Camping in the Okanagan
51 outdoor destinations for camping across the Okanagan Valley.
Provincial and regional parks where an outdoor day can turn into a night under the stars.
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Barefoot Beach Resort
Barefoot Beach Resort is where you camp without a tent: a village of thirteen yurts — studios up to two-bedrooms, each with a kitchenette — on a private stretch of Skaha Lake beach at the south end of Penticton, with ordinary campsites for those who bring their own canvas and the Kettle Valley Rail Trail running out the back gate toward Okanagan Falls. It is the Okanagan's best-known glamping address and the easy answer for a group with mixed ideas about roughing it.
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Bear Creek Provincial Park
Bear Creek gives you 400 metres of coarse-sand beach on the west side of Okanagan Lake, across the water from Kelowna, with a buoyed swim area and the kind of facilities that make a long day easy: a change house, accessible flush toilets, a concession and a dozen shaded picnic tables. An 80-vehicle lot handles the summer traffic. Dogs are not allowed on the beach and there are no lifeguards. The campground operates from March 20 to October 12, 2026. Behind the beach is one of the Okanagan's best-loved provincial campgrounds: 143 sites, 55 of them with electrical hook-ups, with hot showers, flush toilets, well water, a sani-station and fire rings, and reservations required through BC Parks in the peak season (first-come outside it). The one-hour Bear Creek Canyon Trail loops above the creek to viewpoints over the canyon and the lake to Knox Mountain, and the cottonwood delta is alive with swallows, hawks and, after dark, owls and coyotes.
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Beaver Lake Mountain Resort
Beaver Lake Mountain Resort is a four-season lake resort at 1,402 metres on Beaver (Swalwell) Lake, reached by Beaver Lake Road above Lake Country. Fishing is the everyday activity here: the resort rents boats from its boat park and can supply a rod and tackle if you arrive without them, so a first-time angler can be on the water within the hour, while the trail network, swimming beach and wellness spa fill the rest of a stay. Accommodation includes cabins, suites and campsites in a park-like setting, with midweek off-season specials. Bring a BC freshwater fishing licence; the resort is about 17 km from the valley floor on a mountain road.
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Cabana Beach Campground & RV Park
Cabana Beach has been the same family's campground for close to fifty years: 84 sites for tents and smaller RVs, plus a few camping cabins, on Lakeshore Drive on the east side of Osoyoos Lake, laid out so that every site is a one-minute walk to the park's own beach on the warmest lake in Canada. It runs from the May long weekend into October and fills early for July and August.
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Cedar Falls Campground
Cedar Falls is a small, hands-on family campground twelve minutes from Vernon on the road to SilverStar, sharing Tillicum Road with the BX Creek and BX Falls trailhead: individually cared-for sites, a firm four-person limit that keeps the place calm, and owners who come by to make sure everything works. Nights start at $85 for two adults and two kids, which buys you a forest base for the falls walk, SilverStar's summer bike park and the Vernon beaches.
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Chute Lake Lodge
Chute Lake Lodge sits in the mountains above the Naramata Bench on the Kettle Valley Railway, at the end of a scenic drive where the final 8 km is a gravel mountain road once you leave the vineyards — check your mapping app’s route before you set out. Chute Lake is stocked with rainbow trout and has a boat launch, and the lodge rents fishing gear with aluminum boats, along with canoes and paddleboards, e-bikes for the rail trail and snowshoes in winter; it also has a restaurant, cabins and camping, so a fishing day can turn into a weekend. Motorboats are limited on the lake, so ask the lodge before bringing one, watch for moose on the road up, and bring a BC freshwater fishing licence.
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Cooke Creek Recreation Site (Shuswap River)
Cooke Creek sits beside the crystal-clear Shuswap River on the road from Enderby to Mabel Lake — 22 sites a short turn off the pavement, with swimming holes, trout water clear enough that divers use it, and walking trails through the riverside forest. In October the salmon run turns the river into a show, and the Kingfisher hatchery and interpretive centre is a few minutes away on the same road.
