Marquette Tourist Park Campground

This campsite is great for those who dont want to be completely rustic. Theres electric at most sites and 2 bath houses on site as well. When it comes to choosing a site, you can either be tucked away in the woods, out in the open or near the lake that's on the grounds. There's a dump station and potable water near the office, along with firewood and ice for sale. In the office theres a wall of brochures for waterfalls, rock hunting, trails, biking, fishing and more! The people working there are very friendly and are always making loops to either collect trash, clean the bathrooms or inform campers of updates and incoming severe weather. 

  

I've come here on 3 separate occasions and for usually a week at a time and I've never had a bad experience. I will mostly likely come to this site every time I'm in the Upper Penisula.

Clean and Friendly Campground

We camped right on the lake at number #13 which is the last site towards the back of the camp ground. Even though the signs said it was full, we rolled the dice anyhow and ended up getting a cancelation site for free! The guys at the office were very nice and accommodating. Camp was clean, quiet and dog friendly. Great fishing right off the waters edge, swimming and paddle boarded the lake as well. Super close to downtown Marquette, like a 10 minute bike ride.

Great Spot!

One great thing about this park is the location and how close it is to downtown Marquette and Lake Superior. The campground can tend to feel a bit crowded in the summer and on weekends but there are not many campgrounds in town so you may have to put up with crowds for convenience. We didn’t have reservations and could not get a spot for the weekend but sites did open up during the week. The park offers great water access for fishing, swimming and paddling plus there are many other amenities like a playground, ball fields, trails, picnic areas, etc. Another plus is the paved bike path that runs by the campground and leads downtown (about a 10-minute bike ride) and along the waterfront. 

There are a mix of sites from those fitting the largest of RVs to tent sites. Lots of tall trees provide shade but this can make for some crazy maneuvering with large rigs.  Be aware if you are a large RV with tow car that many sites are not long enough so be specific how long you are when you reserve a site. The park is dated and in need of some work so there are potholes in the roads and not all sites are level. Many sites in the RV hookup areas are sandy/dirt especially when campers put our patio mats and park vehicles wherever they want.  The hook-ups are not laid out conveniently on some sites which requires extra hoses and electric cords. There is WiFi in the campground but does not pick up well in all areas of the park – it just depends where you are but works well at the office. Our television antenna picked up a dozen or so channels including the major networks. Verizon 4G was strong and our hotspot worked great. 

There was a sign posted mentioning there were reported break-ins and people should lock up their belongings. We found this a little disturbing because you normally don’t see this in campgrounds. It also appeared that some campers were not well-versed on camping etiquette throwing trash in fire pits, walking through others campsites, and leaving garbage all over their sites.

Good Location

This is a very busy campground that tends to attract mostly RV campers. It is very close to town which is convenient, and has a lot of activities within the campground. There is a playground, swimming beach, firewood for sale, picnic areas, and located on a bike path. 
For the most part, the park was full of families in RVs that seemed to park in every which way they found convenient. There are a few walk-in tent sites as well. We tent camp, and scored a nice site (#1) right on the water which felt a little bit separated from the mess of large RVs all over the place. 
The bathhouse was fairly clean, but the showers were always busy. Our site was a little on the small side and trash was left in the fire pit from previous campers.  I enjoyed being right on the water, and it was a convenient location as there are not a lot of campgrounds in the nearby area. Unfortunately the park had a very hectic and crowded feeling to it than I usually prefer. 

Busy & crowded park

Some sites are very large with lots of shade trees some are smaller and kinda packed together.  I highly recommend the sites that face the lake.  We had plenty of space and it was very peaceful in our section of the park.  Bathrooms were small with only 1 shower each, but I had no wait for my shower in my section of the park.  Very friendly park staff, and my site was clean and dry.  Definitely going to make this an every year stop when we come up to bring our daughter back to NMU.

Kayakers dream!

This is going to be my new favorite campground when I visit Marquette!

Beautiful !

Me and my husband stayed on the rustic site. Over all it was a good campsite and was very quiet at night. They were pretty strict on the quiet times. Very close to down town and plenty of hiking. Only complaint was they want you to use their wood, but they do close early if it is slow. 

Nice, chill campground

This campground is in Marquette, near Northern Michigan University. But once you're camped there, you won't feel like you're in one of the largest cities in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. 

  

The sites are generally spacious and they have a lot of options to choose from based on what rig you have and how you like to camp. They have tent sites that are non-electric, about 100 RV sites with just electric, and another 38 sites that have water and sewer hookups. They even have some sites that are pull-through. They also offer a dump station and potable water for folks that don't have the full hookup sites. 

  

The campground is adjacent to a municipal park that has a beach. The campground also offers sites that overlook Dead River Basin. The sites aren't paved, so rainy days could lead to some mud to deal with, but the nice stand of trees and the basin view can make up for it. There also are some sites that are tucked into the trees quite a bit for additional privacy. Because you're near a major UP city, you have access to plenty of shopping and services if you need them, plus there is great (Verizon) cellular service in the campground. The park wifi is a bit weak depending on where you are at in relation to the office, but we used our wifi booster and had smooth sailing for our jobs all day long. 

  

The bathroom and shower facilities seem older but also appeared to be clean and functioned well. There weren't very many showers, so if you need to use one you may need to wait for it. 

  

All-in-all a decent campground that serves as a perfect oasis in an area where there aren't any state parks to choose from. We also liked that when they close the office at night, they print out a map with all the reserved sites, so if you show up without a reservation, you can quickly check the map to find an open site. Then you just get some rest and register at the office in the morning.

Great municipal camping oasis

Bottom line is I think the Tourist Park is good enough for RVers, tent campers might not enjoy themselves. You’ll see why below.

The sites are very oddly sized and shaped; some are massive and some are teensy tiny, and it’s difficult to figure out the boundaries of your site when setting up. For example, I’m almost positive our neighbors ended up putting their tents on our site which was a bit awkward. Be mindful of this when booking.

The campground backs up to what I believe is the public works department for Marquette, so you will likely hear some heavy machinery noise. Again, something to keep in mind when picking your site. It didn’t really bother me in my RV, but it might bother tent campers.

Possibly the thing that bothered me most about the campground is it appears to be run primarily by teenagers and/or college kids. No campground host. We had a few noisy neighbors and the aforementioned neighbors camping on OUR site issue, and I didn’t bother to address them because I knew we’d have no one with any real sway to back us up. There was also no one enforcing arrival times, checkout times, quiet hours, etc. so it can stay loud late into the night and you’re largely relying on your neighbors to behave themselves. 

What’s good about the campground is a lot of the sites have abundant shade (but not all! Again, choose carefully), there is a playground (it’s very old and possibly unsafe though), it has great access to trails, there’s a beach, and the bathrooms were impeccably clean. 

It’s certainly not what I’d call a great campground, but it does the trick. 


Decent Enough FOR RVs ONLY

Stayed on our drive from Mackinac to see the pictured rocks lake shore. The campground is surrounded by 18 miles of trails. No camp store, but a convenience store is a quarter mile away. Northern Michigan university is at the door step as well. Lake superior is 1 mile away. We biked there and fished at the campground beach. Lots of Brook trout there.