Serendipity: West Tennessee Gem
It’s more than an RV park and campground. It’s a surefire cure for the summertime blues.
Serendipity has become a summertime staple in our family.
The incredible RV resort and campground put unlikely Brownsville on our mental map of cherished places. Without Serendipity, that wonderful, West Tennessee town would likely have just remained a name on an I-40 exit sign.
The sprawling Serendipity campus lies on what once was the Brownsville Country Club. Word around the campfire is that Serendipity’s original owners bought it for a song on the courthouse steps, cleaned it up (inducing decades of nicotine from the restaurant), re-purposed the whole thing for visitors, and sold it for sacks of cash. Again, though, that’s word around the campfire.
Credit: Toby Sells
Signs of the old country club abound. The restaurant is still there just below the pool. A massive pond just beyond the restaurant patio features an enormous jet fountain in the center. The 18-hole golf course was re-made into a signature long-par disc golf course. The old clubhouse and locker rooms are still there, serving as a camp store and showers for guests. Narrow ribbons of golf cart paths vein the areas around the clubhouse. A big, wooden sign still maps the old golf course.
But beyond that, Serendipity is its own place. Rows of modern RVs line long stretches of former fairways. Four A-frame cabins overlook what was surely a frustrating water hazard. Tents stretch on the pond bank, below a grove of trees. Scattered here and there, yurts built on wooden platforms promise a glamping experience with soft beds, air conditioning, and patio space.
Credit: Toby Sells
Maybe the centerpiece to Serendipity’s new identity is its massive water park. The man-dug lake is an enormous oval. Its size reminds me of those high school football fields with the oval tracks around them. Maybe that was the just the heat of the day clouding my judgment. But that’s how I remember it. It’s huge. And clean. It’s lake clean, not pond scummy and has a thick, plastic tarp covering the bottom. Soft sand surround the entire thing.
Photo: Toby Sells
Floating on this massive water body is an enormous, green-and-yellow, inflatable obstacle course. It’s sturdy enough to walk and jump on and wobbly enough for a day of focused challenges and hilarious falls into the water. It’s all fun enough that I have to drag our children from it to re-apply sunscreen or to even eat a lunch they love.
Over the years, I’ve watched Serendipity add nice bathrooms to the water park area. Then, they added a covered pavilion with shade and picnic tables. Most recently, too, they added a freshwater shower for an after-swim rinse or to just knock the sand from your sandals.
Over the years of going to Serendipity, we’ve become familiar with Brownsville (especially its Walmart). We’ve never eaten at the state-famous Helen’s Bar-B-Que, preferring the Raisin’ Cain BBQ (Tennessee’s “best” barbecue as the sign says.) close to Serendipity.
We’ve also had good experiences at El Ranchito, closer to the Brownsville town square. It claims to be home of the “wet burrito.” I tried it one and it’s exactly as good (and kind of weird) as it sounds. One thing still on our Brownsville to-do list is a visit to the huge art installation called “The Mindfield.” It looks amazing and I’m sure my confusion would wane once I saw it up close.
The Mindfield near Downtown Brownsville (Credit: State of Tennessee)
Word around the campfire is that new owners run Serendipity now. I wish them well. Not only for the future of this off-the-beaten-path Tennessee treasure, but so our family can continue to make treasured memories there for years to come.