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Cottonwood Beach Recreation Site (Mabel Lake)
Cottonwood Beach is the Lumby side of Mabel Lake: 49 forest campsites behind a sandy swimming beach on the quieter east shore, reached by a good gravel road that turns off the Mabel Lake Forest Service Road at the 27-kilometre mark. It is a little smaller and a little calmer than Noisy Creek across the lake, with the same clear, cold water and room to launch a boat if you have all-wheel drive. No reservations, no services — bring firewood, water and everything you plan to eat.
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Dee Lake Wilderness Resort
Dee Lake Wilderness Resort is a heritage fishing resort established in 1926 on Dee Lake, one of the chain of trout lakes in the high country between Lake Country and Vernon. Guests spend their days fishing from the resort’s waters, paddling a canoe, kayak or paddleboard across the quiet lake, walking the forest trails or settling in around a campfire; two heritage lodges, rustic log cabins, full-service lakeside cottages and well-treed RV sites cover every kind of stay, and the resort runs an annual fishing derby. It opens for the summer season each year with all bookings handled online. A BC freshwater fishing licence is required.
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Dutch's Campground
Dutch's is the campground you want when the plan is Kal Beach: a family-run park on Kalamalka Road in Coldstream, a five-minute walk from the sand and the impossibly turquoise water of Kalamalka Lake, with the Okanagan Rail Trail running past the gate for a flat ride to Vernon or south toward Kekuli Bay. It takes both tents and RVs, books online or by phone, and — unusually for the Okanagan — stays open all year, with winter camping by application from October to May for those who want Sovereign Lake's ski trails and SilverStar within a short drive. Expect a friendly, no-frills lakeside campground rather than a resort, and check the operator's site for current site details and rates before you arrive.
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Echo Lake Resort
Echo Lake Resort has been putting families on a quiet mountain lake since 1943, and it still works the way a lake resort should. Twenty minutes east of Lumby up Creighton Valley Road, seventeen campsites — non-powered tent sites and powered sites for trailers up to 30 feet — sit back from the water alongside seven lakefront cabins and a pair of small camping cabins for the in-between crowd, all served by a proper wash house with hot showers and flush toilets. The lake is the point: a swim dock and beach for the kids, a private boat launch, and a rental fleet of fishing boats, pedal boats, kayaks, canoes and paddleboards, with the store stocking tackle, ice cream and the essentials you forgot. Rainbow trout and kokanee keep the anglers busy at dawn, the playground keeps everyone else busy after breakfast, and Wi-Fi reaches the store if you must. The resort opens May 1 and closes for the season on Thanksgiving Monday; book online, and note the group-camping policies if you are bringing the whole clan.
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Ellison Provincial Park
Ellison Provincial Park rewards the drive south of Vernon with a different kind of Okanagan Lake day: multiple beaches with buoyed swim areas, a playground for the kids, and around 50 picnic tables plus a picnic shelter to spread out at. Otter Bay is Western Canada’s only freshwater dive park, so divers share the park with swimmers, and there is canoeing, hiking and fishing on top of that. Flush toilets and showers are on site, but there is no boat launch and no lifeguards. Sandy Beach is the park’s pet beach; dogs are not allowed on the other beaches. The season runs roughly April 1 to October 12, and the beaches are about a half-kilometre walk from the parking lot. Ellison is also a campground and a viewpoint park: 71 sites (61 reservable, 10 first-come) with a hot-shower building, spring-water taps and fire rings, and more than six kilometres of trail along the rocky headlands with panoramic vistas of Okanagan Lake north to Spallumcheen and south to Fintry.
🐾 Dog Friendly
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Evely Recreation Site
Evely is the big Okanagan Lake campground that isn't a provincial park: 48 first-come sites strung along the west shore on Westside Road, halfway between Fintry and Vernon, run by Recreation Sites and Trails BC with toilets and tables and not much else — which is exactly the point. The lake is at your feet for swimming and cartop boats, the fishing is right there, and the price and the rules are looser than the reservation campgrounds down the road. It fills fast on summer weekends and there is no way to book ahead, so arrive early. Check the RSTBC page before you go: after the recent wildfires the site has carried access notices, and at times it can only be reached from the south via West Kelowna.
