Top Ten Things To Do in Prince William County Virginia:
#7 -- Prince William Forest Park

Prince William Forest Park is the largest (15,000 acres) protected natural space in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Managed by the National Park Service and located near the Marine Corps Base at Quantico, the park offers 37 miles of hiking trails, 21 miles of bicycle accessible roads and trails, and plenty of camping space (backcountry, five cabin camps and RV campgrounds) year around.

Besides the outdoors and wildlife viewing, the park offers centuries of heritage and historical significance as well:

• Algonquins from coastal Virginia came here to hunt and gather.
• General Washington and General Rochambeau traveled through an eastern section of the park on their way to Yorktown, Virginia to defeat British General Cornwallis.
• Free African Americans settled here in the 1830s, and remnants of their communities remain.
• Men once mined for gold and pyrite (“fool’s gold”) along Quantico Creek.




Thanks to the Prince William County/Manassas Convention & Visitors Bureau for this picture of the "Prince William Forest Park."

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• Solidly build facilities, roads and lakes constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps for the Chopawamsic (“little lodge”) Recreational Demonstration Area in the 1930s remain. Children were sent here from the inner city to improve their health.
• Spies and radio operators in the OSS (U.S. Army’s Office of Strategic Services) in World War II (later, the CIA) trained here.

Today, more than 280,000 visitors come through the park gates each year and in 2008, nearly 50,000 of them stayed overnight.

The park is open daily from dawn to dusk. Entrance fees ($3 to $5) are good for a week. For camping reservations, visit the park’s Web site at http://www.nps.gov/prwi/index.htm.

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