A New RV Resort Is That Mythical Place: A Fun Vacation Spot for Adults and Kids Alike

When introducing Pantone’s 2024 color of the year, executive director of the institute Leatrice Eiseman said that Peach Fuzz is a shade that “resonates with compassion, offers a tactile embrace, and effortlessly bridges the youthful with the timeless.” The pale hue was plucked in searching for one that “echoes our innate yearning for closeness and connection.” It’s fitting, then, that the color—and various complementary pigments—can be seen dotting the landscape at the newly opened Camp Landa, a retro, luxuryish RV resort in New Braunfels, about thirty minutes north of San Antonio. That yearning for closeness, in part, is what prompted me to shove my family of five into a borrowed RV for a night in the creeping-close-to-summer Texas temperatures on a recent weekend in May.

The trip was an experiment to see how the kids, high on their last week of school and sugar-fueled end-of-year celebrations, would react to close quarters and a state of semi-unpluggedness. In our weekend travels throughout the state, there’s always a level of skepticism when the sleeping situation requires sharing—a feat preteens are known for. So when we pulled into the park, smack dab in the middle of New Braunfels, the Hill Country town of 104,000 that has doubled in size over the past 15 years, we were pleasantly surprised to see that just beyond the busy street and neighboring apartment complex, lay a chill sixties-style oasis with plenty of room to roam.

Owners Stuart and Tasha Blythin say they took inspiration from the original Camp Landa, a 13-acre campground situated near the Comal River, which Tasha’s grandparents purchased in the sixties before going on to establish Schlitterbahn water park in town. (The family sold the New Braunfels and Galveston Schlitterbahn parks in 2019, three years after a tragic incident at the now-demolished Kansas City location.) On a recent tour of the resort, Stuart took out his phone and showed me a grainy photo of the original Camp Landa sign—a vibey slice of 1966 that echoes throughout the park’s branding and design, led by New Braunfels-based CoPilot Creative.

Upon arrival, we were warmly greeted by staff in the camp store—a sweet space packed with essentials and items you forgot to pack, such as reasonably priced swim goggles, sandals, towels, small treats, and mid-shelf beer and wine, all curated by a travel mom who gets it. The team handed over a printout of events for adults and kids: ceramics and T-shirt painting would be in the expansive activity center, warmed by sound-dampening starburst-shaped light fixtures and wall panels and accented by a terra-cotta–colored breeze block. On the evening’s agenda: s’mores at the firepit, surrounded by Adirondack chairs in the year’s favorite Pantone and a complementary shade of pastel turquoise. Future activities will include sessions with a pickleball pro, movies in the activity center, and evening live music on the covered patio. 

It’s Dirty Dancing meets The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Tasha tells me. It’s an apt description, perhaps minus all the affairs. Ever on the search for vacation accommodations that hold equal appeal for a four-year-old on the low end and 41-year-old on the high, my family dove in. The immediate draw is a giant heated pool flanked by young palm trees, an oversized Connect Four game, and a set of bags. It’s a kids’ paradise with an upside for the parents: a swim-up bar (open 12 hours a day and serving agua frescas, margaritas, and other cocktails, along with a full selection of craft beers, seltzers, and wines) shaded by a sleek awning inlaid with reclaimed wood. A long oval-shaped island full of river rocks and greenery serves as a low buffer between parents sipping libations on underwater stools and the loud splashing of their offspring waging a pool-noodle war.

“We love our children, but sometimes we just need at least, like, twenty yards of space,” Stuart tells me. That logic repeats throughout the park. Across the outposts of amenities, such as an inflatable jump pad, playground, and sports courts, there are few places a child could wander without being within an adult’s eyeline. That’s when it becomes clear that parents designed the place. Parents with good taste. 

In 2020, a few months into the COVID pandemic, Stuart and Tasha (otherworldly superheroes, in my estimation) loaded up their four kids for an eight-week RV trip across eleven states and ten national parks—and they took lots of notes. Tasha curated the goods in the camp store based on her own experience of missing shoes and towels, tiny-voiced pleas for candy, and mom and dad’s cravings for non-Franzia wine. As we passed the pool and I saw my eight-year-old’s goggles had been left at the bottom overnight, it all made sense. “We know what’s going on with families when they arrive,” Stuart tells me. “They’re struggling. There’s been a fight. He’s gotten sick on the trip. We want to make it as easy and seamless as possible. Because we get it.”

For the weary travelers who don’t want to cook, the resort houses a small restaurant offering a German-influenced menu; a highlight for our family was the giant Bavarian pretzel topped with sauerkraut and bratwurst from nearby Rust Meat Market. But if home cooking calls, each site comes with a camper grill from Lyfe Tyme in Uvalde. 

The Blythins have plans for growth and added amenities; they’ve signed on to become part of the Great Springs Project, a planned hundred-mile trail that would connect Austin and San Antonio, running through the edge of their property. They’ve partnered with nearby river outfitter Landa Falls to offer equipment and transportation to the Comal River less than a mile away. And for guests without their own RVs to park, five brand-new two-bedroom cabins overlooking a bucolic scene along the creek are ready to book.

It all makes for a wholesome weekend, free—for the most part—from device chargers and overwrought sibling bickering. But the real test is in how the tastemakers, the big opinion-havers, recapped the trip. I asked my three kids what they thought. They asked me when we were getting an RV.