Let’s take a trip to your RV happy place.

And yes, by “happy place,” we mean it in the “Happy Gilmore” sense. It’s a destination that feels so magical that your memories return again and again long after the trip is over.

We’ve traveled all around the United States and Canada, creating hundreds of fond memories. But for some reason, our “happy place” is Gold Bluffs Beach campground  in Redwood State and National Park, where we spent a week last October hanging out on the secluded Northern California coastline, hiking, bicycling and enjoying wonderful sunsets every night.

What about you? We asked readers to revisit their own RV happy places and they delivered, big time.

“In the fall, after the crowds disperse, I love the Diamond Lake Campground in Oregon, minutes from the north entrance to Crater Lake National Park,” wrote Seabury Blair Jr. in an email. “Lakefront campsites, an 11-mile paved bike trail around the lake, hiking trailheads minutes away.”

Yes, sounds perfect.

Doris Butler enjoys a special spot in Montana.

“We stay at a lot of KOAs and our No. 1 favorite is West Glacier,” Doris told us. “If you can get a reservation, and if the park is not either snowed in or on fire (!), it's gorgeous. It has beautiful scenery, is a big park with lots of wonderful amenities, well maintained, and you can get picked up at the park itself to ride the red bus tours of Glacier.”

Nice. We’re new converts to the KOA world and this sounds like a good one.

Our friend Jerry Swayne loves Hunters Campground on Lake Roosevelt, where he served as a campground host last year.

“It truly is a beautiful place with forest, mountains and the lake,” Jerry said. “The lake is an incredible color blue green and almost glows when the sun hits it just right...  If you have access to a boat you can go to secluded beaches all up and down the lake.”

Other happy places? Ted and Mary Shepherd love the canyon country of Utah.

“We have traveled all over the United States,” Ted wrote in an email. “Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks always seemed to call us back.”

And Howard Braham emailed about several of his favorite places. Like Ted, Bryce and Zion were on his list, and he likes staying in Hurricane, Utah, at WillowWind RV Park.

We are forever thankful to Howard for giving us the tip of Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, Ariz., a place we’ve stayed several times now.

“It’s just a 30-minute drive to Sedona (and) Cottonwood is a small town with great vibes, good restaurants (especially the Colt Cafe!), dog parks (three in one for different sizes and temperaments), and so much to do at a quiet pace,” he wrote.

Agreed! We stayed at Dead Horse Ranch this year during the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, a fraught time of uncertainty. The park, in foothills of Arizona’s northern mountains, provided a lovely and peaceful refuge.

It’s hard to pick just one happy place when you live the RV life. Both Howard and Seabury Blair Jr., author of several respected outdoors guidebooks, shared more than one happy place. For more of their favorites, check out our blog at spokesman.com/blogs/going-mobile.

 

Solstice pick

Where should you go to experience the summer solstice on Saturday? How about Mount Rainier National Park, which just reopened last week for day use.

 

This week’s Going Mobile question

You’ve read about a lot of happy places in this column. What did we miss? Drop us a line at goingmobile@spokesman.com.

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