Best RV Parks & Resorts near Empire, MI

Great layout, nice level sites, super peaceful. We stayed on the RV Park side not the RV Resort, the sites were quite large, well shaded and spaced a good amount apart. Wonderful location to the dunes. And Glen Haven beach is just up the road, the beach is large, parking can be a pain but the water is AMAZING! We spent a whole day on the beach and playing in the water. Staff was also very nice and helpful with any questions we had. Another bonus If you’re doing long trips is they have a coin operated laundry room, this was our second stop on a 9 day trip and it was nice to get all our laundry caught up before we got home.

This campground has two sides, the campground which accommodates tents, campers and RVs. Also they have small cabins. They offer full hookups as well as 30 & 50 amp service.  Nice shower and bathroom facilities, coin laundry, pool, and camp store. The other side is the “luxury RV Resort” with concrete pads, grass, ponds and lots of greenery. Very upscale.

We had a great experience at the RV resort. We stayed on both sites 44 and 4 and both were very nice stamped concrete pads with full hookups. Gorgeous landscaping. The lodge is very nice with a full kitchen, two full private bathrooms, lounge area and a covered outdoor patio complete with a full size gas grill.

Close to Empire and Glen Arbor! We would stay here again!

We camped in a 40’ motor coach for a week. Site is gravel and dirt. It is a pull through site that required us to do quite a bit of leveling. The hookups are rather far away so we needed extensions. Our site required us to pull through in such a way that the hookups were on the opposite side of our coach. They only have 15 full hookup sites and none were available for our time frame. They have several long term tenants. Roads are narrow but most sites are ample. They have a pump out service twice a week for $10 each time. Bathrooms, showers and laundry available and are clean and nice. Staff is kind, helpful and knowledgeable. Pool is heated. Wifi is through a third party and very inexpensive at $2 a day. Very family friendly with lots of children. Campground is clean and well maintained.

My kids LOVED this place. Pool and endless loops of biking. We’re new to having a trailer, and we found the sites easy to back into. Some lanes are more wooded than others — the water/electric (NOT full hook-up) sites feel less exposed, as do those that back up to the horse field. Pricey, yes, but that’s the whole area.

This is a great location for a campground. Close to Sleeping Bear Dunes, hiking trails, biking trails, and canoeing/kayaking on the river. It’s back off the road a ways so it’s quite and it is well maintained and clean. There are 2 sides to this campground: one is your standard RV campground and the other is a luxury RV resort for class A motor homes and 5th wheels only. A couple of things that we really liked about the campground is they have daily trash pick up at your site and they have a food truck at the campground. The pool was very clean and well maintained. A couple of things we didn’t care for is outside of the pool and a small playground there wasn’t really much for kids to do. There were no planned activities or anything. I also found it odd that even though Covid restrictions have eased up they are still operating under a lockdown. There store was window service only. If you did want to go inside someone had to unlock the doors for you and you were required to wear a mask. Other than we had an enjoyable stay here.

Our site was $65.63 a night. (This was the average after receiving one night free for staying a week).

We were in Site# 4A (premium site). We had Full hook- up with a blacktop pull-through.
We travel towing a 14 foot trailer and were able to fit both in our pull through site along with my jeep.
The site was easy to level.

Our site was not shaded with limited trees. This was a smaller lot with our neighbors fairly close.

The lot comes with a concrete patio with picnic table. There was not a fire ring since only propane fires are allowed.

There is free WiFi. They do not offer Cable TV but there are many local channels.

There is an adult pub-style game room with poker tables, a large tv, a table shuffle board, air hockey game, foosball table, and board games. There is a community catering kitchen located in their activities center.

They do not provide garbage service at your site so you must walk to garbage dumpster. This can be a long distance for some.

You are allowed to ride personal golf carts. They also allow you to rent golf carts. It is beneficial to have a golf cart to get around since it is a large campground. We have our own e-bikes which helped.

They do have a large heated Swimming pool and an adults only hot tub. There is a fitness center.

