Best Campgrounds near Empire, MI

This campground is centrally located to everything that’s going on, on the west side of the state. Whether it’s trail riding, Traverse City Cherry festival or hanging in the town of Manton. There is always something going on. Spacious, super clean bath house and on Saturday nights listen to live music right at your campsite!

Was a quiet. Simple.. Just with nature...Site was clean, across street you can buy firewood ...Was a pleasant 2 night's....From site to the nearest store 15-20 min away..If needed...Had no issues...Be back Thanksgiving 2024..

Very nice park, walkway to the public beach, paved path behind the grounds. Modern, clean bathhouse. Not a lot of privacy between spots, big mature trees all through the grounds. Right by municipal airport with lots of flight activity.

Camp staff very friendly and park is well maintained. Nice hiking trails nearby and a 20 minute drive to a whole lot of entertainment!

The camping area is amazing. My group camped in the non electric section. Each area was set back from the road. Flat gravel pad. Small paved driveway for your car. It was peaceful. And absolutely dark at night. Perfect for star gazing. The comfort station was a short walk away. Clean bathrooms, shower areas, and a small room to wash dishes. You cannot wash dishes at your site. You must take precautions against bears. So food had to be locked in cars. We didn’t encounter bears. At the entrance is a canoe/tube business. You can float down the river to Lake Michigan.

Our site was great, easily fit a 17 foot trailer and a tent. Trails down to the water were appreciated by our kids. Neighbors are pretty close all around but that didn't matter until our last night. Several new campers rolled in at 10pm and proceeded to throw an absolute rager of a party until 4am - on Labor Day weekend. So overall a great campground but I wish there had been enforcement of quiet time or some kind of consequence for such horrible camping manners.

The campsites are spacious and feature trails that lead directly to the Tippy Dam Backwater. There’s also convenient access for launching a boat on either the Manistee River or the backwaters side of the dam

Quiet, large sites, like new bath house, 7th nite free, rate$35, good location for northwestern Michigan sites Water on all outside sites. interior sites share water hookups

Great campground.  Booked two nights and had to request a third it was so perfect.   We went up because it advertised orv access right from campsite.  It’s really handy to not have to trailer over to the trsilheads.  Quiet, bug spaces, huge bathhouse. We will be going back!

To many people and yelling kids but breath taking for sure

Updating this information. We live 3 miles from this camp. All MI State Forest Campgrounds are nor $20/night.

There is not a RV dump or hookup of any kind in this campground. One could easily bring a 30 ft trailer but sites this size are limited.

This camp is on the Betsie River and the Grass Lake Flooding. There is a gravel/sand ramp to launch smaller fishing boats. Great area to kayak and float tube. 1000's of acres of State Forest surrounding this spot with miles of trails for atv, cars, trucks and horses. There are no horst facilities at this camp.

Large campground composed or 5 loops. Many have a trail leading to the water. Hiking and biking paths within the campground along with a nice boat ramp. Trash on sites and dirty outhouses along with lots of generators and after hour noise was a downside.

Our first time camping with the rig. Owners went above and beyond to assist with our set up. We also had to adjust our dates and they were very accommodating. Their assistance consisted of offering us an extra hose extension, another part for the sewer connection, and assisted with making sure Everything was working correctly before they left. Very clean campground, friendly, polite people all around, great pool and real nice “event” room. Nice clean (2) bathhouses, and one family bathhouse, also very nice. Horseshoes and shuffle board, big sandy playground for children. We only wish there were trails to walk on. But it’s close to Benzie, Frankfort, Manistee, Portage Lake. Dollar Tree nearly across the street in case you forgot anything. Northern Natural Cider house and Winery close by, plus Iron Fish Distillery! Kampvilla is the place to be! It will be our yearly destination. We began our season and will ‘near our end’ of season there!

We just stayed here for 6 nights. Owners were welcoming and kind upon check in. The campground was very well maintained with a good amount of trees giving good shade outside.

Sites are large well maintained.
We stayed across the street from the bath house and the pool. Pool was chemically checked several times a day and it was so nice.

Our kids loved the pool and the space to ride bikes.

Will definitely be booking here again.

Reasonable rates for the site and generous wood costs as well. They drive around almost nightly and will sell you wood right at your site if you're there. $10 for a wheel barrow full and they stack it for you!

Highly recommend this campground.

Green Lake Rustic- clean campground. Some sites are small, and you are on top of your "neighbors." Vault style toilets that get quite smelly. The boat ramp to Green Lake is well maintained. The parking lot is a bit small but doable. Good pan and bass fishing. The local grocery store is close, as well as a dollar store, mini golf, ice cream, and restaurants (if that's your thing).

I was disappointed in the campground after having high expectations from previous reviews.  Sites were fine, good size and maybe could have been some planting between sites.  My concern was that there was only one bathroom, for the entire campground.  They were filthy, cleaned once daily which was considerably less than other campgrounds.  There was a sanitary pad discarded behind a toilet for over 24 hours. Possibly this is the norm, and guests were more disgusting than usual.  The scenic overlook deck was littered with toilet paper where someone had taken to using this area as their own restroom.  The grass and trails weren't mowed and the park attendant said they were changing mowing services, I understand that.  The water hose used to clean tanks had been cut off or fallen off, and when this was showed to a worker, they said they'd tell the manager.  What day, no one knows because he got in his car and left for the night.  The next day it was not fixed.

Which brings me to the point that while there were three people in the guard house, no one was really doing much.  No one drove around checking on things, no one walked a common path to see discarded trash, etc.  The on duty person left at 8PM.  This is all a management issue, not the campground itself. 

I have camped at local/municipally owned campgrounds in Michigan before and was very happy, and gladly went with this campground but was disappointed.