First Landing State Park

May 18-20, 2012
Virginia Beach, VA
757-412-2300
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/fir.shtml
http://www.first-landing-state-park.org/


Pros:
Pretty, shady campsites
Good clean bathrooms
Easy access to a nice beach
Hiking and biking trails
Picnic tables are wheelchair accessible

Cons:
Camping area is separated from the rest of the park by a four-lane highway
Late night traffic
Training maneuvers from nearby military training facility are a bit loud
Wimpy showers

Campsite

Tent sites are $24 per night (no water or electric), and the park officials were quite firm that there was a limit of 6 people per site.  Many of the sites were shady, although some were a bit small, and others seemed to be huge.  Our site was one of the ones I would call small, but we had plenty of room to set up three large tents and a canopy over our picnic table, and still be a safe distance from the fire.  This was a Girl Scout outing, and our group had a total of three sites.

Poison Ivy

Since we got such a late start (see What the Girls Say), we arrived shortly before sundown and ended up setting up tents in the dark.  We didn't see the lush poison ivy until the next morning.  Luckily, only one of us ended up with a rash, and it wasn't that bad.  One of the people in the other group we camped with didn't recognize it and did a bit of "pruning" with her bare hands to clear it out of the way.  She was lucky too.  Make sure you know what it looks like!!



On Friday night there was lots of helicopter noise for a while.  This didn't bother me, as it was done before I wanted to go to sleep, but some may not care for the noise.  It was not repeated on Saturday.  Postings around the park explain about the nearby training facility, which is open and operating all year long.  They state that the operations are usually done by 10:00 p.m., but occasionally run later.

Beach

We had planned to hike one of the trails and explore more of the park, but when I'm camping, I like to park the car until it's time to leave.  I wasn't comfortable with crossing the highway on foot to get to the other side of the park, so we scrapped that plan.  We spent most of the day at our site decorating T-shirts, then went down to the beach for a while.  I'm sure that when the weather is warmer, the beach is more crowded, but when we were there, it was wonderfully vacant.



I didn't particularly notice on Friday (maybe because of the helicopters), but on Saturday night, there was a lot of late-night traffic in the park.  I'm guessing that people camp here instead of getting a hotel room, then go out to enjoy the beach nightlife and come back late.  There wasn't a lot of rowdiness, and there were several park rangers out and about to keep order.

I will definitely visit this park again.  I'd like to come back with just my kids, and take more time to explore.