Recently we wanted to get away for the weekend. Someplace close to home so we could get there at a decent time even though we weren’t leaving until after work. I found this campground while checking out our favorite campground (which sadly had no sites available). There was one site available for the weekend at W.P. Franklin Campground and when I saw it was on an island – that sealed the deal for me! Hubby was thrilled – fishing right outside the camper! Almost all sites are along the river. They’re paved and have a nice little pavilion along with a grill and fire ring.
I love sunset (if you follow me on instagram, then you already know that). The sunsets over the Caloosahatchee River are gorgeous!
You can walk out on part of the dam to fish. They actually have a very nice (large) fishing area with benches off to the right.
There were turtles swimming around the dam too. We saw fish jumping and a couple manatees too.
We could watch boats going through the lock from the campground, but it’s on the other side so you can’t see anything except the boats. One day we drove around to the other side of the river – there’s two ways to go and both are about 15 minutes. We went through Alva – a neat little town with a museum (we didn’t get to stop this time…maybe next time). Of course we had to stop for the drawbridge.
The maze of walkways at the lock (they aren’t open to the public, but I would love to run through all of them!). There’s also a visitor’s center and a park with a nice little playground near the lock.
This, right here, was probably the best part of the whole campground! Right out our camper door was the river and plenty of room for the kids to run! Hubby got to fish to his hearts content. The kids could fish for a bit, run around, go back to fishing…it was wonderful!
I will say that the sites are close together, but with all the open space behind the sites ,you don’t really notice it! Also, there are no full hook up sites. The dump station was easy to get to, but we just made sure we were careful with our water usage (we used the bath house for all showers). We will definitely be going back!
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