Michigan is a singular state, particularly in terms of tenting. Lots of people are inclined to give attention to tenting within the higher peninsula, or U.P., the place folks affiliate “wilderness” with widespread cabins and forests.
However, you must by no means skip out on tenting within the decrease peninsula, or L.P., as a result of it has a ton of nice campsites with superb options too.
In truth, there are dozens of nice tenting websites in each of Michigan’s peninsulas and this state is good for tenting as a result of it’s surrounded by three of the 5 Great Lakes.
Only the borders that Michigan shares with Indiana and Ohio are a bit shy of campgrounds. The border the U.P. shares with Northern Wisconsin is equally dotted with campsites.
Before you propose your subsequent Michigan tenting journey, you must develop into acquainted with sixteen of Michigan’s greatest spots.
Check out tenting websites within the subsequent door states:
North Port Huron Jellystone Park – BEST for Kids
Situated straight throughout the road from Lake Huron in the midst of Michigan’s Thumb space, North Port Huron Jellystone Park encompasses greater than 90 acres. Formerly referred to as Lake Huron Campground, it not too long ago joined the Jellystone household of campgrounds.
The 400 campsites accommodate all types of tenting types from tents to pop-ups to giant RVs. In addition, there are 38 cabins obtainable for hire. This contains Cabin Village the place clusters of particular person rustic models are gathered round outside kitchens to offer areas for giant teams.
Located on a non-public 20-acre lake, this campground presents a brand new Water Zone swimming pool advanced that includes a full water park with mini slides, an exercise pool, and a kiddie pool with spray options. Other new options added not too long ago embody pedal carts, strolling bridges and nature trails, miniature golf, a gem mining station, and leaping pillows.
Dunes Harbor Family Camp
This family-friendly campground is predicated alongside the gorgeous Silver Lake. Just a mile from the Sand Dune ORV entrance, it’s an ideal place for these searching for journey. Walk the seashores of Lake Michigan, go to the Sable Point Lighthouse, or take pleasure in a number of the many facilities of the campground.
Those embody all types of household actions, equivalent to horseback driving, archery, film nights, or arts and crafts actions. Water lovers will just like the heated swimming pool with a slide and kayak leases.
The campground has 128 full hook-up websites, 55 of which face the waterfront. There are additionally 36 water and electrical energy hook-up websites in addition to rustic cabins. Extra-large and group tenting spots can be found too.
Sleeping Bear Dunes-Platte River Campground
Miles of sand seashores, lush forests, and crystal-clear inland lakes, that’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park.
There are over 100 miles of mountaineering trails that may be skied or snowshoed in winter. While the mainland Lake Michigan seashores are an awesome spot to swim and sunbathe in summer season. Adventurers can float the Platte and Crystal rivers.
The campground itself is open year-round and options each back-in and pull-thru websites with electrical hook-ups. There are additionally walk-in tent websites and hike-in group websites. Amenities embody flush and vault bathrooms, sizzling showers, a dump station, and firewood.
Platte River Campground in Sleeping Bear Dunes is just a spot for many who’d wish to spend a peaceable weekend or trip in nature.
Mackinaw Mill Creek Camping
A favourite spot for locals and vacationers alike for greater than 50 years, Mackinaw Mill Creek Camping sits on 200 wooded acres alongside a mile of shoreline. With views of the Mackinac Bridge and the Straits of Mackinac, it presents greater than 600 campsites and cabins to swimsuit each camper’s wants.
These embody finances websites for tents and campers, RV websites with 50-amp electrical, water, and sewer companies, and cabins starting from one room to two-story three bedrooms with indoor plumbing.
Campers can take pleasure in bike leases, train space for his or her canine, and a full 18-hole golf course, the Mackinaw Club. Well maintained loos with flush bathrooms could be discovered conveniently positioned all through the campground. Indoor facilities embody an arcade and sport room in addition to a park retailer.
A full-sized basketball courtroom, heated pool, and three separate playgrounds enable for outside enjoyable. Trails for mountaineering and biking abound together with free seasonal hayrides and shuttles to the Mackinac Island Ferry.
Harbortown RV Resort
Conveniently positioned on Lake Erie in Southeast Michigan between Detroit and Toledo, Harbortown RV Resort could be your own home base for exploring the world that shines with historical past, recreation, and far more.