They have quite a few ponds throughout the campground.

There is not a Playground. They offer pickleball courts.

There is not a general store nor snack bar/restaurant on site.

The streets are paved and good for riding bikes.

This is solely an RV park. They do not have any cabins to rent or any tent areas.

The showers are located in the activity center. These are typical stalls. There is a great area to hang clothes and store your toiletries in the shower stall. These are kept very clean.

There is a laundry facility. There are approximately 4 washers and 4 dryers. They allow you to use cash or an app. It is approximately $2.25 to wash and $2 to dry a load.

They do not have a fenced in dog park. There are areas to walk dogs though.

Bugs/gnats were a small issue and bug spray was needed.

There is supposedly a mowed trail to hike off of the campground (about 3 miles) but I was unable to locate it.

Some fun things to do outside of the campground are the shops (Front Street) & water activities in Traverse City, the local wineries/vineyards, and the DNR Outdoor Shooting range (5 miles away & free to the public). We ate at Yankee Boy where all of the locals hangout. Excellent food (no alcohol served).

Situated just a few miles from the village of Lake Leelanau is this truly immaculately kept, family-owned and operated RV park. More than half the sites are occupied by very friendly permanent, seasonal residents who have been coming up every season for 15-20 years, but there are plenty of sites for those seeking to stay for a short time as well. Many of these “transient” sites are close to the lake shore -- most are paved sites, but there are a handful of all grass sites, and some are right on the lake front. All have electrical hook-ups.

The bathrooms are absolutely immaculate and each family bathroom includes a toilet, sink, and shower. There is a very nice laundry room with multiple washers and dryers. In addition, there are tennis, volleyball, and basketball courts, shuffle board, and horseshoe behind the office. You can also rent boats or park your own at their sizable marina.

Hands-down, the most unique thing about this campground is the concert pipe organ installed in a private home on the property! The owner of the RV park is a pipe organ enthusiast and opens his home throughout the summer months for concerts. If you have never been to a pipe organ concert, you must go at least once in your life. Here’s a link to more info: https://lakeleelanaurvpark.com/pipe-organ-summer-concert-schedule/

Lake Leelanau is a large enough lake to spend the day exploring, but protected enough for swimming, kayaking, small sailboats, and paddle boarding. Lots of great fishing, cycling, and hiking in the area, too. The campground is located in the heart of wine country, with about 6 vineyards/wineries within 15-20 minutes (all with tasting rooms) and just a short drive to Leland’s historic fishing village. Dick’s Pour House (Lake Leelanau Village) makes some awesome pizza and the Cheese Shanty (in Leland’s historic fishing village) has unbelievable sandwiches. You could stay all season and not be able to do/see all there is on the Leelanau Peninsula!

Prices depend on the type of site (regular, premium, or lake front) and how long you are planning to stay.

To start we are tent campers and this is an RV park…it has great spots for tents! Just electric hookup or primitive (even nicer spots). This campground has very clean bathrooms, a pool, park to play and close proximity to lots of things to do. Only downside to the bathroom/shower house is the only indoor bathrooms all have a shower. So if you really need to go or have kids that need to use indoor it makes it tough. There is rumor to building another bathroom though. There are port a Jon’s by the primitive campsites, which get checked at least twice a day. There are all the toys to play in sand, basketballs, volleyballs and such sitting out for all the kids to play with. The indoor pavilion area is great for rainy days. There are board games and puzzles to do. Plus ping pong and foosball! We love camping here and can’t wait for our trip back again!

We visited Wild Cherry RV Resort on the recommendation of some friends and found the park to be nicely maintained, sites were well-spaced, and we LOVED the area. Our site was a pull-in that faced a large pond on a corner that overlooked a four-acre lake. We never had a neighbor on the site next to us during our stay and since we were on a large corner there was nobody on that side either so we never felt crowded. The park was very quiet and since our site was in the back of the park there was not much traffic.

