Oshkosh Air Venture Camping?

[supercub]

Anyone ever camp at the Air Venture in Oshkosh?
Not sure if I'll make it this year or not, but have a couple of questions.
Do you have to make reservations or can you just show up.........will they typically have spots open?
Can you show up early before the week starts, do they allow camping prior to the start of the airshow week?
Any tips or suggestions on camping there during the week?
Thanks

[msmith1199]

I know several people have suggested staying off site, but the show is so much more enjoyable from your RV if you're right there at airfield. If you haven't been to the show, they have activities from sun up until well into the night. It's very nice to be able to go back to the RV to rest up for a few hours and then go back for more activities. We took our bikes and road them back and forth from the RV to the entrance gate. You can't take the bikes inside and once you're in you will walk several miles trying to see stuff.

I went last year as a stop in a cross country drive to take a car back east for my parents. So we stayed in a hotel about 20 miles from the airshow and drove in three days in a row. It was still fun, but I sure was wishing I had the RV close by.

[TragedyTrousers]

b17drvr wrote:
Need to make reservations early. I've always wanted to take the MH there, but can't since I have to fly the B17 in.

Ill trade!

[crasster]

Very busy places, call many weeks ahead.

[tinkerer]

They have area's where you can run generators around the clock or an area where 10:00 pm no generators. One year I stayed at the 24 hour generator sites. Never again there are some who use the el-cheapo generators that can drive a person crazy. The show is tailor made for people with RV's. There are shuttles that take you anywhere you want and I have met a lot of great people up at the show and the campgrounds. A couple of years ago I took the B17 flight, my goal is to go up in the Fi Fi B29. Have fun.:D

[jplante4]

b17drvr wrote:
Need to make reservations early. I've always wanted to take the MH there, but can't since I have to fly the B17 in.

I'll drive your motor home to OSH if you let me fly the B17 around the pattern.

[malexander]

We've been going to OSH for 15 years.
Always stay in Sleepy Hollow Farm CG. They're booked up full usually by the end of January.

2013, IIRC is referred to as "Sloshkosh" now. 🙂

[coolmom42]

In 2014 it rained so much that campers were mired in the mud in grass fields. Some of them flooded because they couldn't be pulled out. So make sure you are not in a lower-lying spot in a field.

Lots of generators running 24/7, basically a big parking lot full of RVs.

We stayed at the former KOA, now Breezy Hill Campground, in Fond du Lac. About a 20 min drive from EAA, out of the noise but not too far away. It's a very nice RV park with some well-maintained seasonal sites. We definitely would stay there again for EAA. Call NOW if you want to reserve a site.

[msmith1199]

aslakson wrote:
Make a reservation - hope it doesn't rain. Rain turns the dry camp fields into bogs. The year we went was just after a bad rain, and they sent us to a paved parking lot a mile or so away, and ran shuttle buses. In retrospect, that probably worked better for us than had we been parked on the grounds - no traffic jams when we wanted to go into town. If you like aircraft or just air shows, it's a must-go event.

al

It rained the time we went, several times, but we were parked on grass and it never was a problem for us.

[msmith1199]

I camped there with no reservations. They have full hookup sites and I'm sure those require reservation and you have to pay for the entire week. I didn't even try to get one of those. We just took an open space in the field. I think that was back in around 2009 when we did that. Back then they had on the webpage that as long as you wanted to use overflow camping to just show up as it never fills up. I don't see that on their website now, but they had thousands of acres of grass fields when I was there in 09 and there was space for probably 500 more RV in the field I parked in which was actually the last field in the line. But I think they even had other fields they could have opened if the one I was in filled up.

We took our bikes with us and just road those to the gate everyday. They had a huge area for bike parking by one of the side gates.

[aslakson]

Make a reservation - hope it doesn't rain. Rain turns the dry camp fields into bogs. The year we went was just after a bad rain, and they sent us to a paved parking lot a mile or so away, and ran shuttle buses. In retrospect, that probably worked better for us than had we been parked on the grounds - no traffic jams when we wanted to go into town. If you like aircraft or just air shows, it's a must-go event.

al

[b17drvr]

Need to make reservations early. I've always wanted to take the MH there, but can't since I have to fly the B17 in.

[lakebum]

supercub wrote:
Anyone ever camp at the Air Venture in Oshkosh?
Not sure if I'll make it this year or not, but have a couple of questions.
Do you have to make reservations or can you just show up.........will they typically have spots open?
Can you show up early before the week starts, do they allow camping prior to the start of the airshow week?
Any tips or suggestions on camping there during the week?
Thanks

EAA Airventure Camping Info