Home Valley Campground — Hotel in Hood River

Pro's: inexpensive. Nice campground hosts, easy to find, heavily shaded (especially nice as it was above 100f degrees while we were there), broken views of the Columbia River, unlimited/on-demand hot showers, very close to Carson, 10 min's from Stevenson (which is an awesomely cute town!). Also, quite a ways from White Salmon... but that area has some fantastic places to watch (or participate in) sailboarding and kite boarding. Also the Bonneville dam is a ways away and it has a lovely area for exploring, plus you can tour the dam or cross the dam and hike. And the company town of Bonneville was interesting to explore. Almost perfect little homes and yards (perfectly mowed) and no sign of life. A bit spooky really, it was very Stepford-ish. Lol. One of my companions mentioned it looked like the fake towns they set up in Nevada to test nuclear bombs on.

Cons: trains pass by super-close (which I didn't mind but most people did), train schedules seem rather random ...also trains pass by accross the river - which are less loud but still very noticeable, no sani-dump (had to go to the fairgrounds in Stevenson to dump our tanks), portapotties in the campground with a bit of a walk to the baseball fields where the showers and flush toilets are located, the swimming hole kind of sucked... maybe earlier in the year it would have been better, but it had huge algae/plant blooms that were in the swim area and made swimming a concern. Lastly, campsites were hit or miss. Our campsite happened to snuggle up to the next campisite far too much... so if we sat in the rv to eat, we were looking down onto their picnic table and fire ring... which meant opening that window made it feel like we were trying to listen to them talk. Some campsites had nice distance/privacy, but many didn't. We happened to camp on a weekend where it got VERY hot. No hookups meant the rv got unbearably hot inside and barely cooled down by midnight. We decided that in cooler weather, it would be a nicer stay, but the poor swim area, the odd privacy issues, and the super loud trains wouldn't encourage us to want to stay there again. Note: if you do stay there, take earplugs. There aren't any to be found...

We arrived late on a Thursday evening to our campsite. Camp host Christopher quickly came over to welcome us, provide us the shower code, give us a run down of beach access and let us know where he was at. The spaces are large and besides the multiple trains passing by in the night, it was very quiet amongst the campers that night.

The bathrooms/showers while are new, desperately need a broom or hose 9n the outside and very very over run with cobwebs, dust and little bug nests all over the doors and ceiling which was intimidating to our kids and a tall spouse who had to duck under webs. I took a broom to them to improve the situation but they could use some additional attention. Inside as well had lots and lots of bugs in varying states of animation and decomposition all over the ceiling and in corners. Water pressure and temperature range was great.

We are in site #5 and the fire pit doesn’t have a grate/metal grilling surface like other sites do but we will manage. The beach is nice however, there is a big sign that says no pets and multiple people ignored which is unfortunate because the sand was INCREDIBLY hot and I worry for the pups paws and blatant disregard for the sign by their humans. Couple of people smoking a joint on the shore wasn't cool around all the kids.

Quiet hours after 10pm weren’t followed the first night a very very large group was up partying till 1am. They were talked to and were quieter the next night but still up past midnight which is super frustrating and disrespectful to...

First, I would like to begin with how amaizing the camp host at Home Valley Campground is. The hospitality was outstanding and by far surpassed my expectations. Definitely a 10/10 amaizing couple. Never have I met a camp host as good as them. Two, this being my family's and I first time at the campground, it was very welcoming, very clean, and well managed and taken care of. Three, there are 4 port-o-potties on site 2 at each side or end of the campground which are super clean and cleaned frequently, and there are HOT showers available right by the campground which were also very well maintained and clean. Four, the campground being along side of the beautiful Columbia River it definitely has somewhat of a great Gorge view in my opinion. It was fantastic. Water entrance to the small beach with fully paved walkway up until the sand. There is a playground for kids as well and baseball/softball fields. The only con which honestly doesn't bother me at all but may bother others is freight trains and horns pass by very frequently at all points through morning/day/night. Firewood is available for sale on site and well water is also available onsite! Other then that we will definitely be returning to camp again. The experience was definitely one for the books. And remember anywhere you go camping always PLEASE PLEASE Pack It In,...