Bend Sunriver RV Campground, OR Review

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In August, 2017, we spent 3 weeks at the Thousand Trails Bend Sunriver RV Campground. It was our first visit and we really enjoyed our stay. The RV park is located just south of the resort town of Sunriver. Camping about 30 minutes south of Bend, Oregon. It is your typical campground with fire rings, picnic tables, and trees. 

Update: We have actually stayed her multiple times now.

Read on for more detail about the specifics of this RV park, sites, and amenities – including pros and cons.

Location of Bend-Sunriver RV Campground

Though the name starts with Bend, the campground is actually much closer to Sunriver. the RV park is 30 minutes south of Bend. But the campground is just a few minutes south of Sunriver. Sunriver is a resort/vacation community filled with amenities like grocery stores, fuel, restaurants, breweries and many many tourist activities. The area is surrounded by miles of beautiful Oregon forest, and you can see snow covered mountains in the distance. Yes, even in August!

There are many great highways into the Bend area from virtually everywhere. One caution is if you are driving here from the Eugene area in an RV, be sure to avoid Highway 242 over the mountains. You can read more about the perils of this road in the Mountain Directory West edition, a valuable resource for every RVer. There are other route options that are much safer.

Bend is a town with a population of around 100,000 and has virtually everything you could ever want or need. It’s a great size and we really liked the city a lot. Downtown Bend has live music, vendors and food trucks in Drake Park in the summer. Bend also has many great restaurants and is well-known for it’s breweries. Another popular place to visit in Bend is the Old Mill District with shopping precinct.

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Area Attractions in Bend and Sunriver

We loved visiting both Sunriver and Bend. They are both great cities. During the summer, Bend has free music in downtown Drake Park and many other festivals. It’s worth paying a visit to the Visitor Information Center downtown. They have lots of great suggestions and brochures on things to do and see.

There are many lakes to paddle, trails to hike and bike, and scenic drives in the area, including the Cascade Scenic Byway where you can visit many lakes. We enjoyed a leisurely hour drive to Elk Lake for an afternoon of kayaking. Kayaking, rafting and paddle boarding on the Deschutes river is very popular and we saw many cars driving around with kayaks on the roof.

Sunriver has one of the nicest bike trail systems we have seen in all of our travels. We heard it cost $11 million dollars to build. The trails are super smooth, level and interconnect the entire resort town. For more advanced cyclists, there are beautiful, scenic roads nearby, most of which had a decent shoulder. But beware as cars travel at 50mph.

This part of Oregon is also known for many craft breweries if you like beer. The Deschutes National Forest and lava tube caves are both nearby. There’s fishing and golf in the summer, and many come to the area for skiing and other winter sports when the snow falls. There is plenty to see and do in the Bend-Sunriver area year-round, depending on your preference for warm or cold weather!

Amenities at Bend-Sunriver RV Campground

This Bend Sunriver RV campground has a ‘Town Square’ with a Welcome Center, General Store, book exchange, propane filling station, movie rentals, and a meeting room. They sometimes host outdoor movies in the square too.  The town square is built to look like an old western town with wooden boardwalks and rustic buildings. Inside the main family lodge there is a dining/meeting hall, which serves breakfast on the weekends. We were told it was good but didn’t eat there.

There is a pool complex with a baby pool, two larger pools, and a hot tub that is supposed to close at 10 pm. They put up a sign to say it was closing at 9 pm the night we visited the spa.  The RV campground has multiple tennis/pickleball courts, at least six very nice horseshoe courts, a basketball court, and a frisbee golf course. There are five shower buildings and one laundry room. If you have furry friends with you, there is a large off-leash area for pets.

Learn how we camp for (almost) free with our Thousand Trails membership

Mail / Packages

The Bend Sunriver RV campground does not accept mail or packages for RV guests. If you want something shipped to the area, you would need to ship it to General Delivery in Bend, Oregon, 97701-9999. When we were there, the campground map mentioned that you can ship to general delivery in Sunriver. But the post office in Sunriver adamantly informed us that the only location for general delivery packages is in Bend.

WIFI / Cable

There is WIFI available at the lodge and the Town Square, but we didn’t use them or test the speed. We used our own cellular hotspots and phones. Verizon and T-Mobile both had 3 bars without a booster and speeds were reflective of the bars shown. There isn’t cable TV, but the materials stated that there are about 6 local channels that could be watched with VHS, or UHS antenna. Satellite TV works in this area too. We don’t watch TV, so we cannot confirm this.

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RV Sites at Bend-Sunriver RV Campground

The roads and RV sites inside the campground are all dirt/gravel, but are well maintained. Bend Sunriver RV campground is well spaced out, and relatively large. Most campsites are spacious and have trees in between sites that give you a more private feel, with shade from the sun. There are over 300 RV sites divided into more than a dozen sections, and virtually all are back in sites.

One small section of the RV park called Fort Laramie. It was filled with more semi-permanent sites that appeared to have sewer connections. But all sites for regular RV visitors are water and electric only. There are five shower/restroom buildings to help you reduce water use on your RV site, and two dump stations. They offer a honey wagon pump out service. But at $50, it was a lot more expensive than we are used to. So we just broke camp a couple times to dump our tanks during our three-week stay.

There are 4 cabins, 4 cottages, 7 yurts, and an area for tenters. But nearly all sites are for RVs. There are about 40 sites with 50amp electricity. We were lucky enough to snag one (site A8), but the vast majority are 30amp. During our stay, we saw many big rigs in the campground and would consider this a big-rig-friendly campground. However, not all sites will accommodate large RVs.

