Big Meadows will have the most wildlife to see especially at dusk each evening.. The bad thing about Big Meadows is it will be crowded and the camp grounds will fill up quickly......
We always stay at LOFT MTN which is very and not so crowded.
Both places have a restaurant/way station at the entrance to the camp ground on the main road. Both places do not have Electric hookups but you can get water from a spigot near the bath room buildings... Cell Phone service is spoty at best... We got good HDTV signals from the Virginia side of the mtn using the batwing OTA antenna. Watch you battery usage however if you are not setup for camping off grid. One battery one night is the rule of thumb if you have to run your propane heater with 12VDC blower fan. If you have a generator be prepared to ask for a generator use allowed site when checking in... They will have generator run time restrictions in place also...
We are sepup for camping OFF-GRID with our bigger battery bank and can do almost the same as we do at regular camp grounds running the appliances etc except for thr air conditioner and the high wattage microwave unit. We will run down our battery to its 50% charge state by 8Am the next morning which is when we can run our generator for three hours to re-charge the battery bank back up to its 90% charge state so we can do this all over again the next day/night run off our batteries.
Both Big Meadows and LOFT Mtn is between two main entrance points to the Shenandoah Natl Park Drive if you are needing to go to a close by town for supplies...
Big Meadows probably has more close by things to hike to to see and do but again the downside for us was they were always very much loaded down with folks coming and going.
While you guys are in the this area be sure to drive down and check out Sherando Lake Recreation Area off of I64 at the Waynesboro VA exit. You might like this campground better than both Big meadows and LOFT Mtn... It is truly a jewel...
Roy Ken
