A Country Home for $2,000/year*

  |  June 16, 2011

As our readers (3,000 so far–thanks, everyone!) have probably figured out by now, I don’t necessarily want to be alone when I head up to country houses in upstate New York. So when I met 65-year-old Harley-driving Rennie in a Ditmas Park Coffee shop today (and his Pomeranian, Moxie, who rides in a pink basket in the Harley), I was intrigued by his description of his “country house”–a trailer permanently parked in Hunter Lake Campground in Parksville, N.Y, in the western Catskill Mountains.

Rennie describes the place as family-friendly but not overrun by kids–fair representation of folks in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s–and surprisingly private considering the layout of the place and the 94 campsites. If you set up shop there and are hungry for new faces, there are always the weekend campers–in tents, not trailers. Rennie himself is a fisherman, so he’s all about the lake, but there’s entertainment in the rec hall, air hockey and ping-pong, playgrounds and soccer fields. It’s like an upstate new york bungalow colony, but without the bungalows. To rent a seasonal spot, with water, electric and sewer hookups, it’s about $2,000–*camper not included!

For Rennie, the appeal is not only the Hunter Lake Campground itself, but the portability of his upstate New York country house–it doesn’t have to be in upstate New York if he doesn’t want it there! As he said this morning, “If you wanna vacation in Florida, you just unhook everything and go.”

Hunter Lake Campground GMAP
Distance to NYC: 123 miles; 2 hours, 37 minutes
Transportation: Trailways Bus to Parksville; car recommended

Read On, Reader...