The campground was at full capacity the entire time we were there. We imagine it is usually very popular in the summer. But it was especially popular in August 2017 because it was so close to the town of Madras, Oregon. Madras was the prime location from which to view the total solar eclipse on August 21st. It’s certainly the reason we, and many of our RVing friends, were at TT Bend in August.  We stayed at Bend Sunriver RV Campground before heading to Madras for the solar eclipse event.

Our most recent stay was in October 2023.

PROS

  • RV park near Bend and Sunriver, restaurants and shopping
  • Quiet campground in a beautiful area with loads to see and do
  • Easy access to outdoor activities such as kayaking and biking
  • Friendly, helpful staff during our visit

CONS

  • None of the available RV sites had sewer hookups
  • Honey wagon service is expensive at $50 a pop
  • Won’t allow packages or mail deliveries at the campground

Rates at Bend-Sunriver RV Campground

We heard that the there are some RV sites available to the public (non-members) and that those rates were around $50 per night. Personally, we don’t think it’s worth that much. But high retail rates are probably part of TT’s marketing strategy to encourage people to sign up for a Zone pass or upgrade.

Being Thousand Trails members ourselves with an upgraded membership (we have the basic Elite), we were able to stay at this campground for 3 weeks with no nightly fee. We did try to extend by an extra week, using our “extra week for $29” privilege (which we can use twice a year) but because it was so busy, they didn’t have availability.

Learn how we camp for (almost) free with our Thousand Trails membership

Summary

This is a great campground in close proximity to everything you could want or need. Regardless of if that is outdoor adventure, or a fun evening out in a cool city with a great vibe like Bend. The campground allows you to feel like you are getting away from the city. But still has strong enough cellular coverage for those who need to stay connected.  We had heard a lot of positive feedback about this campground and area in general before our visit, and we were not disappointed.  A return visit is definitely planned.

About our stay

We had a wonderful three week long stay at this Bend Sunriver RV park.  Even though we were working a lot during those three weeks,  we still got out to enjoy the area, and had a number of great visits with RVing friends at the campground.  Our visit was in August of 2017 and the weather was gorgeous. We had good tree coverage at our RV site, so we rarely ran our air conditioner and didn’t need to run the heater.

Temperature varied 30-40 degrees F between the daytime high, and night time low. But that variation combined with the shade kept us very comfortable. The campground is open year round. But very few folks come here in the winter in their RVs. Unless they are wanting to ski at the local ski resorts. It is primarily a summer time park.

We stayed for a full 3 weeks and would have gladly stayed longer, but we had reservations in Solartown near Madras for the total solar eclipse. We will definitely return for another visit. Especially since we can stay here for free with our upgraded Thousand Trails membership. You can learn more about how this membership saves us thousands every year HERE

About Thousand Trails Memberships

If you are interested in learning more about Thousand Trails camping memberships, we have written a ton of articles to help you decide if TT is for you or not. You can find all the articles – on new and used/resale memberships – rounded up here.

TT Joanna Pat Thousand Trails logos

Who do we recommend for buying TT memberships - New or Used?

Zone Camping Pass and any NEW Membership Upgrades: Contact Joanna and Pat Parizo (pictured above) at 631-921-1674 or 352-396-6835 or email [email protected]. They are super helpful, no-pressure and can answer all of your questions – by phone or email – no matter where you are in the country. Be sure to mention RVLove to ensure you get the best deal available.

RESALE Membership Upgrades: Contact Kim Hoel at Campground Membership Outlet on 800-272-0401 or email [email protected] and mention you read RVLove’s articles so she knows you’re well informed. She will take extra good care of you. Kim is super helpful and knowledgeable about all the different kinds of memberships and can help you find a resale (used) membership that best suits your needs and budget (eg. VIP, Platinum, Platinum Plus, Elite etc – older memberships that are no longer available through Thousand Trails. Each has their unique pros and cons which we will cover in a separate blog post coming up).

Contact Information

To find out more or to make a reservation, contact:

Bend-Sunriver RV Campground

Address: 17480 S Century Dr, Bend, OR 97707

Phone: (541) 593-8494

Website: Bend SUnriver RV Campground

Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any RV park, campground, or RV resort, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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7 thoughts on “Bend Sunriver RV Campground, OR Review”

  1. We enjoyed the Bemd/Sunriver TT campground as well. Great biking roads, hiking up Volcanic mountains,and floating on the Deschutes River right from the campground were highlights for us. Oh, and the frequent ice cream socials at TT made John a happy camper!

    Reply
  2. Hi! My wife and I are in the early stages of planning to use the full-time RVing lifestyle to help us narrow down what area of the country we want to eventually settle down in. We are hoping to hit the road in the late spring or early summer of 2018. Quite a few things to do before then (like, figure out what kind of rig we want to use!), but we are very excited.
    We have always been very curious about Bend, but have yet to visit. I think it might be one of our first stops in the west.
    I was wondering, is there transportation between the Sunriver area and Bend proper? We are huge craft beer fans (we met while working at a brewery), and beer tourism is going to inform a lot of our travels. It would be ideal if we could get between where we park and the breweries without needing to drive.

    Reply
    • Hi Tim, Awesome! We aren’t sure about the transportation between Sunriver and Bend but know the craft beer industry is popular in the area so am sure there would be some options – we did see some craft beer tours available at the Bend Visitor Center, but we aren’t beer drinkers so couldn’t tell you. We had heard a lot about Bend before visiting and look forward to going back, it’s a great down. Good luck with your RV planning and research – it’s a huge journey and a lot to think about… we hope you find our website and videos helpful along the way, and if you are really ready to dive into your RV shopping and lifestyle planning, check out our RV Success School courses – they are designed for people like you in the very stage you are at and will ensure you make great choices and help you save a lot of money, across multiple areas http://courses.rvsuccessschool.com – it’s a great life for sure and there are so many awesome places to see.

      Reply

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