New River State Park
New River State Park is the twenty-first park in our 2025 North Carolina State Park Challenge! We headed out early with a canoe trip with Zaloo’s Canoes, located just south of the New River State Park along the New River. They were very dog friendly and allow dogs on their tubing, kayaking, and canoeing trips (just bring your own dog life vest and doggie tube if you’re going on a tubing trip). They set us up in a canoe and sent us off right from their shop. We followed the current 5 miles down river in an almost 2 hour trip that ended at the canoe access point at the Wagoner Access in the State Park. They picked us up in a van, put the canoes on a trailer and took us back to the shop and our starting point. This was a great way to get out on the river without having to worry about the logistics of any of it! I would highly recommend Zaloo’s Canoes, we really have great time, the river was fairly calm with a couple little sections of rapids that were fun to paddle through.
After a quick picnic lunch at one of Zaloo’s picnic tables we drove over to the U.S. 221 Access to get our passport stamp and patch at the visitor center and check in for our campsite for the night. It was a cooler week (which made for perfect camping conditions) so we also bought 3 bundles of wood from the visitor center for our evening campfire. We stayed at the primitive campsites which require a walk in from the parking lot. They’re not backcountry campsites, but have a 550ft to 1250ft walk in from the parking lot- for us a trip or two from the car with a wagon. We only stayed one night, but it felt like we needed at least one more night with the effort to set up and take down camp. There is a drive-in campground that allows either RVs or tents, but when we drove over it felt much more cramped and was almost completely full for the night, where there was only one other campsite booked at the primitive sites. It felt much more quiet, and we were right along the New River where we could head the water trickling from our campsite.
The river is the main attraction to this park but there are still some great hiking trails to stretch your legs after your arms have done all the work paddling. We took the River Run Trail along the New River up to the Hickory Trail that looped back to the parking lot near our campsite. It had a surprising amount of elevation change, making it a nice little challenge after getting out of the water.
I knew I was excited about this park, but it really met my expectations! I would definitely add it to my list to go back to, probably for more than one night. There are multiple other state parks close by (as well as the Blue Ridge Parkway) making it a good central location to stay for a couple different trips- this was our plan but it was a really rainy week, and the rained all the next day after we packed up, so we headed home with plans to be back in the area another day. Enjoy!
Park Details:
ADDRESS: 358 New River State Park Road, Laurel Spring NC28644
U.S. 221 ACCESS HOURS: December-February: 7am-7pm
March-April & October: 7am-9pm
May-September: 7am-10pm
November: 7am-8pm
VISITOR CENTER: Monday-Friday 8:30am-4:30pm, Saturday & Sunday 10am-3pm
PASSPORT STAMP: Located at the Visitor Center
ENTRANCE FEE: No Entrance fee
TRAILS: 9 Miles of hiking trails
ACTIVITIES: Hiking, Paddling & Fishing
DOG RULES: Dogs are not allowed in park buildings and must be on a leash no longer than 6ft. Please pick up after your pet!
Check out our videos about this Park on instagram @axel.theadventurepup