Enjoy fishing, boating, and paddling on the lake or have interaction in prime {golfing}. You may go to the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village, in addition to different locations of curiosity. Like the River Raisin Battlefield, the Navarre-Anderson Trading Post, or the Martha Barker Country Store.
The RV park itself options 80 giant pull-thru websites with full hook-up and 20/30/50 amp service, which may accommodate even the largest RV coaches. Cozy log cabins can be found too.
Moreover, the campground boasts plentiful resort-like facilities, equivalent to a pool, arcade video games, mini-golf, batting cages, and others. It is, due to this fact, an awesome selection for households.
Warren Dunes State Park
Warren Dunes State Parks is without doubt one of the most stunning locations you may go to in Michigan. With 1,952 acres and three miles of shoreline, you’re in for an awesome journey.
It options a number of the greatest campgrounds in Michigan with 185 fashionable camp spots (all with electrical hookups), 24 rustic campsites, and in addition 3 rustic mini-cabins to hire.
Warren Dunes State Parks has actions for each season of the 12 months. You can take pleasure in sandboarding, mountaineering, paddling, birdwatching, or a pleasant salt-free swim in summer season. On the opposite aspect, within the winter you may take pleasure in sledding, sandboarding, cross-country snowboarding, or search for superb ice formations.
Tahquamenon Campground
Explore the just about 40 miles of mountaineering trails, 13 inland lakes, and 20,000 acres of pure magnificence at Tahquamenon Falls State Park.
This state park boasts two of Michigan’s best campgrounds.
Lower Falls Campground has two fashionable campgrounds with a complete of 90 campsites preferrred for many who merely need to admire nature with out having to fret about on a regular basis chores.
Electricity, a fireplace pit, a desk, sizzling showers, and flush bathrooms are all obtainable at these fashionable websites. A picnic space with shelter, a playground, and an in-situ eatery are additionally obtainable.
Tahquamenon Falls Rivermouth Unit options 136 fashionable and rustic campsites all with a ship launch alongside the Tahquamenon River.
These are good for folks searching for a real journey. They don’t have electrical energy, however they do have a picnic desk and a fireplace pit. Showers can be found on the Modern Unit for a couple of bucks.
This campground is a bit more personal than the earlier one. Here you may go fishing alongside the riverbank or stroll over to Whitefish Bay on Lake Superior and stroll alongside the sandy seaside.
Ludington State Park and Campground
Comprised of forests, marshlands, wetlands, sand dunes, and sandy seashores located between Lake Michigan and Hamlin Lake, Ludington State Park and Campground is 5,300 acres with a number of miles of shoreline alongside each lakes.
It presents 360 campsites and three one-room cabins amongst its three fashionable campgrounds – Beechwood, Cedar and Pines. The Cedar campground additionally has eight tent websites positioned on a separate loop that do not need electrical energy however are inside strolling distance to showers and restrooms.
For extra rustic campers, there’s the Jack Pine Hike-In Only Campground. It presents 10 tent websites which might be accessible solely by mountaineering or bicycling in.
The most important campground features a stretch of the Big Sable River that gives campers with tubing, paddling and fishing alternatives. Campers may benefit from the 5,000-acre Hamlin Lake which presents a ship launch and a four-mile canoe path that gives paddlers with an adventurous journey.
Hikers can benefit from the greater than 21 miles of marked trails that traverse wetlands, forests and dunes. The park is open all 12 months and hosts guided snowshoe hikes within the winter months.
Taquemonon Falls State Park
This state park is a jewel in Michigan’s U.P. crown. Known for its superb and scenic waterfalls, hundreds of vacationers flock right here yearly simply to see the falls and hundreds extra keep to camp close to the falls.
The state park boasts over forty miles of mountaineering trails and picket trestle-style trails constructed into the panorama for simpler foot journey.
If you keep in one of many 4 campsites on this huge state park, you may select to remain close to one of many Great Lakes, or perch your self nearer to one of many 13 inland lakes belonging to the park.
Tent tenting is normal, however there are a number of RV and pop-up camper websites obtainable on a first-come, first-serve foundation. Reservations are extremely really useful, particularly throughout the summer season when tenting is the most well-liked.
Here are the 4 campsites inside Taquemonon Park:
Camp workplaces are in two of the 4 areas, relying on whether or not you’ll keep close to the higher falls or the decrease falls.
