Search for tent camping near Seattle and you get a list of pretty places. Search for RV camping and that same list quietly stops being useful, because a campground being open is not the same as a campground you can get a 34-foot fifth wheel into.
Three things decide an RV trip in this corner of Washington, and almost no roundup leads with them: the maximum site length, what class of hookup is actually at the site, and whether the campground is open in the month you want to go. This guide sorts the options within roughly 90 minutes of Seattle by those three, with the figures taken from each operator's own page.
We run 22 RV sites ourselves, in Easton at I-90 Exit 63, so treat our entry accordingly — we've been specific below about the rigs we can't take.
The three numbers, in the order they matter
Length first. Rig length eliminates more campgrounds around Seattle than price or availability ever will, and the limits are tighter than newcomers expect. The closest state park to the city caps out at 32 feet. Published limits are also usually attached to a handful of sites, not the whole loop — "limited availability" is doing real work in that sentence.
Hookup class second. In Washington, "full hookup" means water, power, and sewer at the site. Most private parks in the metro have that. Most public campgrounds east of the city do not, and the national forest campgrounds along I-90 have no utilities at all. Our guide to RV resorts in Washington covers the terminology and the state park fee tiers in full.
Season third. Roughly half the RV inventory in the I-90 corridor is locked from fall through spring. If you're planning anything between November and April, most of the list below simply is not available.
Full hookups closest to the city
There is no RV campground in Seattle proper. The nearest full-hookup parks sit on the I-90 and I-405 side of Lake Washington, which for most travelers is 20 to 35 minutes from downtown.
Trailer Inns RV Park at 15531 SE 37th Street in Bellevue is the closest genuine full-hookup option to the city center. The park advertises "100% full hookups with 15/30/50 AMP electrical services" and large pull-through sites, plus a heated indoor pool, a jacuzzi, and a dry sauna — amenities that matter more than they sound when it rains for a week straight.
Issaquah Village RV Park at 650 1st Ave NE puts you at the foot of the Cascades with a walkable historic downtown a few blocks away. The park has 56 full-hookup sites with 30/50 amp service and pull-through spaces, and it operates year-round — monthly rates are offered October 1 through April 30, which tells you plenty about who stays there in winter.
Both are urban parks. You are trading scenery for sewer, pavement, and a 25-minute drive to a ballgame. For a first or last night bracketing a longer trip, that trade is usually correct.
State parks: read the length limit before you look at the photos
Dash Point State Park in Federal Way, about 30 minutes south, is the closest state park camping to Seattle and the one most likely to waste your afternoon. The park has cabins, standard sites, and utility sites on 461 acres of Puget Sound shoreline — but it "accommodates RVs and combinations of 32 feet or less in length." A midsize travel trailer behind a pickup clears 32 feet easily. There is a trailer dump on site.
Kanaskat-Palmer State Park near Ravensdale, about 50 minutes southeast, is the better bet for a medium rig. It offers standard and partial-hookup sites "with a maximum site length of 50 feet (limited availability)," yurts, and a group camp for up to 80 people. It's open 8:00 a.m. to dusk year-round, with reduced off-season operations, and the trailer dump costs $5 per use.
Lake Easton State Park at I-90 Exit 70, about 80 minutes east, has the most generous limit within range: some sites accommodate up to 60-foot RV units, across a mix of full-hookup to no-hookup sites, with a dump station on the property. The catch is the calendar. The campground is closed November 1 through May 1. Off-season overnight use is restricted to the day-use and boat-launch parking areas — which is dry parking, not camping.
Statewide reservation mechanics apply at all three: $8 online or $10 by phone, an additional $15 per reservation if you are not a Washington resident, and a nine-month booking window that opens to the day. For a Fourth of July hookup site, that means booking in early October.
The I-90 national forest campgrounds are cheap, scenic, and mostly dry
Three Forest Service campgrounds sit along I-90 between North Bend and Easton. They are the best-value sites in the corridor and the reason plenty of people buy a generator.
- Tinkham Campground, Exit 42, about 50 minutes east. 47 single sites, no hookups, no dump station, season roughly May through September, 14-day maximum stay with a 2:00 p.m. check-in and noon checkout. Reservations through Recreation.gov.
