Changes come to camping in R.I.

COMING BACK: Thomas and Cynthia Coyne, who live in Queens, N.Y., have camped in Rhode Island about half a dozen times. “Rhode Island is a beautiful state and the beaches are nice,” said Thomas Coyne. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
COMING BACK: Thomas and Cynthia Coyne, who live in Queens, N.Y., have camped in Rhode Island about half a dozen times. “Rhode Island is a beautiful state and the beaches are nice,” said Thomas Coyne. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Campgrounds in Rhode Island are not exactly thriving, but they’re holding their own, in large measure because of the state’s ample natural assets. But camp operators recognize that future camping success demands more than that.
“People want to be able to get out there and take all their amenities with them,” said Don Thomassen, executive director of Westwood YMCA, which operates Westwood Family Campground in Coventry.
“We’ve had a couple of campers that have their satellites for TV, and if they park in an open area, they can catch all their entertainment,” he said.
Westwood has 70 campsites and of those, 50 are for tents or trailers and 20 are group or family cabins built in the 1930s, when the facility began as a camp for boys. So “when people call about cabins, we tell them they have to bring their own bedding. Our cabins have rough wood floors and maybe a spider web or two,” Thomassen said.
Still, the national and international trend in luxury camping called “glamping,” for glamorous camping, which has spawned websites like glamping.com, is having an effect here.
“We’re thinking about replacing some of the cabins with park models,” said Thomassen. A park model is an RV that’s more of a semi-permanent mobile home. “Some of those park models are as nice as any five-star hotel. We’re also looking at yurts.”
Occupancy at the Westwood Family Campground has remained relatively steady year after year, said Thomassen, with a view based on 24 years with the facility.
“We have seasonal campers, and we’re working toward increasing our weekend campers,” he said.
For some camps, it’s the ocean, not the woods or the amenities, that is the big draw.
“We’re steps away from the beach, and we have a pretty close community of people who come back every year,” said Tony Tighe, manager of Second Beach Campground in Middletown.
Second Beach Campground has 46 campsites for RVs, with no tent camping, so most campers set up for the season, often coming in for weekends.
“We have about 60 people on a waiting list that could go 10 or 12 years out. Nobody leaves,” said Tighe, “This year we had three new people, but … some people have been coming here for more than 40 years.”
The economic impact of the camping community is visible, said Tighe.
“On Friday night, they mostly go out to eat,” said Tighe. “They often eat in Saturday night, or if it rains, so they’re out grocery shopping.” “Camping is a great thing for the state. I don’t have dollar figures, but campers are very important consumers for us,” said state tourism director Mark Brodeur.
Campers have a somewhat different economic impact than other tourists, said Brodeur.
“They really impact retail more than other tourists. They’re golfers, and they go to our beaches and attractions,” he said.“A lot of campers who come here are retired and come during the shoulder season,” said Brodeur.
Rhode Island has 28 campgrounds, including those that are private, municipal and state owned. The state campgrounds are Burlingame State Park Campground, Charlestown Breachway, East Beach – all in Charlestown – Fishermen’s Memorial State Campground in Narragansett and George Washington Memorial Campground in Glocester. The state’s Legrand G. Reynolds Horsemen’s Camping Area in Exeter is only for those with horses.
Overall, the state-owned campgrounds are drawing a steady crowd year after year, said Robert Paquette, chief of Rhode Island state parks.
“Every one of the campgrounds has its own personality. Fishermen’s Memorial … is popular and is usually sold out a year in advance,” said Paquette.
To accommodate those bigger campers, however, Fishermen’s is undergoing a $3 million renovation in electric, water and sewer, he said.
Burlingame has 750 campsites and usually is pretty full on weekends, he said.
“It’s like a little city there on weekends,” Paquette said.
“We used to have campers coming and staying a week or two, but we’re not seeing that so much now,” said Paquette. “I think that’s because of the economy in the last three or four years.”
“We’ve also been trying different things to attract campers, like having a movie and enlarging our naturalist program,” he said.
Some campers are spending a weeklong vacation at Burlingame, like Thomas and Cynthia Coyne, who live in Queens, N.Y., and have camped in Rhode Island about half a dozen times. This summer they pitched their tent at Burlingame for a week in August.
“Rhode Island is a beautiful state, and the beaches are nice,” said Thomas Coyne.
Travel time from their home to go camping in Rhode Island is only three hours, and that convenience is one reason they’ve come back to the state several times, said Coyne.
At the town-owned Melville Ponds Campground in Portsmouth, Manager Bill Bryant sees the economic impact from the campers, many who come from out of state and some who come from as far away as Germany, Spain, Italy and The Netherlands. “We were full for the Newport Folk Festival and had people for the Newport Jazz Festival, though we weren’t quite full that weekend,” said Bryant.
“A lot of people like to go out to Newport for the nightlife,” he said.
Campers at Melville Campground often go sailing, and the facility has hosted kayak and bicycle clubs, said Bryant. The town is looking for a vendor to take over the campground.
At family-owned Bowdish Lake Camping Area in Glocester, President Anna Tillinghast said camping has changed dramatically in the 43 years since they opened the camp, which has 60 sites for motor homes, popup tents on a base and traditional tents.
“What has changed over the years is that it’s gone from casual recreation to a working person’s summer home,” said Tillinghast. “We provide cable hookups and the trailers have flat-screen TVs, microwaves and wall-to-wall carpet. It’s not really camping.”
Although at some times the campground had to hang out a “No Vacancy” sign, the large campground has not usually been full in recent years, she said.
Tillinghast knows that the campers are spending money.
“I think the campground has a positive effect on our local economy, especially the little restaurants and shops, based on how I’m treated,” said Tillinghast. “All the gas stations and grocery stores greet me warmly in the spring and hate to see me go in the fall,”
The state’s newest campground, Ashaway RV Resort, just opened in July to cater to the higher-end market.
“I’m a believer that Rhode Island has to go after the hospitality industry, and I found a need,” said Clint Ramsden, owner of the Ashaway RV Resort and former owner of Whispering Pines Campground in Hopkinton.
“Rhode Island lacked the full amenities-type RV park that would cater to an upscale crowd,” said Ramsden.”Having owned Whispering Pines, I found that people wanted more. We’re attracting a lot of the big-rig type people who were driving through Rhode Island.”
The 260-site Ashaway RV resort has a tennis court, paddleball court and a zero-entry pool that allows people to roll in with a wheelchair, he said. It has a heated whirlpool and a splash pad for children. •

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