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Fintry Provincial Park
Fintry is the big west-shore day out: a natural sand beach with warm water along almost two kilometres of Okanagan Lake waterfront, on Fintry Delta Road off Westside Road about 34 km north of Kelowna and 49 km south of Vernon. Swim off the beach, launch a canoe or kayak, fish, or stay over in the campground. Behind the beach the former Fintry Estate gives this park something no other Okanagan beach has: the Manor House with guided tours of the house and its story, the octagonal barn and other farm buildings, and the Shorts Creek canyon trail past waterfalls and deep pools, with viewing platforms for birds, small mammals, deer and bighorn sheep. There are no lifeguards. Pets must be on leash at all times and are not allowed in the beach areas, except at the designated pet beach. Boaters can reach it too, 6 km across the lake from Ellison Park or Kopje Regional Park. The campground is the largest on the west shore — 190 sites (186 reservable), 30 with power, plus three group camping pods for 40 to 60 people — with three shower buildings, a paved boat launch and dock and a sani-station; blue-listed bighorn sheep and Townsend's big-eared bats share the park with a nesting pair of bald eagles.
🐾 Dog Friendly
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Gallagher Lake Camping & RV Resort
Camp, park the RV or book a cabin beside spring-fed Gallagher Lake, a sunny South Okanagan base with a private beach. You're minutes from Oliver's wineries and the Hike & Bike Trail.
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Gold Panner Campground
Gold Panner is the campground at Cherryville on the Shuswap River, forty minutes east of Vernon on Highway 6, and it is under new owners as of spring 2026: riverside tent and RV sites, a wash house with hot coin showers from the May long weekend to Thanksgiving, and the Monashee gold-rush country on the doorstep. It is the natural overnight between Lumby and Sugar Lake, and the last showers before the recreation sites up the road. Pricing moves with the season, so book online.
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Headwaters Family Camp
Headwaters Family Camp is an old-fashioned fishing and camping camp on the Headwaters Lakes, less than 30 minutes above Peachland at the 21 km mark of Peachland Main forest service road. Summer here is fishing, boating and canoeing on the lakes — boats are available to rent — with swimming, hiking and quad trails all around, and the lakeside cabins come with wood stoves, propane cooktops and the basics, with a seasonal hot shower and outdoor toilets centrally located. Rates are deliberately affordable and the pace is quiet. Expect gravel road for the last stretch and bring a BC freshwater fishing licence.
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Hiawatha RV Park
Hiawatha is the campground inside Kelowna: 85 tent and RV sites on Lakeshore Road in the Lower Mission, a few minutes' walk from Gyro and Rotary beaches, the lakeside path and the cafés of Pandosy Village. Full hookups keep the big rigs happy and there is grass for tents, which makes it the rare place where you can do a city holiday — wineries, restaurants, the waterfront — and still sleep under a tarp. It runs from March to the end of September and books up early for July and August.
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Hidden Lake Recreation Site
Hidden Lake lives up to its name — a long forested lake in the hills east of Enderby, 13 km up a good gravel road from the Trinity Valley — and then surprises you with 48 campsites and a real boat launch. No towing is allowed on the water, so it stays glassy for canoes, paddleboards and trout anglers, generators are limited to a few hours a day and quiet hours are enforced, which makes it one of the more peaceful large campgrounds in the North Okanagan. First come, first served.
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Hydraulic Lake Recreation Site
Hydraulic Lake is the near end of the McCulloch Reservoir and the easier of its two campgrounds to reach — a short turn off Highway 33 rather than a run down the 201 — with 30 sites, a cartop launch and good rainbow fishing on a 10-horsepower lake. The Kettle Valley Rail Trail passes right by, so you can ride to the Myra Canyon trestles from your tent and be back for the evening rise.