- Denny Creek Campground, Exit 47, about an hour east. The genuine surprise on this list: the Forest Service lists electrical hookups at 10 sites plus the group site, which is close to unheard of for a national forest campground in the Cascades. Season is May through September. The tradeoff is that the campground sits right in the I-90 corridor, so freeway noise comes with it.
- Kachess Campground, Exit 62, about 75 minutes east. Over 100 campsites plus one group site on a large reservoir, $27 a night for a single site, with a season of early June to mid-September and no hookups. It is closed right now — the Forest Service is showing a Three Queens Fire closure on the Cle Elum Ranger District over the campground.
None of the three publishes a maximum length on its main page. If you're running anything over about 30 feet, check the individual site details on Recreation.gov before you book, because forest campground loops built in the 1960s were not designed around modern rigs.
Where we actually fit
Our property is at I-90 Exit 63, roughly 80 minutes from Seattle and about 1.5 miles off the interstate. 22 back-in sites, 30/50-amp electric and water at every site, a dump station on the property, and no sewer at individual sites. Most sites take rigs up to 40 feet — if you're longer, call 425-622-2790 before booking rather than after. There are no pull-throughs, no pool, and no clubhouse; restrooms and showers are shared, at 3 bathrooms and 2 full-size showers.
What's different is the 54 acres around the sites. Four private lakes, no Washington fishing license required to fish them (bring your own gear), and free kayaks, canoes, paddle boards, and paddle boats with any stay. Sheep, alpacas, and horses live on the property. And we don't close — the whole reason this page exists is that the corridor's public inventory goes dark for half the year and ours doesn't.
Where the public options beat us: price, and the size of the water. A forest site on Kachess costs a fraction of a private site and puts you against a far bigger lake. If you want a paved full-hookup pad with sewer and a pool, book Bellevue or Issaquah instead — we're not that, and saying otherwise would waste your drive.
Dumping, water, and the parts nobody lists
- Dump stations are not free at Washington state parks. The fee is $5 per use, per the state parks fee schedule, and it applies whether or not you camped there.
- A Discover Pass is not required while you're a registered camper — the camping fee covers day-use parking at the park you're staying in. It's the day-use trips that need one.
- Fill your fresh water before Exit 47. Services thin out fast heading east, and the forest campgrounds that do have potable water are seasonal.
- Plan on boondocking rules even at hookup parks in shoulder season. Water gets shut off to some state park loops well before the campground closes.
- Cell service degrades past North Bend. Download maps and your reservation confirmations before you leave the metro.
Taking a rig over Snoqualmie Pass
If your trip crosses the summit between late fall and spring, the chain rules change once you're heavy. WSDOT requires that "all vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds must carry at least two extra tire chains," and that from November 1 to April 1, "chains must be carried at all times, regardless of road conditions or advisories." A loaded three-quarter-ton truck pulling a fifth wheel is comfortably over that line, and enforcement at the chain-up areas is real.
One planning note that saves people a bad afternoon: campgrounds east of the summit — Easton, Cle Elum, Kittitas County generally — are reachable from Ellensburg, Yakima, and Spokane without crossing the pass at all. When avalanche control closes the summit, that matters.
The short version
- Closest full hookups to downtown: Trailer Inns (Bellevue) or Issaquah Village
- Closest state park camping: Dash Point — but only if you're 32 feet or under
- Biggest rigs within 90 minutes: Lake Easton State Park, up to 60 feet, May through October only
- Best value: the I-90 forest campgrounds, if you can go without hookups
- Hookups at a forest campground: Denny Creek, 10 sites plus the group site
- Open in February: Issaquah Village, Trailer Inns, Kanaskat-Palmer, and us
- Closed for now: Kachess, under the Three Queens Fire closure
Traveling with tents in the group too, or comparing against non-RV options? Our guide to camping near Seattle covers nine campgrounds by drive time, and our tent sites are on the same property as the RV sites. If you haven't picked a month yet, the season-by-season guide to Snoqualmie Pass is the place to start.
Conditions as of September 2026
The Three Queens Fire closure on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest's Cle Elum Ranger District (forest order #06-17-03-2026-36) took effect August 24, 2026 and covers Kachess Campground among other sites. Fee figures, length limits, and season dates above were taken from each operator's published page on the date of this post. Verify closures and rates before you tow.