The park is called a “resort” which is a little misleading because there are very few amenities. There is no swimming pool, no tennis courts, no shuffleboard, no fitness center, no playground, in fact there were not even bathrooms/showers (except for porta john and tent shower in the rustic camping section).  There was a small club house and a driving range but that was pretty much it. You do get a free newspaper delivered to your site daily. It turned out that we didn’t care about the lack of amenities since we were so busy exploring and we don’t often use all the amenities that private parks offer anyway.  The park is a mix of seasonal and transient people. Most of the seasonal people went to work during the day which made the park even quieter. And while they do have a lot of seasonal campers none of the sites were junked up. Sites are gravel with paved patios with the average lot being 45x70 (according to their brochure). There are nice grassy areas between sites that is very well-maintained. All sites have picnic tables but not all have fire pits (if you have your own you are allowed to use it). 

The roads are very wide and there are not too many trees so maneuvering big-rigs is not a problem. The water, sewer, and electric were all placed appropriately in the site so no extended hoses were needed. There was no cable but sites are very open allowing for good satellite reception and we were able to get over a dozen antenna channels. Sites are either pull-in (which we had) or back-in. There are no pull-thrus. Set back in a wooded area are a scattering of rustic tent sites, rental cabins and yurts with potable water, grills, fire pits, and picnic tables. These sites are so tucked in a wooded area that I never noticed them until the last day I was in the park.

There is a lot of activities within a short drive of this park and we wished we would have stayed longer. The park is in a perfect location to explore the towns of Leland (and Fishtown), Lake Leelanau, Northport, and Sutton’s Bay. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the town of Glen Arbor are a 20 minute drive and Traverse City is about 45 minutes. All these towns are quaint coastal towns with shopping, galleries, good restaurants. The park is on the Leelanau Peninsula which is one of Michigan’s most well-known and revered wine region and there are three wineries within a couple of miles (one is just across the street from the entrance). That being said, there are nearly some 20 wineries within 15 – 20 minutes of the park. There are a few state parks and county preserves nearby that have hiking, scenic views of Lake Michigan and picturesque lighthouses.

All-in-all we really liked this park and would definitely come back. We took advantage of their “Big-Rig Special” which gave a 25% discount if you booked 4 nights. Otherwise, the price per night was $69 which we found to be expensive for what you get. The biggest dings we give this park are for the high nightly price and the lack of amenities that should come in a “resort” with that high a price. This area is one of our favorites in Michigan and we easily could have spent a couple of weeks here enjoying the area.

We have spent six weeks at this park for the last 6 years. We attend a horse show circuit near by. It is the creme de la creme of RV parks. The sites are individually owned (and leased out) and many of the owners have made their lots very nice. The park is limited to Class A, Fifth Wheels and Class C only. This park is dominated by big, very nice class A's.

We have a 5th wheel and have appreciated the amenities very much. Great wifi, curbside garbage pickup, trails, dog park, and many others. You are limited to 2 dogs, and they are very strict about leashes and picking up poop. But, that keeps the place looking nice.

We enjoy it very much and it is so close to the horse show, it cannot be beat. Because they are such a popular place to stay during the show (July - mid August), they sites book up a year in advance.

First sites away from lk michigan are bigger for rvs , nice campground ,close to torch lk. Beach was nice ,nice to be in the woods ,nice place over all

Nice clean campground with a lot to do in that area. Full hookup only.

Full hookup sites, cabins were nice. Many recent upgrades to the campground

We were late arriving but they had friendly staff that met us to check us in and guide us to our site (T). The site had full hookups and was considered to be one of the premium sites. It included electric, sewer, water, cable, and WiFi when it worked.

We were stationed near the boat ramp and had a beautiful shaded view of the lake. Our neighbors, most of whom were permanent campers, were nice. Daily visits by the local duck families were entertaining.

We enjoyed visiting the Sleeping bear dunes, Leland where we found a nice small quiet beach to swim in Lake Michigan. We also did two small trips to the light houses nearby and north of Travers City.