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Idleback Lake Recreation Site
Fifty minutes up into the Carmi hills from Penticton, Idleback Lake is the free campground locals keep for themselves: 21 well-spaced sites on the north shore under a canopy of larch that turns gold in October, a cartop launch on an electric-motor lake with a one-trout limit, and the kind of silence you cannot buy on Skaha. It is user-maintained, so bring water and take out everything; weekends and holidays fill, weekdays rarely do.
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Inkaneep Provincial Park Campground
Inkaneep is the smallest provincial campground in the South Okanagan and one of its best-kept secrets: seven vehicle-accessible sites on the bank of the Okanagan River six kilometres north of Oliver, each walled in by thickets of wild rose that give more privacy than most parks ten times the size. It suits tents, vans and small trailers — BC Parks is explicit that fifth wheels and large motorhomes will not fit — and it works on a first-come, first-served basis with no reservations, so a weekday arrival is the way to get a site in July. The reward is waking up in the middle of the Golden Mile wine country with the river a few steps away, Oliver's shops five minutes down the highway and the International Hike and Bike Trail on the river dyke. The gate is open from mid-May to mid-September; pets stay on leash.
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Island Lake Recreation Site (Dee Lake chain)
Island Lake is the public campground of the Dee Lake chain — the string of trout lakes in the high country behind Winfield — with 34 forested sites on a lake full of small, keen rainbows. It is a fee-for-service Recreation Site, so expect a modest nightly charge and tables and toilets in return, and Beaver Lake Mountain Resort's store is a few minutes back down the road if you forget the coffee. The lake is a water supply and its level moves through the season; bring a canoe rather than a big boat.
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Island View RV Resort
Island View is the all-season RV resort five minutes from downtown Osoyoos: 110 full-service sites and a private beach across Lakeshore Drive on the warmest freshwater lake in Canada, with a seasonal store and coffee bar on site. It publishes nightly, weekly and monthly rates, which makes it as useful for a summer week on the lake as for the snowbird months; some rates carry a three-night minimum, and it is RVs only.
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Kekuli Bay Provincial Park
Kekuli Bay sits on a peaceful bay on the west side of Kalamalka Lake, with calm waters that make it a popular launching point for kayaks, SUPs, waterskiing and boating, and the Okanagan Rail Trail right at hand for a walk or ride. The swim area is rocky, and a busy boat launch shares the bay, so it suits visitors who like a lake with some activity on it. There is a playground for younger visitors, and flush toilets and showers in the park. Parking inside the park is limited in summer; BC Parks asks trail users to consider the Regional District lot above the park, off Highway 97. Dogs are not permitted on the beach and there are no lifeguards. The campground above the bay has 76 sites including four walk-in tent sites, all reservable through BC Parks, four with power, with warm showers, flush toilets, drinking water and fire rings; 2.6 km of gentle gravel trails wind through the grassland around it, and the whole campground looks out over Kalamalka Lake.
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Lake Front RV Park (Swan Lake)
Lake Front RV Park backs onto the reedy, bird-rich shore of Swan Lake just north of Vernon — six acres with 81 sites, most with full hookups and a row of half-service sites that suit tents and small trailers — where the Swan Lake nature reserve's herons, ospreys and pelicans are the neighbours and downtown Vernon is a ten-minute drive. Book by the night online; check-in is at one.
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Lambly (Bear) Lake Recreation Site
Lambly Lake — Bear Lake to everyone on the Westside — is 22 free campsites on a quiet electric-motor lake up the Bear Main forest road, about forty minutes from West Kelowna's traffic. Perch and trout for the kids, no reservations, no holding sites for friends, and no generators after dinner. Not to be confused with Bear Creek Provincial Park on the lake below, which is where the pavement ends and this road begins.
