ThePewterPalace Our Love Affair with Avions

We stayed on the Army base of Fort Gordon/Eisenhower in Harlem, GA on our southbound trip in September 2025. We had site 26, FHU site and with our “Senior” discount the rate was $25 per night on a paved, lake front, back in site. Due to some travel schedule changes we were able to extend our stay from 4 to 10 days.

PRO‘s:

• Full hook up paved sites with concrete patios, standing fixed grill and nice new picnic tables.
• Reasonable fees, flexible stay schedule
• Lake view, ok for kayak, canoe, fishing. NO Swimming allowed (alligator signs)
• Very quiet, peaceful and wooded with lawns surrounding sites. Newer section at beginning of campground are more in the open, no shade-see photo.
• Only 36 sites, no real through traffic due to campground’s remote location
• Retail, service and amenities are on Army base
• MWR staff was excellent, very accommodating when we needed to add extra days to our stay.
• Big box stores within 30-40 minutes (allow 10 min just to get off base)

CONS:

• Campground is 11 miles from all other base activities/stores/services so be prepared to do a lot of driving once you unhitch.
• Bath house and laundry in campground are not operational (see note below)
• 50 amp and 20 amp connections did not work at our site. (code said open ground)
• Lots of pine trees in older section where we were, a lot of pine straw and sap potential. Kevin used his DeWalt battery powered leaf blower at least 1x daily!
• Does not appear to be many if any hiking/walking trails. There are MANY ranges for pistol/rifle on the base so be very careful where you walk outside of the campground. You will hear occasional rifle practice in the distance- sounds like fireworks on 4th of July!
• PX/BX is pretty good but other shops inside there are limited, especially fast food outlets compared to larger bases we have stayed on.

The base is very huge with much of it undeveloped pine tree woodlots. The FAM camp is 11 miles to the center of base activity where the PX and Commissary are located along with other services. We did visit both and did find some good deals in both. For example we decided to buy a Ignik FireBox (similar in design to an ammo box but it is an LP mini fire pit of sorts) at the PX/Bx which was $30 less than the best listed Amazon price plus on base, no sales tax— so we saved over $45. Other items at the Commissary ( grocery store) were a good price, but the US government started charging a service fee on top of groceries back in 1952 which now is 5% plus with CC user fee equaled out to $13.24 on a $250 grocery item receipt. Yeah…we stocked up on things like coffee and meats which were good deals and whose prices these days with tariffs are only going up.

The army base is only about 20 minutes south and a little west of Augusta- which affords great access to major highways and interstates. Luise was able to get her RX refilled at the Walmart Neighborhood Market about 30 minutes away (10 of that is spent just getting off the Army base itself!) When researching what there was to see and do in Augusta, GA it really did not have much to entice us to try to take on a city visit. We spent our time here doing some projects, relaxing and using the base services.

The FAM camp is well laid out. There is a newer loop on the right (see photo below) as you enter the park with long pull thru sites, especially nice if you have motorhome and toad.

We were in site 26 which is in the older section after the newer section as shown above (all paved roads and sites) which has a nice view of the small lake, but does not have great privacy on your patio side due to the angle of the neighbor on the patio side which is more parallel to the lake than we are. We feel site 36 would be the optimal site to get if available! The park is quiet, wooded and with at least half of the sites taken by military who are here for either short or long term training. We will post a link to the Recreation Area website at the end of this article so you can do more research and get more info on stays.

Originally they did have a Camp Host on duty but that is currently not the case so you are directed to go to another building on the base to check in and get your camping permit and make payment.

On base there is a 24hr launderette, quick marts, gas stations, car wash, post office as well as some other recreational amenities. We plan to attend a special event “Oktober fest” on Friday, 9/26 which is also Luisa’s birthday. Many events may be only open to active military, so research this for the dates you may be staying. They have a beautiful horse riding stable complex and according to their website trail rides, etc. are available at certain times for a fee.

ON A BAD NOTE…..This FAM camp was hit hard exactly almost a year ago with Hurricane Helene and their one bath house with laundry facility is still shut down. See photo at end of this post. This is a real shame because, although every campsite is FHU we love taking a nice long shower in a large shower space and being able to do our laundry. Not to mention, the rest of the base buildings are 11 miles away. The bath house here in the campground was the ONLY safe place to hunker down in case of weather emergencies and in fact, according to the registration check in staff, many campers were in the bath house at the time it got hit by a fallen tree and wind damage during Helene. Sadly, the powers that be who control finances have not seen their way to get this fixed- it has been a year with no repair schedule in sight according to MWR staff. t seems the base command is more interested in clearing trees and making piles of wood chips on some of the vast, remote woodlots.

(this building was actually almost directly across the road from our back in site)

Would we stay here again? yes, we believe we would. The rates are very good, it is very quiet and peaceful with paved FHU sites.

LINK TO FAM CAMP WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION.

additional info LINK

DO YOU QUALIFY TO STAY AT A FAM CAMP? For more information to see if you would qualify as a Veteran to stay at this or other FAM camps on military bases around the USA click here to see our page on Military FAM Camp Camping!

Happy Travels! Please give this review a “thumbs up-LIKE” if you found it helpful!

Kevin, Luise and Nutmeg!