Hancock Campground (NH)
- Right now
- Nobody has saidNo season, no closure, no bookings to read
- A night
- $30From, per site
- Sites
- 54All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Overview Located at the western end of the scenic Kancamagus Highway, this campground serves as an excellent place to start your White Mountain adventure. The nearby Lincoln Woods Visitor Center is the jumping off point for numerous hiking trails leading into the Pemigewasset Wilderness; the Kancamagus Highway is an extremely popular scenic byway with numerous hiking, picnic, and swimming spots; and the town of Lincoln offers many amenities. Hancock Campground has 56 wooded sites. Contact Info For facility specific information, please call (802) 289-0970.
What the agency tells you
Please Note: Site fee includes one RV with tow vehicle, tent sites include two vehicles. If space allows a third vehicle would be an additional fee paid at time of check in if you did not pay for the Extra Vehicle Add On. Vehicles must fit on the parking spur at your site.
Two pets per site
No switching sites upon arrival
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Be bear aware; keep all food out of site in approved containers or locked inside a hard-sided vehicle and remove all food from area after eating
Reserved Sites will be held until check out time (NOON) the day following your arrival date. Sites must be occupied by the checkout time of that following day to hold a reservation or the site will be forfeited and released to other guests. Once your reservation start date has begun, neither the Recreation.gov Contact Center nor the campground manager will be able to modify your reservation.
Refunds: Refund requests made through www.recreation.gov will be charged a $10 processing fee. This fee is retained by the reservation service contractor along with the non-refundable reservation fee. All requests for the return of the non-refundable reservation fee and the cancellation fee will be declined by the campground concessionaire as they did not receive these fees (these are the fees retained by the reservation contractor, a different entity).
Visitors should be prepared for rugged trails and changing weather: Hike Safe
Click here to learn more about White Mountain National Forest website
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 54 · 8 tent-only
- Hookups
- None
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Around the campground
- Fall color · reported 4 days ago, 20 km away
- Peak color
Nothing on the booking system for the next 30 nightsread 15:52 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
Every one of the next thirty nights is in recreation.gov’s record and not one site is being offered on any of them. That’s a campground closed or not yet released for booking, not a sold-out one.
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 12
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $30 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 15:52 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
56 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 54 mapped sitesAll 56 records
Toilet distances are OpenStreetMap’s, measured for 56 of the 56 sites listed. A site with no reading is unknown, never far.
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 46 of the 56 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
Measured shade is NLCD Tree Canopy Cover 2024 (USDA Forest Service / MRLC) read at the site’s own coordinate, 27% canopy or more, and only for the sites the agency gave no Shade value. It never changes the agency’s own shaded count beside it.
| Hancock | 1 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 151 ft | 1,388 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 11 | standard nonelectric | 31 ft | 180 ft | 1,393 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 13 | standard nonelectric | 23 ft | 94 ft | 1,320 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 17 | standard nonelectric | 18 ft | 94 ft | 1,495 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 19 | standard nonelectric | 51 ft | 83 ft | 1,536 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 2 | standard nonelectric | 68 ft | 156 ft | 1,326 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 22 HOST | host pad | 450 ft | 1,812 ft | ||
| Hancock | 23 | standard nonelectric | 89 ft | 533 ft | 1,871 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 24 | standard nonelectric | 87 ft | 564 ft | 1,958 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 25 | standard nonelectric | 116 ft | 691 ft | 2,106 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 26 | standard nonelectric | 87 ft | 575 ft | 2,033 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 27 | standard nonelectric | 112 ft | 626 ft | 2,154 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 28 | standard nonelectric | 112 ft | 744 ft | 2,240 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 29 | standard nonelectric | 81 ft | 640 ft | 2,265 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 3 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 171 ft | 1,252 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 30 | standard nonelectric | 81 ft | 604 ft | 2,345 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 31 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 634 ft | 2,456 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 32 | standard nonelectric | 91 ft | 552 ft | 2,444 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 33 | standard nonelectric | 55 ft | 606 ft | 2,511 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 34 | standard nonelectric | 91 ft | 506 ft | 2,534 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 35 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 546 ft | 2,629 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 36 | standard nonelectric | 38 ft | 524 ft | 2,667 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 37 | standard nonelectric | 45 ft | 488 ft | 2,709 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 38 | standard nonelectric | 113 ft | 385 ft | 2,806 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 39 | standard nonelectric | 117 ft | 148 ft | 2,860 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 4 | standard nonelectric | 74 ft | 244 ft | 1,290 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 40 | standard nonelectric | 117 ft | 126 ft | 2,788 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 41 | standard nonelectric | 119 ft | 179 ft | 2,627 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 42 HOST | host pad | 277 ft | 2,578 ft | ||
| Hancock | 43 | standard nonelectric | 109 ft | 207 ft | 2,524 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 44 | standard nonelectric | 98 ft | 319 ft | 2,475 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 45 | standard nonelectric | 95 ft | 252 ft | 2,418 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 46 | standard nonelectric | 98 ft | 364 ft | 2,380 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 47 | standard nonelectric | 95 ft | 257 ft | 2,333 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 48 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 359 ft | 2,261 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 49 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 251 ft | 2,238 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 5 | standard nonelectric | 75 ft | 153 ft | 1,461 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 50 | standard nonelectric | 99 ft | 338 ft | 2,167 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 51 | standard nonelectric | 114 ft | 197 ft | 2,142 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 52 | standard nonelectric | 106 ft | 164 ft | 1,947 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 53 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 263 ft | 1,947 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 54 | standard nonelectric | 116 ft | 156 ft | 1,828 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 55 | standard nonelectric | 94 ft | 271 ft | 1,869 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 56 | standard nonelectric | 86 ft | 175 ft | 1,730 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 6 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 179 ft | 1,535 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 7 | standard nonelectric | 54 ft | 157 ft | 1,570 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 8 | standard nonelectric | 66 ft | 233 ft | 1,595 ft | $30 |
| Hancock | 9 | standard nonelectric | 84 ft | 160 ft | 1,647 ft | $30 |
| Walk-In | 10 | tent only nonelectric | 70 ft | 48 ft | 1,362 ft | |
| Walk-In | 12 | tent only nonelectric | 23 ft | 71 ft | 1,313 ft | |
| Walk-In | 14 | tent only nonelectric | 57 ft | 29 ft | 1,206 ft | |
| Walk-In | 15 | tent only nonelectric | 57 ft | 72 ft | 1,194 ft | |
| Walk-In | 16 | tent only nonelectric | 18 ft | 94 ft | 1,479 ft | |
| Walk-In | 18 | tent only nonelectric | 63 ft | 31 ft | 1,482 ft | |
| Walk-In | 20 | tent only nonelectric | 62 ft | 34 ft | 1,554 ft | |
| Walk-In | 21 | tent only nonelectric | 95 ft | 43 ft | 1,646 ft |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It names them host pads. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
25 of 56 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the phone number
Where it is
Big RockWhite Mountain National Forest · 2.0 mi
Russell Pond CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 4.7 mi
Osceola Vista CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 7.3 mi
Waterville CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 9.4 mi
WildwoodWhite Mountain National Forest · 10 miPassaconaway CampgroundWhite Mountain National Forest · 12 miThe weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Lincoln, NH
Typical weather
Typical October night 32°F, day 58°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 3°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
what threatens it · who answers for it
What threatens this place
You’re camping on ground somebody wants. We track the threats and the comment deadlines.
Who answers for this land
Hancock Campground (NH) is in New Hampshire’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Maggie Goodlander (D), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: A+. See every public-lands vote →