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Mabel Lake Provincial Park
Mabel Lake is the North Okanagan’s big-beach detour: a very large fine-sand beach with a buoyed swim area, worth the 36 km drive up Mabel Lake Road from Lumby. Shaded picnic tables, a playground and 16 flush toilets take care of a long day, and a designated dog beach means the dog is welcome too. Boaters have a concrete launch. There are no lifeguards. The gate is open roughly April to October, and the lot holds about 45 vehicles. The campground is a destination in its own right: 114 reservable sites in three loops — Monashee, Trinity and Taylor Creek — plus a group site, with 16 flush toilets, nine water taps, fire rings and a concrete boat launch and dock beside the marina; the 1 km 'Changing Rainforest' interpretive trail winds through moss-carpeted cedar and hemlock between the sites, and painted turtles bask at Taylor Creek. Gate opening dates depend on snow.
🐾 Dog Friendly
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Mabel Lake Resort & Marina
Mabel Lake Resort is the comfortable way to camp on one of the North Okanagan's wildest lakes: shaded RV sites with 30-amp full hookups a few steps from the beach at the south end of Mabel Lake, a marina with fuel and moorage, a store, laundry and showers, and the resort's own golf course across the road. It is the full-service counterpart to the free recreation sites up the shore — the place for a boat-and-beach week when the rest of the family wants a cabin or a condo.
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McCulloch Reservoir Recreation Site
About an hour up Highway 33 from Kelowna, the McCulloch Reservoir site puts 39 campsites on the shore of the big plateau lake that locals also call Hydraulic Lake: cartop boats and canoes on 10-horsepower water, rainbow trout in the evenings, and the Kettle Valley Rail Trail and Kelowna Nordic's trail network a few minutes away. It is cool up here when the valley is baking, first come and first served, and quiet after eleven by rule. A second Recreation Site, Hydraulic Lake, sits on the same reservoir closer to the highway.
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Naramata Centre Campground
The Naramata Centre's campground is the only place to camp in Naramata village, and it is one of a kind: three shaded camping areas on the retreat centre's 23-acre property beside Okanagan Lake — Eastside for RVs, Creekside and Southside for tents — an easy walk to Manitou Beach, the wharf, the general store and the cafés, with the Naramata Bench wineries a short ride up the hill. The prices are higher than a provincial park and there is a two-night minimum, but nowhere else in the South Okanagan lets you camp inside a lakeside village.
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Nk'Mip Campground & RV Resort
Nk'Mip Campground has more lakefront and beach-access sites than any park in the valley: hundreds of tent and RV sites along the east shore of Osoyoos Lake on Osoyoos Indian Band land, with a marina and boat launch, a clubhouse, indoor pool and playground, a dedicated dog beach and sites that take rigs up to 45 feet. Nk'Mip Cellars, the Desert Cultural Centre and the Spirit Ridge resort are up the hill, and the town's beaches and restaurants are five minutes away. It stays open all year, with winter rates for the snowbird season.
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Noisy Creek Recreation Site (Mabel Lake)
Noisy Creek is where the North Okanagan goes to the beach in July: sixty campsites at the wild north end of Mabel Lake, reached by 24 km of forest road from the Enderby side, with long sandy beaches, warm shallows and a trail into the forest behind camp. Recreation Sites and Trails BC describes it as very popular with young people and families, and that is fair warning — on long weekends it is full by Friday afternoon, and there is nothing to buy for an hour in any direction, so come with the truck loaded. What you get for the effort is the best beach camping in the North Okanagan on a lake most visitors never see.
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Okanagan Glamping Co.
Okanagan Glamping Co. sets a handful of furnished canvas tents and a yurt on the sage-and-pine hills of Westside Road above Okanagan Lake, a half-hour from Vernon: proper beds, sunset views over the water and no tent poles, from spring until Thanksgiving. With only four units it books out early, and the online calendar shows exactly which tent is free on which night.
