KALISPELL – A brand new RV park aims to bring business to downtown Kalispell and help tourists with the lack of vacation spots in the valley.
Like many businesses, Montana Basecamp started out of necessity. Andy Matthews and his family are originally from Florida but Matthews says he and his family had vacationed in Montana ever since he graduated from college.
But the Matthews kept running into the same problem — every hotel and Airbnb was booked and expensive.
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-204682">Montana Basecamp hopes to expand to over 300 hundred spaces — which would make it the largest RV park in the state. (MTN News photo)“We would set up our trips around visiting the park and we just found it really difficult to find a location that we could stay for more than a week or two or three,” Matthews said. “If we had time off that was anywhere reasonable for us to bring my whole family out to Glacier National Park.”
It’s been two years in the making, but Matthews came up with Montana Basecamp, a new affordable RV park located off of the Kalispell Bypass. There are 62 spaces, individual showers, picnic tables, and fire pits Montana Base camp is quickly filling up.
Mattews told MTN News that in the future, Montana Basecamp hopes to expand to over 300 hundred spaces — which would make it the largest RV park in the state.
It’s not a coincidence that the largest RV park in the state is located in the Flathead Valley. Matthews says it’s because of the high demand that park is so large.
<figcaption class="wp-caption-text" id="caption-attachment-204683">Montana Basecamp hopes to expand to over 300 hundred spaces — which would make it the largest RV park in the state. (MTN News photo)“We were able to accommodate that because of the vast number of Rv-ers coming through and the city’s need to slow down the Rv-ers so that we could help with the restaurants and the small businesses here in the community,” said Matthews.
Joe Unterreiner with Kalispell Chamber of Commerce told MTN News that the new RV park’s location will lend a hand to boosting local businesses.
“The ability for them to be right on the trail system and that trail is going to give you access to coming right into downtown Kalispell,” said Unterreiner. “And that trail accesses the full network here in Kalispell and the Flathead Valley.”
Montana Basecamp officially opens Thursday and Matthews says that August is already completely booked.
