Best Glamping near Atlanta, MI

We were greeted at the gate by an extremely helpful and knowledgeable gentleman. He provided good directions, and helped us with our Rec Pass.

The site was easy to find, spacious, and had adequate distancing from other campers. It included a fire pit and picnic table too.

The lake was serene in the early mornings and evenings. Listen for the woeful call of the loons. What a treat!

Word of caution, the raccoons start partying as soon as you bed down. Make sure your food and trash is adequately covered/contained.

Campground has vault toilets. We never used them but good to know they have them.

Make reservations early! This is a beautiful state park with the best of pure Michigan woods and Lake Huron sandy dunes and beaches . Very family and pet friendly but also quiet and peaceful for couples who just wanna get away . Only drawback is low signal cell service but hey getting off the grid is what’s its all about. Unplug and recharge yourself.  Electric hook up availability  20/30 amp . Hiking and biking paths , a cute play ground , sandy beach with volleyball area all walking distance from campsites!  Friendly staff , we love this park !

We stayed for a quick overnight and wish we could have stayed longer. If we stayed again - we’d pick site 101. Little more privacy than the rest. We stayed at 137 which backed up to the woods which was lovely. This is a very bustling and full campground with lots of groups and families. Lot’s of kids on bikes. We were surprised to see a group with a full bar right out front on their site. We’re used to Texas parks where that would NOT fly😆 But everyone respected the quiet hours so we had no noise issues at night. Easy access to the water from everywhere thanks to groomed paths. Nice long but narrow sandy beach great for the kids to swim. Busy but very fun place to camp!

This park has some strong positives that outweigh the negatives so depending on what really annoys you about a campground determines whether you may or may not like this place. The park is run by the City of Petoskey and sits on 21 acres in downtown Petoskey overlooking Lake Michigan.  Petoskey has a really cool downtown with great restaurants (we liked Beard’s Brewery, Palette Bistro, and Grand Traverse Pie Company), shopping, a free art center (Crooked Tree), parks, and a pretty marina with a scenic breakwater lighthouse. If you have never been to this part of Michigan, you should definitely come for a visit. 

The campground is very popular because of the price and location with about 1/3 of the park occupied by seasonal or monthly rentals of people that have been coming for many years.  There are 71 sites which can be used for RVs or tents.  Roads are paved and sites are grass/sand. There are fire pits and picnic tables at each site and a nice large grassy area in the front of the park near Lake Michigan with multiple picnic tables in a common space. 

There are many positive attributes of this park. The location of this park could not be better and the price of $30/night (water, sewer, 30 amp electric; $28 for electric and water only) is a great deal. (Especially because other private campgrounds in the area are easily $60+/night in the summer season.) They have free wifi that worked well and we were able to get over-the-air antenna television channels. You are really in a prime location with Lake Michigan in front of you. Many of the sites in this park have a great view of the lake (especially sites 1-16). Running through the park is the Little Traverse Wheelway which is a paved bike path spanning from the cute towns of Charlevoix to Harbor Springs. (If you don’t have a bike with you there are plenty of rental places nearby.)  

Now for the negatives. The bathroom/shower houses are old and tired but were clean. The park sits between a hospital and water treatment plant, one of which can be smelly on warm days the other of which has a very loud HVAC system generating lots of noise. The park is located close to the busy road M-31 so there is a bit of road noise. The sites are very close together so there is not much privacy. The park is open to day-use and has a heavily used bike path running right through it so there are lots of people coming and going.

While it was pricey at $65 night, we had a very spacious full hookup site within easy walking distance of pool. Shower house was very nice and modern, with 4 shower stalls. Full coin laundry was helpful too! They had kids activities over the 4thof July weekend, and our kid loved it. The KOA is about a 5 min drive to Otsego Lake and the state park, where there's a nice beach and easy lake access. There's also a newly paved bike trail right by the lake for you to log some miles on. Nearby towns of Gaylord and Boyne provided us with plenty to do, and only a couple hours to get to Sleeping Bear sand dunes. We thought this place was worth the expense- big, flat, level sites with fire pit and full hook up. Nice pine trees and plenty of space for kids to play. Did not like the additional fee for kid to get wrist band for jump pillow and mini gold, but did it anyways.

It is a municipal campground so we didn't expect much but the access to the Little Traverse Wheelway and views of Lake Michigan were awesome - and full hook ups for the price was great.  It has a small bathhouse and the sites are pull-though with back to back setup (so utilities are at the same post as one of your neighbors) but we scored that the 2 sites in front of us cancelled (it was wet, cold, windy and in general miserable weather but we lucked out day 2 and got a bike ride in to Petoskey State Park and a stop at Burnt Marshmallow Brewing before rain rolled back in) so we had a big open space for the kids to bike around on and allowed a view of the lake.

link on The Dyrt doesn't work - try this:

https://www.petoskey.us/departments/parks\_and\_recreation/campground.php

PROS: was really quiet, our neighbor is a regular and was extremely friendly and helpful.  The bike path to Petoskey State Park is right in front of the campground and takes you by the harbor and can branch off into town too.  Really close to downtown (which we did not explore but looks really nice).  We originally planned on staying at the state park but the campsite was half closed due to construction (so it will probably be really nice next year) but this worked out great.  Full hook ups on long pull thru sites for the price was great.  Firewood was available at the check-in kiosk and there is a playground on site.  Bathhouse with showers.  Less than 1 hour from Mackinac Island.  I read mentions of the hospital noise and while trucks unloading during the day was noticeable during the day, we didn't hear anything from there at night - the camp ground did have a transformer that was loud the first night but it was fixed by the next night.

CONS: it is no-frills and could be packed in during summer, but that should be acceptable for the price if you are looking for an easy base camp with access to everything in Petoskey.  The bathhouse was clean but dated.  The campsites look like they did not get a lot of cleanup - I filled a grocery bag full of trash from our site and the 3 open ones next to us.  

Ideal site would probably be as close to the lake as possible - the road in front is not travelled much since it dead ends at the campground.  There was a city facility at the end but it was not open on the weekend and we were told is pretty quiet when it is open.

NOTE: This was our first MI campground as part of out trip from GA to MN via TN-KY-IN-MI-WI-northern MN before staying in MSP for a week, then return via MN-IA-MO-IL-KY-TN-Home.