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Okanagan Lake Provincial Park
Okanagan Lake Provincial Park, north of Summerland on Highway 97, is a camper’s beach: pebbly rather than sandy, with buoyed swim areas below the two campgrounds, a day-use area of picnic tables along the shore, a playground and a concrete boat launch at the south campground, and a summer concession at the south gatehouse. Pit and flush toilets and campground showers are provided. Dogs must be leashed and are not allowed in the beach areas, and there are no lifeguards. BC Parks notes the dry hillsides above the campgrounds are rattlesnake habitat, so watch where you step. The 2025 season ran March 28 to October 13. Between them the North and South campgrounds hold 175 sites (174 reservable) plus eight walk-in tent sites, each with its own shower building, and the park is one of the few in the valley that lists winter camping.
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Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park
Okanagan Mountain is 11,321 hectares of rugged wilderness on the east shore of Okanagan Lake, opposite Peachland, with no public roads inside it — which is exactly its appeal. From the north parking lot, the Boulder Loop runs 5 km (about 3 hours, easy) and the Old C.N. Trail 3 km; the Rim Trail, the Pinnacles and the viewpoint near the south lot deliver the big views, and the canyons are good country for spotting sheep, goats and elk. The south lot is reached through Naramata on Chute Lake Road, 6 km of gravel followed by 1.5 km of very rough road. Paddlers can string together day trips or multi-day trips along the undeveloped shoreline, camping at the marine campsites and swimming in the bays. Mountain biking is allowed on the signed trails (e-bikes on designated trails), horses have their own routes, and the park has pit toilets only. Dogs must stay on leash.
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Oxbow RV Resort
Oxbow is Penticton's in-town RV park on the Skaha side: 68 full-hookup sites with 30-amp power, water and sewer, six of them pull-throughs, on paved lanes under shade trees a few minutes from Skaha Beach, the channel float and the Okanagan River Channel path. It is a short-stay park for travelling RVers rather than a residential resort — there are no tent sites — with clean washrooms and coin showers, coin laundry, free Wi-Fi and a rental trailer for anyone arriving without their own rig. Small pets are welcome on the sites with restrictions (but not in the rental trailer), the office runs long hours through the summer, and the park closes for the winter from mid-October to the beginning of March. Book online or by phone (250-770-8147, [email protected]).
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Oyama Lake Lodge
Oyama Lake Lodge is a fishing resort on Oyama Lake, an 800-acre volcanic lake with 27 islands to explore and depths to 87 feet, which is why it holds trout of all sizes. The lodge has 18 cabins of varying size, glamping tents, camping and small RV sites and even a converted school bus, and it rents 14-foot motorboats so you can reach the best fishing water; the boat launch is free for guests and $10 for day visitors, and the lake is also a good swim for kids. To get there, drive up the logging road from Oyama past the Oyama Zipline and keep going — there is no street address and 4WD is recommended, so follow the operator’s directions at oyamalake.com/info/. A BC freshwater fishing licence is required.
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Peach Orchard Campground
Summerland owns and runs its own campground, and it sits where a municipal campground should: two blocks up the hill from Peach Orchard Beach on Okanagan Lake, a short walk from the cafés, bakeries and tasting rooms of the village, with the KVR and the Peach Orchard loop trail close by. The park spreads 121 sites through the trees — most with power and water, the rest with water — and adds the things that make a family week easy: hot showers, proper washrooms, a general store on site and firewood for sale. It is the base for a Summerland holiday that does not need a resort: swim at the beach in the morning, ride the Kettle Valley Steam Railway or tour Bottleneck Drive in the afternoon, and walk back to camp for dinner. Book through the campground office; the season is spring to fall.
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Peachland RV Park
Peachland RV Park is the year-round campground in the pines on the bench above Peachland, five to ten minutes from the beaches of Peachland and West Kelowna: 81 spacious full-service sites with fire pits and picnic tables, a splash park and adventure playground for the kids, dog runs and trails through the trees. Unusually for an RV park it welcomes tenters, who can book a private three-piece washroom trailer wheeled onto their site, and it sells single nights as readily as weeks. Rates cover two adults and their kids in one vehicle; premium sites and long weekends cost a little more.
