New River Junction — Hotel in Radford City

THE TRAINS: HOLY HELL. The trains alone are reason enough not to camp here. Especially with a tent. Five trains between midnight and 5am. Every one of them blew the horn well past the crossing. This is not an exaggeration; it sounded like the trains were going to come through the tent. We might as well have been on the tracks themselves. We had to cover our 3yo daughters ears to keep her from getting scared awake during every train passing. The tent camping is closest to the tracks which makes zero sense to me as the RV's would be less subject to the noise and would block a lot of it from reaching the tents. The train schedule probably varies, but I assure you, it's not worth the roll of the dice. I would find somewhere else to camp, especially if you like the peace and quiet (which is a huge part of camping). I know this isn't really in their control, but it kind of is. They do mention that the trains do come through and that the guests don't usually mention it after the second night (probably because they leave after the first night LOL JK). They definitely sugar coat it. However, they need to have that in BOLD RED LETTERS "THE TRAINS ARE LOUD AS F**K". I would've just canceled the trip immediately and camped elsewhere. They need one of those huge sound blocking walls you see along the interstate.

The Bathrooms: Bathrooms need work. The toilet seats are gross, the walls have mold on them, the shower curtains are piss yellow. All of which would cost around $80 to fix. My wife really only wants one thing, a nice clean bathhouse when camping. Bathrooms need to be ON POINT and they are not. The "Tubing Showers" are basically a wooden shack with a pull string valve. Looks like something out of a horror film. Not sure why they even have them because the river will get you cleaner than those ever will.

The River: The river is beautiful. Great views of the mountain sides. The views and fishing were the only saving grace. I was able to catch a small-mouth bass pretty quickly and missed a few others. The water ranges in depth, but nothing deeper than waste deep really. It's rocky and slippery so it's dangerous and not very family friendly. Especially for young children and older people. Honestly, my wife hated the river because it was so hard to move around. So while it looked nice and fished well, that was about it.

Tubing: I didn't do the tubing, but I had family with me that did and they said it was NOT worth the money. The water level was said to be good for it, but they said they dragged their butts the majority of the way. I also think that their base level tubes they rent out are not enough to keep you high enough out of the water. They look like inner tubes from some sort of truck and they are not beefy enough for this application, you'll just droop through the middle. If you do tube, bring your own river tube or rent the premium versions with the bottom sewn in.

The People: The people were very nice to us during our short stay. This was a non-issue. However, I think they should worry less about the grass and more about the amenities getting updated (build a new bathhouse building).

For Young Kids: Nothing really available for younger kids to play on. No playgrounds or anything other than a few ride around toys and a basketball hoop. They have plenty of room for an awesome playground for much younger kids, but I don't think that's their focus.

Conclusion: Would I ever stay at New River Junction again? Absolutely not. For me, camping is about getting away from the noise and my house is quieter than this place and I live on a busy street. The trains are awful for tent camping and I'm sure the thin-walled travel trailers too. Had it not been for the trains, the place would have been okay, but even the good parts weren't that great. I didn't set this trip up, a family member did. I'll never let her live this one down lol. Don't let the positive reviews mislead you. The majority of the reviews are from people there just for tubing. In all my years of tent camping, this was the worst trip...

Stayed at this campground in our RV from June 30 to July 6 of this year. First the positive - The location is great with a great view of the river and surrounding mountains. It would be especially beautiful in the fall when the leaves are changing. Floating the river is peaceful and relaxing and as long as you are using your own flotation devices you can float along the entire property for free. You only have to pay if you want to go further down river and need the shuttle for a ride back. It was quiet at night except for the trains which will be covered later. RV sites are not huge, but they are large enough where you have a little room to yourself and most of them back up to the river. Bonus while we were there was a jet fighter screaming down the river between the mountains and passing right overhead!

Negatives - Family owned since 1982 and that was apparently the last time anything was updated. The place is run down, poorly maintained and the bathrooms are dirty and not cleaned routinely. There is only one functioning bathroom for each sex on site and you cannot use it if someone is taking a shower. There were a couple of porta potties in the RV area, but they were overly full and smelled bad. The power grid is not adequate to handle the weekends when the campground RV sites are full. Our power was fine during the week but come Friday when everyone arrived our Hughes Watchdog was constantly tripping off due to widely fluctuating power. The owner basically said it was our fault, although he did offer to let us move to a 50 amp site, but since we were leaving Sunday we just decided to ride it out. The owner, Jake is rude and obnoxious and is very discourteous to his guests. He apparently inherited the place as he has no management skills to have earned it without family connections. His stated reason for being rude to me was that we had supposedly been rude to the shuttle driver, but he would never say what we said to her that was rude. We only recall having a nice conversation with her as she told us about growing up in the area and swimming in the same river swimming holes as her father and grandfather which we thought was very neat. The only negative thing we said at all was after she asked our opinion of the campground, and we said the bathrooms were dirty and not cleaned properly. I guess that stating the truth is considered rude by the owner. There are also train tracks across the river and also next to the campground and trains do pass by often, but we did not consider that to be a big deal.

We would have rated this campground a 3, but due to the rude owner we lowered it to a 2. If you don't mind staying at a shabby little tubing campground with a rude owner, then this is the...

HORRIBLE experience. Why? Not because the river wasn't beautiful and the tubing fun....but horrible because we made the mistake of camping there. Even though we've camped there many times in the past, this time we were constantly fussed at by the owner...I think her name was Bernie. We've been going to NRJ for years, but I will never go back. If she wasn't telling us to get our car off the grass, she was fussing at us because I had a small 3 ft.x 3 ft. piece of plastic in front of my tent door, also we brought our firewood because we've been doing it for yrs. and it has not been an issue....now it is. Also, quiet hours are after 11:00pm. We were quietly playing guitar and singing around the campfire until 11:00, then we stopped. She still came into our campsite AGAIN without asking and told us we had to be quiet, even though we had already stopped playing and were just talking. She was IN our campsite in our faces on several occasions and we felt like we had no privacy and were treated like children being told that these are reasons for expulsion. The worst thing about it all is she has no people skills and was hateful to us. Ruined our whole weekend because she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't give me a tube until she chastised me AGAIN about bringing our firewood, even though we did purchase 2 bundles of her firewood. And yes we were naughty 60 year olds and did burn some of our firewood. But.....if she had kindly asked us, I would have been happy to oblige. "You catch more flies with honey" She definitely needs some people skills if she's going to work with the public. There is also a rule about keeping your dog on a leash. We did not bring a dog, but three different dogs came into our campsite at different times. One was aggressive and the other two weren't. When we were cooking burgers, one of the dogs that came into our campsite must have belonged to the owner who was driving her 4-wheeler around with the dog in it earlier. So, your suppose to have your dog on the leash, but the owner doesn't have to follow that rule. I suppose if her dog crapped in our campsite I'd have to go get her to clean it up ...since it was in the rules to clean up after your dog. I was hoping for a relaxing weekend with friends, but ended up stressed out, paranoid, and hurt from being treated so badly...