 sites pretty close together, but they are spaced apart enough so you don't feel you are on top of each other. The sites are in and around a rectangle. Only the outside of the rectangle and just 4 or so sites within the rectangle are shaded. There were dry sites, but I'm not sure if they were for tenters only. We got there on a Sunday, so the campground was fairly empty when we got there. It started to fill up on Thursday. Bathrooms were OK - not horrible, not great either. No hot water the last 2 days we were there, but it was so hot, we didn't care. I was surprised about how quiet it was. That might have something to do with the weather at the time. There is a trail that leads to a bay shoreline with lifeguards. A ton of crabs in the water, but they move out of your way faster than you can step on them. There is also a boat launch and fishing pier right next to the beach as well. It seemed that the majority of campers broaught their boats, too. The park runs programs and my kids got to touch horseshoe crabs. They have a birdwatching and tagging area, if you are into that. They have some nature trails, and there was a nature preserve nearby. There is absolutely nothing else to do there, and not much in the surrounding area. Cape Charles is a cute little town, but again, not a whole lot there. There is a convenience store and seafood restaurant a few miles north of the park entrance on Route 13, and a Food Lion and Dollar General a few more miles north of that. No hardware stores that we could find (but we didn't look that hard), and the nearest Wal-Mart was about 3 hours (or more) north, or somewhere over the bridge ($12 one-way) south. That can either be good or bad, depending on your expectations. Quite frankly, we really didn't expect that much desolation. But we weren't disappointed.
Overall, it was a great location for us. We did day trips to Norfolk (1 hour), Williamsburg (2 hours), and Chincoteague (2 hours).
Would I camp there again? Not sure. I don't have a boat, so the launch is not an attraction for me. And I'd rather swim in the ocean (with waves) than the bay. But it was quiet and clean. And I wish I had more time to use the trails and get a better picture of the surrounding area.

[vjm1639]

Thanks for the great review of Kiptopeke!   Sounds like a nice quiet place to go.  From what I've seen at other Virginia Campgrounds I'm surprised the bathrooms weren't cleaner and am surprised at no  hot water for two days.

[zimou812]

We would camp down the street at Cherrystone and fish all night long at Kiptopeke.  When it first opened the bathrooms were spotless, but slipped after a few years.  They used to have a huge fishing pier by the boat ramp.  After 10 or 11pm the locals would come down to catch some food for breakfast.  We usually gave them our catch, they needed it more than we did.  We went back there a few years ago.  No guard at the shack, so we filled out a fishing pemit put it in the envelope with the $6 fee and drove down to the pier.  We did not know they ripped it down.  They later rebuilt smaller piers and a walking trail.  We tried to fish out out $6 with a coat hanger but thought we could get into more trouble than it was worth.

In case you did not know, Kiptopeke was a ferry station.  It closed down shortly after the Bay Bridge Tunnel was built.

Did you visit Cherrystone while you were down there?  We went there often when the kids were younger.  Plenty to do for all ages.  The complete oposite of Kiptopeke.

Glad you had a good time.

[vjm1639]

Did you visit Cherrystone while you were down there? We went there often when the kids were younger. Plenty to do for all ages. The complete oposite of Kiptopeke.
 
.

This is why I was most interested in Kiptopeke...Don't like Cherrystone at all!

[bmbkamp]

I didn't know about the ferry station.  That would probably explain what looked like a 4-lane highway that banks off Route 13 and leads to the park!  I couldn't quite figure that out.
 
Forgot to mention in my review:  Condos / homes are being built on either side of the park entrance.  And many renovations happening on homes that face the bay in Cape Charles.  Looks like that area of the Eastern Shore is about to explode.  I don't think it will be a sleepy little area for long.
 
Didn't get a chance to see Cherrystone.  We pretty much stick to state parks as much as we can.  We went to a KOA once and hated it.  I know a ton of people swear by the KOA's, Jellystone's, etc., but we just feel uncomfortable at those kind of places.  Just not our thing, I guess.
 
Emmaus, huh?  We were there for a girls softball tournament on Memorial Day weekend.  Very cute downtown area.  Make sure you wave to us as you come down Route 100.  
 
Bob

[zimou812]

My daughter use to play a bit of tounament softball.  What age group and team is she on?  I help run Patriots Park in Allentown.  If you ever played there, chances are we passed each other.  

We went to Cherrystone for years because there was so much for the kids to do.  Even though as of late I heard that it was going down hill.  The strange thing was everytime we camped there we were surrounded
from people from around home.  

Did you go crabbing?  The greatest sport on Earth.

Take care,
Zim

[bmbkamp]

Zim,
 
DD plays for the Boyertown Storm 12u.  Their first tournament this year was the Memorial Day Tournament in Emmaus.  They played at Alton Park and at another park at the end of S. 4th St.  The Storm, to everyone's surprise, won the tournament and qualified for the NSA Nationals in Tennessee.  They got home from that a few weeks ago - finished in the top 20 out of over 60 teams!  Hopefully, she'll make the team again. Tryouts for next year's team start this weekend.  
Didn't do any crabbing, but I overheard a young boy in the campsite telling his dad that he was looking forward to going "crab hunting".  I thought that was hilarious.
 
Bob