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Postill Lake Lodge
Postill Lake Lodge is a lakeside-cabin and fly-fishing resort in the hills north-east of Kelowna, at 11950 Postill Lake Road. Spring is the resort’s prime season: the lake’s nutrient-rich water makes for excellent fishing, especially fly fishing, for rainbow trout and speckled brook trout, and you can bring your own boat or rent one at the lodge. Beyond Postill Lake itself, guests have wilderness access to five nearby trout lakes, including Roddy Lake, for anyone who wants to explore. Accommodation runs from lakefront cottages and lodge suites to camping and seasonal rentals, with winter stays as well; reservations are taken online. A BC freshwater fishing licence is required on all of these waters.
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Riverside RV Park & Campground
Riverside sits on the Shuswap River right in Enderby: shaded tent and RV sites with full hookups, a boat launch that puts you straight into the river for the classic lazy float, a covered kitchen and gazebo for group dinners, a playground and a riverwalk trail — with the Enderby Cliffs towering over the far bank and the town's cafés a five-minute walk away. It is the natural base for the cliffs hike, Mabel Lake day trips and the Kingfisher hatchery.
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South Beach Gardens RV Park
South Beach Gardens is Penticton's big family park — well over 200 sites across the road from Sudbury and Skaha beaches, most with full hookups, a clubhouse and the kind of tight-knit rows that fill with the same families every July. It is also the only campground in the city that stays open through winter, with heated washrooms and winterized sites for anyone chasing the Okanagan's mild off-season. Sites along the west edge back onto Highway 97; book toward the lake side for quiet.
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Spectrum Lake Trail (Monashee Provincial Park)
Spectrum Lake is the North Okanagan's gateway to true mountain wilderness: a 6 km trail into Monashee Provincial Park that BC Parks rates easy and times at about two hours one way, on a hard-packed, three-foot-wide tread with boardwalks and bridges over the wet ground, through Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, birch, cedar and hemlock to a moss-carpeted lakeshore with 16 tent platforms, shelters and food caches. Partway in, two viewing platforms hang over Spectrum Creek at Rainbow Falls, one looking down the whole drop and one close enough to feel the spray. Strong hikers keep going: the Little Peters Trail climbs 5 km of steep switchbacks and alder-choked avalanche chutes out of the basin (3 to 4 hours, rated difficult), the Big Peters Trail rolls on through subalpine spruce and fir to Big Peters Lake 13 km from the trailhead (about 800 metres of climbing in all), and beyond that lie Margie Lake, Fawn Lake and the 2,697-metre summit of Mount Fosthall, where caribou, wolverine and pikas share the meadows. Dogs are not permitted anywhere in the park, to protect the red-listed mountain caribou; mountain bikes are not permitted on the trail, horses are. Backcountry camping is first come, first served at $5 per person per night. Getting there is part of the commitment: Highway 6 east through Lumby to Cherryville, 46 km up Sugar Lake Road to the km-22 turnoff, then 16 km of Spectrum Creek Forest Service Road to the trailhead parking lot, with active logging traffic on both roads and a log-sorting area that can trouble low-clearance vehicles. The park is open year-round when the road allows, and subzero temperatures are common in the subalpine even in summer, so pack for weather.
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Sugar Lake 2 Mile Recreation Site
Sugar Lake is the big, cold Monashee lake behind Cherryville, and 2 Mile is its main campground: 62 open, level sites on the shore, a boat launch, and some of the best trout and char fishing in the North Okanagan an hour east of Vernon. It is large and easy to get into with a trailer, and it is strictly first come, first served — Recreation Sites and Trails BC spells out that no reservations exist for any Sugar Lake site — so for a summer weekend, arrive Thursday. The Gold Panner campground and Cherryville's store are back on Highway 6.
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Swalwell (Beaver) Lake Recreation Site
Beaver Lake — Swalwell Lake on the maps — has a public side as well as a resort: a 14-site Recreation Site with its own boat launch next door to Beaver Lake Mountain Resort, where you can pitch a tent for next to nothing and fish the same water that gets 35,000 stocked rainbows a year. It is user-maintained and first come, so treat it gently and bring what you need; the resort's cabins, boat rentals and store are a short walk away if you want a bit more comfort.
