Fort Langley is one of those places that always feels like it has more to offer than its small-town size suggests. There are charming shops, the BC Farm Museum, the Fort Langley National Historic Site with oTENTiks where we stayed a few years ago, the picturesque Bedford Channel for paddlers, and the Fort-to-Fort Trail for biking or walking. In other words, Fort Langley packs a lot of intrigue into a very walkable little package.
It also has a sizable campground tucked inside Brae Island Regional Park: Fort Camping. Our friends Sunny, Clara, and their son planned a weekend getaway and invited us to join. Since Fort Langley is close to Vancouver and has plenty to do nearby, it felt like a nice low-barrier camping trip — close enough to civilization, but still enough of an adventure for the kids.
The Campground
Fort Camping is clean, organized, and well kept. It feels much more like a private campground than a provincial park campground, with its own booking system, laundry room, general store, and more structured and compact campground layout. For families who like having amenities nearby, this is a very convenient setup.
The tradeoff is privacy. The sites are close together, and even in the tenting section we had very little separation from our neighbours. We were basically sharing a small patch of grass with the campsites around us. This is not the place I would choose for a quiet, secluded forest camping experience. It is better suited for an easy social camping weekend, especially if you are camping with friends or want quick access to Fort Langley.
Amenities
The general store was well stocked with camping essentials, snacks, and little extras. My favourite discovery was a bookshelf full of free books and DVDs. The store clerks told me they just want to get rid of them. I gladly took two books off their hands — purely as a public service, of course.
The washrooms were kept immaculately clean. Hot showers cost two loonies for 15 minutes, so bring coins. If you need change, it is best to visit the store during business hours rather than discovering your lack of loonies at shower time.
The campground is fenced off from the rest of Brae Island Regional Park, but there is a small unlocked gate near the parking lot washroom where camping guests can slip between the campground and the park.
Setting Up Camp
Tina’s brother Mark came as a special guest for a few hours and helped us set up our tent. This is one of the advantages of camping so close to town: visitors can easily drop by, help with the setup, hang out for a bit, and still go home to sleep in a real bed.
The forecast called for rain all weekend, but the campsite was small and the trees were sparse, so we could only put up the smallest tarp this time.
Sunny the campfire chef cooked up a storm, which immediately upgraded the weekend from “basic camping trip” to “why don’t we always camp with Sunny?”
Biking the Fort-to-Fort Trail
The group went for a bike ride on the Fort-to-Fort Trail until the rain started to pour. Baby Bro managed to bike 7 km with no whining! Well, almost no whining. Just as he was starting to lose steam after we got turned around by the rain, the big boys caught up to him and he found a second wind. Peer pressure from older kids remains one of the most powerful parenting tools in the outdoor family toolkit.
Around Fort Langley
One of the best parts of camping at Brae Island is how easy it is to mix campground time with town activities. Over the weekend we played a little baseball at a local diamond, went for ice cream, and visited the Antique Mall. It made the trip feel less like a wilderness escape and more like a relaxed and affordable family weekend based out of a tent.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Fort Camping made for a short and sweet weekend camping trip very close to civilization. The campground is clean, convenient, and family-friendly, with easy access to Fort Langley, Brae Island, Bedford Channel, and the Fort-to-Fort Trail.
The main downsides are the close spacing between sites and the train noise. A word of caution if you do not like trains: the train track is very active and runs late into the night, and the trains always honk aggressively through Fort Langley to warn traffic in town. If you are a light sleeper, bring earplugs. If you have kids who love trains, congratulations — you may have accidentally booked a bonus attraction.
Would we come back? Yes, but with the right expectations. I would not come here for solitude, privacy, or a deep-in-the-woods camping experience. I would come back for an easy family weekend, a group camping trip with friends, or a Fort Langley mini-adventure where the tent is part of the fun rather than the whole point of the trip.
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