Lake Walcott Campground

The Great Outdoors

The lake and surrounding forest will obviously be your first stop for outdoor recreation when you rent a camper at Lake Walcott Campground, but there are plenty of adventures to be had in the surrounding area too. To get out on the Snake River, rent a paddleboard or kayak from one of the shops in nearby Burley and take a tour of the islands just north of the downtown area. Powerboats love this spot, too, so there may be a few waterskiers and wakeboarders to share the waterway with.The riverfront park in Burley is also a fantastic place to take the family for a picnic, with plenty of tree cover, a baseball diamond, and a small botanical garden. It’s also a good starting point for exploring Burley on a bicycle; dedicated paths are fairly limited, but you’re unlikely to contend with much traffic in this quiet little town.If you’re willing to take a road trip when you rent a camper near Lake Walcott Campground, Craters of the Moon National Monument is an ideal destination for adventurous travelers. The extensive lava fields are a boon to curious hikers and amateur geologists who might enjoy identifying the different types of rock formations and how they came to be there. Another option is to don a helmet and headlamp and go underground to explore the lava tubes that lie beneath the surface of the monument. You won’t find the stalactites or stalagmites common on other big caverns, but the expansive tunnels that look like they’ve been drilled by a machine are a sight to behold.

Exploring the City

The Lake Walcott Campground is somewhat isolated given its location on the north side of the reservoir and away from Interstate 86. The closest towns are the twin cities of Burley and Heyburn, which sit across the Snake River from each other.Burley is the larger of the two and is where most of the attractions and restaurants are, while Heyburn’s location on the interstate provides it with two large truck stops where you can fill up or empty the tanks on your RV rental. It’s also where you’ll find the region's movie theater, bowling alley, and golf course.To learn more about the history of the Lake Walcott area while renting an RV, check out the Cassia County Historical Society Museum in downtown Burley. It’s not very large but tells an interesting story about Burley and the Snake River Valley’s role in the Oregon Trail and the settlement of America’s west coast. A larger history museum can be found in the town of Rupert, a bit closer to the campground.The most important historical sight in the region, though, is the Minidoka internment camp. Used to forcibly relocate and house Japanese-Americans during World War II, the camp was one the largest in the country, and the labor extracted from the prisoners housed in it was used to build the massive Anderson Ranch Dam near the town of Mountain House. Unlike more famous camps, like Manzanar in California, Minidoka has only a few pieces of the original facilities remaining, but volunteers are working to recreate the camp as it was in the 1940s. If you’re a WWII history buff, this is a bucket list destination when camping with an RV in the area.