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Vaseux Lake Provincial Park
Vaseux Lake is the Okanagan beach for people who want the lake without the engines: as a Migratory Bird Sanctuary it bans motorized boats, so the beach, which runs the length of the campground and continues along the shore, belongs to swimmers, canoes and kayaks, birds and anglers. A day-use area off the Canadian Wildlife Service parking lot has two picnic tables down a short path to the water, and there are 12 first-come campsites. Facilities are basic: four pit toilets, no flush, and a permanent boil-water advisory. Dogs must stay leashed and out of the beach areas, and there are no lifeguards. Open year-round with the gate closed off-season; accessibility information is available. The 12 sites are first-come, first-served year-round; in the off-season the gate is closed and you walk in from it, with a winter fee and no services.
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Wood Lake RV Park & Marina
Wood Lake RV Park is twelve acres of lawn and old willows on the shore of Wood Lake in Lake Country: 176 full-service RV sites, a 69-slip marina with daily moorage for visiting boats, a beach, a clubhouse and an enclosed dog park, with great blue herons and mallards working the mouth of Winfield Creek beside the sites. It sells by the night from mid-April to mid-October — with peak and shoulder rates — as well as seasonal stays, and keeps a couple of dozen sites open for winter camping. RVs only; the Okanagan Rail Trail and Kaloya beach are minutes away.
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Wright's Beach Camp
Wright's Beach Camp is the one campground in Penticton where your site can be on the sand: a long-established family park at the south end of town with its own beach on Skaha Lake, waterfront sites for RVs, trailer rentals for anyone arriving without one, and the beaches and playgrounds of Skaha Lake Park next door. It is open year-round, which makes it the snowbird favourite in spring and fall, and it fills quickly for the summer; the highway runs along two sides, so ask for a lakeside site if quiet matters more than convenience.
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sw̓iw̓s Provincial Park
sw̓iw̓s Provincial Park, formerly Haynes Point, is a sand spit that reaches almost all the way across Osoyoos Lake just south of town. Cottonwoods shade a narrow picnic terrace with tables above the sandy beach, a marsh boardwalk trail explores the wetland, and a single concrete boat ramp serves the lake (stay between the yellow markers in the narrow channel). It is operated by the Osoyoos Indian Band, with flush toilets, on-site parking and trailer parking at the launch, and 41 campsites for the April 1 to October 14 season (gate 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.). Take the warnings seriously: swimming and wading near the exposed sandbar at the tip carry a real risk of undercurrents and steep drop-offs, winds can be severe, poison ivy is common, and there are no lifeguards. Dogs must be leashed; the Town notes a dog swimming area east of the day-use area.
🐾 Dog Friendly
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sx̌ʷəx̌ʷnitkʷ (Okanagan Falls) Provincial Park Campground
sx̌ʷəx̌ʷnitkʷ — 'little falls' in the Syilx language — is the provincial campground tucked into Okanagan Falls between the Okanagan River and the steep foothills of Mount McLellan, and it is the closest provincial park camping to Penticton. Thirty-one vehicle-accessible sites sit on irrigated lawn under deciduous trees that throw real shade in July and go gold in October; the sites are medium to large and well spaced, with an information shelter at the head of the loop. The flat Kettle Valley Rail Trail runs between the campground and the river, so the village, the beach at Christie Memorial Park and the Skaha Lake shoreline are a fifteen-minute walk or a five-minute ride away. Come in late September and the sockeye salmon are spawning in the river beside your site; birdwatchers and cyclists use the dike trail year-round. All 31 sites are reservable through BC Parks, the gate runs from April 1 to mid-October, pets must be leashed, and the park closes for one weekend each September for the Okanagan Nation's Salmon Feast. Turn onto Green Lake Road from Highway 97 and drive slowly — the entrance is a narrow road with a blind corner.