Beach Life in Eastern Massachusetts – Salisbury Beach State Reserve

A few miles driven south, and then we were out of Maine – ending our way too quick visit of just over two weeks in the state.

We had a few nights to play with before our next reservation down in Rhode Island – and both craving being somewhere pretty and with a minimal of distractions so we could get some work done.

Nothing was particularly standing out in our own research, so we put a call out on our Facebook Page for recommendations.

This post covers September 11-14.

Salisbury Beach State Reservation

We had one of our readers contact us recommending Salisbury Beach State Reservation (our review) just over the Massachusetts/New Hampshire line. They had recently been there, and reported great Verizon signal.

This spot had been coming up in our own research, but reviews were a bit mixed. Since the park was just about perfectly half way to our next stop and we could book a site online, we decided to go for it.

After all, being right on the beach is hardly ever a bad thing.

One of the tricks I utilize in booking a site that will best meet our preferences (great view & privacy), is bringing up the campground on Google satellite view and cross comparing it to ReserveAmerica.com’s availability.

It was clear this was a huge campground with little site separation.  In fact, it has over 400 sites – with a mix of 50a, 30a and 20a hook-ups.

There was one site available on the end of a 20a row that should give us a wide open view, and was rated for up to a 35′ long RV.  With our electric setup, 20a is pretty much all we ever need, so no problem there.

We’d not be ‘private’ in that our door would open up right to the main campground road. Sometimes, you just can’t have it all.

The campground pretty much met our expectations – the sites are pretty tightly packed together. Better than some commercial campgrounds, but definitely not what we consider ‘state park quality’.

We’re very glad we selected our site as we did, as we did enjoy a view of trees instead of the backside of another RV.

This did however come with the cost of every time we stepped out our door, someone was waiting to ask ‘So how old is that thing?’ or ‘Is that a bus?’. Sometimes we feel we should just make up a big sign to put out with all the info on the bus and link to our bus tour page.

But what this park has going for it is location! It’s surrounded on three sides by water – the Atlantic Ocean, the Merimac River and Black Rock Creek.  This made for awesome walks during our work day. The harbor seals had also just returned, so we got to enjoy watching them folic offshore.

There’s also some pretty awesome potentials for amazing sunsets at this location.

So, for our purposes of wanting a minimal of distractions – this stop fit the bill. Unfortunately, Chris got hit with some sort of cold and wasn’t able to get caught up nearly as much as we hoped.

Campground Frustrations

We ended up spending $39/night plus reservations fees for this spot. There’s a base charge of $27/night for non-residents ($22 for residents), plus $10/night for water & electric (regardless if you have a 50a or 20a site). Plus there’s a $2/night extra trust surcharge.

We don’t mind at all paying extra as out of state residents, after all – we haven’t paid state tax dollars to support the state park system. But it was a bit frustrating to pay that much extra for water & electric.

Especially since ours was only a 20a site, and there really was no water directly on our site.

The water was setup as a shared spigot between several sites – and our closest was about 75′ away (on the other side of the site next to us).

We did need to top up our fresh water tank before arriving to our next location, and our spare hose that we use for such occasions decided to burst at this very moment. We’re very thankful for a neighbor who noticed it happening, and loaned us his spare (RVers are awesome!).

But still, for charging extra for water hook-ups – we do expect them to be actually on our site and not needing long extensions in the first place. Typically, our 25′ high quality drinking water hose from RVWaterFilterStore is more than sufficient.

Oh well.. it is what it is.

But these are some of the frustrations on the road especially in campground quality – which is why we share them. Not everything is always gorgeous sunsets and seals.

What’s Up Next

We’re getting closer to being caught up to real time!  Next up, our stop in Rhode Island and finally reaching our 50th State!

We’re presently hanging around the New London area of Connecticut with family for a few days, and will be moving on later this week as we continue southward.

Our destination is Florida for the winter, arriving by mid-November.

Live Video Chat Update: For those waiting for an announcement of a September live video chat – we just don’t think it’s going to happen. We’ve simply run out of time, and are way too backlogged. We are however aiming to host one in mid October on ‘RVing in the Northeast’ – comparing our misperceptions last spring to our realities.

Blasts from the Past

And today’s past topical content includes:

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More and more people are deciding to pursue their dreams of travel now, instead of waiting for retirement.

Which means they need to still work and generate an income.  In this article, we go over 70 different mobile income ideas, thoughts of remote work, local work, workamping and self employment. And of course, the all important work/life balance challenge (which we suck at).

Mobile Income for RVers

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It’s not all rainbow farting unicorns out here on the road. For our 10 year ‘nomadiversary’ earlier this year we shared the 10 things that SUCK about full time RVing. Join us for this humorous, but yet insightful, article & video.

The Sucky Side of RVing