Spacious Skies Campgrounds - Shenandoah Views — Hotel in Luray

I tent camp all over the country but this was truly an experience, and not a good one! First of all, the tent sites are on top of each other with zero privacy. Especially tent site 7 which is right next to a parking spot and the yurt next to it. Someone staying in the yurt parked right in front of tent site 7 with their huge truck, it was awkward and unpleasant. The fire pits are deep in the ground and right next to your neighbors. If u need to light it or adjust the fire, u need to get on the ground and it’s very dangerous. And kids or pets could easily fall in. I’ve never seen fire pits so deep before, makes no sense. The bathroom situation was also really weird…. There’s only one women’s and one men’s room for like ten tent sites and 4 yurts. The bathroom has the shower and toilet combo so if someone’s showering, hope u can hold it til they are done!!! The bathroom also wasn’t the cleanest, and the door had a lock that was difficult to lock completely, and a floor stopper that often got stuck and made the door stay wide open and it was difficult to close it again. The kitchen sinks with soap were a nice feature but there was a microwave outside?!? The trash had lids that did not fit or were missing and this just invites pests. There were 2 cats that jumped in them & explored our sites at night time. Everytime I shined my light in the parking lot there were two pairs of eyes staring back… it was entertaining. There is a sheep and alpaca farm literally 5 feet from the tent sites!!!! And a cow farm by the camp store and other camp sites. It smelled like animal feces. It’s crazy cuz this place is huge so why did they build the tent sites right next to a smelly farm and so close to each other?!?!? Its like the tent sites were an afterthought. Bugs usually don’t bother me at all, but this place really has a serious infestation!! There were at least 50 lantern fly larva on my tent right after I put it up. Lantern flies are a serious agricultural pest many places I’ve camped have warning signs about them. The place was also infested with earwigs - they were everywhere: in the power box all stacked on each other, hiding in my tent poles, etc. The boxed area where you were expected to put your tent had at least 30 ant kills, some of which were flying ants. The tent site is in an open area with a couple trees so there’s not much shade and definitely no place for a Hammock or clothes line. The awning over the deluxe picnic table is open so there’s no protection from the rain. The camp store was nice, and the campground location was close to the caverns and national park. But I would not stay here again and wouldn’t recommend it to other tent campers. The RV sites on the top of the hill...

Luray KOA is a wonderful campground if you're looking for serene views with beautiful green foliage. You are surrounded by beautiful mountains on each side! The campground overall is very clean (I was seriously impressed with how clean their camp bathrooms and showers were!) and well ran. For the most part the staff is very friendly. However, the flies are absolutely TERRIBLE!!! This campground sits smack in the middle of a farm with many cows that graze on the other side of the fence, which separates the lots from the field. They are great entertainment if you have young children, but become pests in the sense of what they bring with them; especially when they use manure to spray their fields...Anyway! We began our stay on lots 27 & 28, and after just 2 days of our 7 day stay, requested new lots as we were inundated with flies. We couldn't even walk out of our campers without being swarmed! And forget the idea of having a nighttime campfire! S'mores are entirely out of the question with those suckers around! That was absolutely impossible in our first locations...

When requesting our new lots, we were quickly given the opportunity to move; however, the lady we had to deal with in order to do so (her name was Katherine), was very rude. You could tell that she wasn't thrilled about have to switch our sites and information around. Her body language told all! She basically told us we were lying about the flies, and that she had never heard any complaints about flies over the many years she has worked there...that is until us! However, what she didn't know was that she was going to be getting multiple complaints from additional campers having the SAME EXACT ISSUE right near us! She even called one of the workers a lier after we told her he had given us insight into WHY the flies were probably so terrible. Anyway, had she been a little more friendly, I might be writing an entirely different, and absolutely positive review about the Luray KOA. BUT, her rudeness made our experience with the staff a little sour. I'm not entirely sure I would recommend this campground simply because of the severity of the flies. I can deal with other flying bugs, bees, ants, etc...But when we can't even enjoy our stay because of the pesky flies it becomes a non-relaxing stay!

If you're okay with having to swat away pesky flies 24/7, during your entire stay, and not even get the opportunity to sit outside then you may very well be fine. BUT, if you don't like being swarmed every time you walk outside then I certainly would not recommend you try this...

This was our second time going out although we had been to SSSV once before last year in a rented Class C from Outdoorsy (we hadn't had our Campendium account yet). We enjoyed it so much we knew we wanted to come back and possibly so at least one a year. A former KOA, it's obvious the new owners are putting in time, money and love fixing the campground and sites up and slowly bringing it up to more modern specs. Many of the sites use aging garden bed timbers which are slowly being replaced by new ones as well as regraveling as needed.

The huge dog park was very nice and clean with decently stocked dog bag stands scattered throughout the campground. Our two pups made a lot of friends here, with a gathering of dog lovers and their furry friends down at the park one evening. It was a great way of getting to know more about our fellow nearby campers!

The management and employees were very friendly and accommodating. We even had a couple of Walmart deliveries (out of necessity due to an issue we encountered not related at all to the campground) sent over to the office which they gladly informed us about.

We noticed a brand new WiFi network throughout the park which was excellent (we used our T-Mobile and Verizon hotspots on our phones as backups; excellent signal for both there).

I (Kory) visited nearby Luray Caverns which was extremely cool, albeit a bit pricey. Definitely one of those "once in a lifetime" experiences I'd encourage anyone to check out. The town of Luray itself is very cool, with an active and vibrant downtown consisting of various shops, eateries, coffee shops, a cool used book store we visited and more. There's a paved walking path running alongside the creek downtown where I observed a children's trout fishing tournament the Saturday morning we were there. It's apparent this is very tight knit yet welcoming and friendly community who takes pride in sharing their town with visitors.

All in all, we enjoyed our stay at SSSV very much and will certainly be back, perhaps, at least yearly (if their seasonal sites weren't so expensive, we'd probably consider one but will certainly make do with their nightly sites, enough that we even joined their Cosmic Camper loyalty program which paid for itself the annual fee with this trip). We also made great new friends, some of them who live nearby us back home. Being very new to the camping community, we're super thankful and appreciative of our...