Staying at 4 Paws Kingdom Campground & Dog Retreat

When you consider traveling, one thing that always comes to mind when planning is if you are able to bring your pets with you along for the ride. When Sabrina and I decided that we needed to make changes in our lives to spend more time together, we came across several options. One of those ideas was to live out of hotels across the country while Sabrina was working on assignments. We thought we could save money on housing and living expenses since the hospitals she would be working at would pick up the cost of the hotels while she was working.

This sounded great except for one little 25-pound issue, our furry friend Belle. Belle is our small dog, and she is not welcome everywhere in the hotel industry. Even when she is, there is usually a non-refundable pet fee that can cost anywhere from $75 to $200 to welcome her. Hotels also lack large green spaces nearby. Sure, the hotels usually have grass patches here and there, but nothing like a campground where you can step right out your door and go for shaded walks or go to a dog park where she can run off leash.

So, with Belle's help the decision was made to live out of an RV and it has turned out to be a great option for us. Belle now gets to tag along with us everywhere we go and recently we found an RV park that is designed just for her. When we heard of this place and looked it up, we knew Belle would love it. What we didn't know is how much we would too! Sabrina had some free time off from work, so we packed up the RV and tagged along with Belle for our first trip that was all about her.

First impressions of the campground

When we arrived at 4 Paws Kingdom Campground & Dog Retreat in North Carolina, we were greeted by an extremely friendly staff and escorted to our site. They have very large sites with some pull throughs as long as 110 feet, making it very big-rig friendly. (Prices start at about $40 per night).

We had a great shaded, full-hookup, pull-through site that included a fire pit, picnic table, 30/50 amp service and the best part of all ... a private fenced in area for Belle to hang out off leash. Belle has never had her own yard and she loved it! This was her own space she could roam around in or just sit and wait to bark at the golf carts passing by.

The yard was a treat for us too. Now when we wanted to let Belle out, all we had to do was open the gate and then open our RV door and she would run right into her yard.

Another wonderful thing we immediately noticed when we arrived was how quiet the campground was. It was so calm and completely peaceful, we suspect this was due to the fact that you must be 18 years of age to be allowed on the property. This meant it was going to be not only a great trip for Belle, but it was going to be a retreat from the standard campground for us, too. Just Belle having her own play area would have made this a wonderful experience, but we quickly found out there was so much more to this campground.

For the dogs

We will start with the group play areas they have for all of our furry friends, there are eight dog parks in all. There is the main dog park which is very large, well shaded, and includes an area for us to sit and relax while the dogs play and chase each other. This was probably Belle's favorite park since she loved that occasionally there were brave squirrels that would try to run through the park. If it was not for them being able to run up the trees, they would have been goners.

They also have a large pond park. This is probably the largest of the parks and I would say it is at least the size of two football fields. In the center of the park is a large pond where the pups can go swimming or if they are like Belle just put their paws in. There is a decent amount of shade in this park as well as a large gazebo.

Four Paws Kingdom also has a small dog park for dogs under 30lbs, a tiny dog park for dogs under 15 pounds, an agility park with plenty of obstacles, as well as a private dog park where only one dog is allowed in the park at a time. Now is probably a good time to point out that the RV park is all dog breed friendly, too! There are no restrictions at all. As long as your pup can behave and not cause trouble, they are welcome.

The last two parks are game parks, one is the ball park where they have two kiddie pools filled with balls. Belle loves to play catch, even though she is not all that great about bringing the ball back.

The final park we want to mention is the lure park. This is where the staff can tie a bag on a cable that runs in a loop around the park. They are able to operate how fast the bag travels and are even able to change its direction while the dog chases it, to say this is a big hit with the pups would be an understatement.

Added bonuses

Some of the other great features to this park are the amenities they have set up for our furry friends. There is an outdoor grooming station as well as climate-controlled indoor bathing stations. This was especially nice for us, since it made cleaning Belle a breeze on the elevated station.

We would also like to add if you know someone who has dogs but no RV, the campground has cabins, yurts and even travel trailers that can be rented out for a truly one of a kind camping experience.

This was a fantastic experience for us, with scheduled social activities for the humans, as well as so much to do for the dogs. We were able to play all day and then retreat back to our campsite to unwind for the night.

We will be back for sure, in fact this will now be our go-to place for when we are in North Carolina. If you'd like to see Belle enjoying the park, Sabrina and I have a short overview video of the campground here.

Take care everyone and safe travels!