Review: Liberty Harbor Marina and RV Park

[dthurk]

Just submitted this as a reply to an old thread.  Decided to also put it up at an actual review. Please replay or email me if you need more information.

We have stayed at the Liberty Harbor Marina and RV Park.  It is located in Jersey City just west of Manhattan.  The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island are visible from the campground.  There is a ferry located just a couple hundred yards from the campground that will take you to Wall St., and a PATH station walking distance 5 blocks away that will take you to Ground Zero or 33rd at Broadway.  You can easily get on the subway system from any of those locations.  

The RV Park is exactly that.  They have 50 sites with full hookups designed for the big rigs.  It is literallly a parking lot, similar to what you would find for the big rigs and trucks at a rest area on one of the interstates.  They have about 15 feet allotted for each site, the dividing line is about 3 inches of concrete imbedded in the gravel surface.  No grass, no trees, no playground, no pool, no nothing except a bath and shower house.  It appeared to us it was cleaned maybe once during our 3 day stay.  We used our porta pottie quite frequently.  Most of the park was filled with big rigs and 5 wheels, but there seemed to be no discrimination against pop ups or tenters.    

Our intent in staying in this park was to do the tourist thing in NYC.  We used the camper as a cheap motel room.  Our camping intent and outlook was considerably different that if we were staying in a SP.  With that in mind, we felt our experience at Liberty Harbor was quite satisfying.  Oh, avoid Friday and Saturday nights,if possible (unless you enjoy partying).  There's a bar within sight distance that's open until 2 AM.

We stayed here for 3 nights in late June.  Cost was $60 per night.

[AustinBoston]

Sounds, um, like a thread about a campground in Sicily on one of the main boards.

Anyway, here is the web site for Liberty Harbor RV Park: http://www.libertyharborrv.com/index.htm

Austin

[dthurk]

Just looked at the Sicily thread.  Liberty Harbor seems a bit more spacious, but still literally a parking lot.  It's "claim to fame" is access to NYC, which is minutes away.  Anything else around the City (that I know of) is at least an hour's drive.  It wasn't one of our more enjoyable "camping" trips, but then we were looking at our camper as a sleeping room only on this trip.  We spent all our time in Manhattan, so we were looking for a different use for our camper than what we would if we were in a lush, treed SP.

Part of the reason we bought the PU was to visit major city areas at a reduced cost.  We found ourselves in Washington DC, NYC and Toronto this past year, as well as several "wilderness" SP's.  Liberty Harbor was the only true parking lot we stayed in this year.  It wasn't the most desireable, but it served the purpose for us.  Hotels in Manhattan can easily go for over $200 a night, those on the Jersey side are not much less than that.  Haven't checked out LI lodging costs, but can't imagine they're any less.  

AustinBoston, thanks for putting up the website link, forgot about that.  Note that there are no photos of the park on their website.  

Would we go back there?  Probably, just from the standpoint that we wouldn't want to use up 2 to 3 hours a day on round trip travel from the other "nicer" campgrounds further away.  This isn't really what we like in a CG, so if we found any other option with similar access to NYC, we'd stay there.