A diner and brewery are positioned close to camp 33, in the event you don’t have sufficient camp provisions and also you don’t really feel like touring far to get camp groceries or meals for the evening.
Wa-Wen Camp Resort on Drummond Island
This is tenting at its wildest and but most posh. The island is about up for ATVs and UTVs, golfers, and a half-dozen different actions not usually related to tenting.
You might want to drive your automobile onto a ferry from the mainland on the tip of the “thumb of the mitten” of Michigan on its jap shores, after which drive into the resort from the touchdown level on Drummond Island. While the resort caters principally to RVs and different tenting automobiles, you may arrange a tent in your website in the event you want.
In phrases of the “posh” tenting, there’s a shuffleboard, a heated pool, wi-fi web and satellite tv for pc TV, a basketball courtroom, and you’ll carry your pets for a further price.
Swings can be found for the children and a wildly widespread exercise supplied is scuba diving for shipwrecks. Shipwrecks within the Great Lakes area are so frequent that there are a whole lot of ships at relaxation on the lake flooring which might be well worth the scuba exploration. (You should have both a scuba license or be keen to take a scuba class on the resort earlier than making an attempt a guided dive.) If you don’t carry a automobile or tent through which to camp, it’s not a giant deal; there are cabins to hire.
Porcupine Mountains State Park
This state park is affectionately referred to by Michiganders as “the Porkies.”
Tens of hundreds of Lake Superior shoreline are included within the scenic mountain views of this park, and a lot of the tent campsites are nestled excessive up within the mountains. The breathtaking views, the rivers, and Lake Superior itself is what carry the campers right here.
If you’re the kind that likes to “rough it,” there are 63 backcountry campsites right here positioned off the crushed path.
Be positive to obtain a park map and all the time have it available earlier than you enter the park so as to discover your manner round. Park ranger stations are current, however they’re far between.
Holland State Park
Holland State Park ranks among the many most visited state parks in Michigan. And it‘s not onerous to inform why. Thanks to its proximity to 2 lakes on the identical time – Lake Michigan and Lake Macatawa – this state park boasts loads of swimming and fishing alternatives, paddle leases, a ship launch, in addition to volleyball courts, and a playground.
It presents two giant campgrounds – the Lake Macatawa Campground with over 200 paved, grassy, in addition to wooded websites, and the Beach Campground with 98 paved websites and 31 full hook-up websites. There can also be a cabin that may accommodate as much as 6 folks. Throughout the park, you will discover picnic tables, grills, restrooms, altering areas, and a seaside store.
Note that for its recognition, this state park can get fairly busy, so we advocate you arrive early, particularly in the summertime months.
Wilderness State Park
Mixed campsites that enable tents, campers, and RVs are scattered in Michigan, however at Wilderness you could have all the above choices.
There are even tent-only campsites and a campsite with nineteen hookup websites for RVs. There are a dozen-plus campsites throughout the park, making this Lake Michigan shoreline park a sizzling spot for summertime tenting.
It’s prone to be most packed for Independence Day weekend, and once more on the finish of summer season. Even Michiganders will e book far upfront to camp right here.
Check some top-quality tenting devices:
Lakeport State Park
For a singular tenting expertise that mixes tenting with seaside life, try Lakeport.
It’s located on the banks of Lake Huron and accommodates plenty of cozy little cabins for hire within the occasion that you just forgot your tent or there are holes in your pop-up.
Sandy seashores host vacationers who keep onsite in addition to those that simply come to play within the waves. On a transparent day you may sunbathe, look out over the lake for miles, fish, swim, boat, and so forth..
All fashionable conveniences, together with plumbing and electrical energy, are supplied. Additionally, a camp retailer is current in case you should decide up sunscreen or snacks.
Sleepy Hollow State Park
If you could have little ones and you might be involved with the enormous lakes washing them away from the shore, contemplate tenting extra inland.
Sleepy Hollow is positioned twenty minutes north of Lansing, on a a lot smaller lake.
Here, you may nonetheless swim, fish, water ski, jet ski, boat, and so forth., with out worrying concerning the riptides of the larger lakes. Like Lakeport, there are many sandy seashores to play, excavate seaside treasures, and picnic.
Perhaps essentially the most attractive function of this campsite are the mobility aids supplied for folks with bodily challenges. You can hire these aids upfront to arriving on the park, and together with your campsite reservation.
Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Camp and Resort
Named for the well-known cartoon bear, this franchise of campsites boasts numerous fashionable conveniences for campers, together with loads of RV websites and hookups.
If the children get bored, don’t fear. There is a pool, water park, sport room, mini-golf, and far more.
Really the one factor that makes this tenting is the place you sleep at evening and whether or not or not you spend any time on the close by lakes.
Lighthouse Village
One of Michigan’s southernmost personal campgrounds, it targets the camper/RV/pop-up teams of campers.
With 250 websites with hookups, you might be positive to get a spot no matter if you come. More not too long ago, “glampers” have come to “glamp” right here with their really sturdy coach-style campers and “glamp” tools.
Activities are restricted to outside recreation like mountaineering, swimming within the St. Joseph River, and fishing, however in case you are simply searching for a really stress-free weekend with solely the frills your tools brings, you then may prefer it right here.
Oak Grove Campground/Chippewa Landing
This personal campground is positioned within the Northwestern area of the decrease peninsula. Two massive websites exist to which you’ll paddle up in a canoe as much as your chosen spot, or you may drive in and hook as much as electrical energy and plumbing.
There is WiFi, and so they do enable pets within the park, one thing numerous state parks chorus from doing. Essentially no matter you are able to do on the close by river, together with tubing and fishing, are the obtainable actions.
It’s a really quiet and peaceable spot, and loud noises are discouraged so that each one campers can benefit from the sounds of the encompassing woods and the effervescent sounds of the river.
Camping is usually by membership solely, so that you do should buy a season move or membership to camp right here.
Camp Dearborn
This centrally-located decrease peninsula campground could be very distinctive. The youngsters might or might not discover its distinctive options boring, relying on their degree of curiosity the place historical past is worried.
Aside from the 191 combined RV/tent campsites, Camp Dearborn boasts a brief drive to the close by museum stuffed with Michigan’s automotive historical past’
It’s a quiet, out-of-the manner, off the freeway form of campground with loads of issues to do close by if the children don’t need to hike or play open air.
Good Resources for Finding out More About Camping in Michigan
With over a thousand campgrounds on this state, you might be positive to search out someplace to camp. Each campground has its personal options that you could be or might not discover alluring. If you need to discover out extra concerning the campgrounds in Michigan, there are a selection of sources that may assist.
- Pure Michigan: Board of Tourism
- Individual metropolis/area journey websites
- State Department of Parks and Recreation
- Federal Park Listings for National Parks in Michigan
- Private park listings
- Automobile membership guides to tenting in Michigan
- Trip planning websites that supply tenting information
If you might be simply beginning to plan your tenting journey on this or to this state, there isn’t any time like the current. Private campgrounds are opening sooner than state or federal parks, which could provide you with a bonus to reserving selection campsites.
Keep an in depth eye on the state and nationwide parks’ web sites for data on when the campgrounds in every are planning to reopen for the season.
It additionally helps to name forward for updates and availability earlier than you reserve a tenting spot as some campgrounds don’t verify their availability all through the day and replace their websites hourly.
The very last thing you need to do is e book a campsite on-line solely to search out out that it was technically not obtainable if you booked. Then you’ll have to discover a totally different spot and make a brand new reservation. It is wise to make all your campsite reservations a month upfront to your arrival.
Camping in Michigan FAQs
With its immense 60,000 acres of land, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park is taken into account Michigan’s largest state park. For that greater than half of it’s old-growth forest, it’s additionally believed to be the wildest space of the Great Lakes State.
The charges for RV tenting differ from park to park, relying on the facilities, location, and the season of your go to. But normally, the costs fall between USD$ 30 and USD$ 80 per evening.
If you’re trying to find a spot to boondock in Michigan, the Upper Peninsula is the best possibility. Apart from free tenting in a number of nationwide forests, it’s also possible to attempt Hovey Lake Dispersed Campground or Gratiot River County Park. It may take a fairly lengthy drive, however you’ll be rewarded with pristine waters and breathtaking pure magnificence. If you want to keep within the Lower Peninsula, state forests are begin.
The tenting season in Michigan begins in early May and lasts via late September. For those that want heat climate and fewer crowds, autumn is the very best time to go to Michigan. If you take pleasure in tenting in winter, a number of campgrounds are open all 12 months spherical.
