Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Escanaba, MI

We enjoyed our stay very much. Pretty campground, extremely friendly and helpful staff, nice neighbors all around. The shower area could use some updating, but was fairly clean. It is a dog friendly place and for the most part they were well behaved pets. We planned on staying four nights and are staying six instead. Taking advantage of the last nice days of the season. I would highly recommend trying this park.

Convenient to Sister Bay in Door County, Wisconsin. Off of WI Hwy 57. Large open field. 27 pull-through RV sites are equipped to handle the biggest RV’s by providing 34′ x 75′ sites. 33 back-in RV sites. 10 walk in tent sites. Pets welcome - $5/day pet fee. New restrooms & showers. No cell service, but very good free WiFi service. Clean campsites, well maintained. No privacy between sites. Gravel driveways. Picnic table. Fire ring. Convenience store & gas station on site - Dovetail Trading Company & Citgo gas station. Registration in store. Accepts reservations. Campground was still open on Oct 23, 2021, even though it's season ended on Oct 18. This is a good campground for RVs. I camped here when I couldn't find another campground that had available sites. I thought it was overpriced for camping in my camper van with no hookups needed, but it was okay in a pinch.

My family and I have been coming here for years!!!!! The campground is big and beautiful! Every campsite has a picnic table and fire pit; the Yurts and cabins have chairs. The Yurts, cabins, and bathrooms are clean! The staff is friendly! It is pet friendly. It is located near the water and has many trails to hike! Love this place, especially in October with the leaves changing and the festivals around town!!!!!

This place was so much fun! The back tent areas are great, great walking trails, right on the water, the staff is so friendly and do daily checks to check if you need fire wood or anything. They also have fun seasonal events that the host for the campers. Definitely check this place out! So many memories there. They also have a playground for the kids, pet friendly, and allow atv/utv.

This is probably the nicest, most well run campground we have ever stayed at. The staff is friendly and welcoming, they are pet friendly, and their sites are spacious and private - unlike so many other campgrounds we visit.

While staying here, you’re a short walk to a great bakery and restaurant. Additionally, you can bring your gear and hike the trails just 5 minutes away at the state park.

Rates are very reasonable and the bathrooms are the best we’ve seen at any campground.

This place can’t get much better...

We enjoyed our stay at Tourist Park in Gwinn. I loved that it was a small park with mostly RVs and a few camping spots. We have an Aliner and most of the RVs were big with their own bathroom, so the facilities at Tourist were almost all ours! Full hook-ups, bathrooms with showers, basketball court, fishing, Escanaba River, and hiking trails all right at the park. Close to Marquette, Presque Isle, and many more beautiful spots. My dog was allowed and they had a leash hook outside the bathroom and dog bag station. We would definitely go back.

Nice campground in the town of Gwinn. Close to large park. Great fishing on Escanaba river. Large bathroom as and showers. Try the local restaurants.. Great Pizza at Rodney’s Pizza!

Kleinke Park was beautiful. It was rather windy during our stay, but overall the weather was great.

If you can swing the no reservations/first come first served, this is a great option. We stayed here and did a couple day trips further up the UP (Escanaba/Gladstone)

The showers are coin operated, $1 for 8 minutes.

9/19/20- 9/21/20; $21/night; #29 electric

loved the small towns charm. great sunrise view at Lake Michigan. clean cummnity, friendly people. dog friend on lesch.

Ranger Review: Roanline Clothes at Gladstone Bay Campground, MI

Campground Review

We really came to like the Gladstone Bay Campground during the time we were there. The first impression is that it is a mix of seasonal campers mixed with transients and there is a crazy mix of campsites scattered in all different directions. This county-operated park sits on a pretty part of Bay de Noc in Gladstone Bay just north of the larger town of Escanaba in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The best feature for us was the nice view of the water and direct access but there are lots of other things we liked about this campground too. For example, there is a nice walking path that wanders along the water down to the marina and county park (that has free outdoor concerts during the summer).  The path goes through the campground but is located along the water so you don’t feel like everybody is walking through the campground. We used the path every day to walk our dog who loved the water access to cool off and swim. Another feature we liked was the 1,500-foot sandy beach. Here is a great place to set up a chair and read with a pleasant view, take a swim, or launch a kayak. This park has some of the cleanest bathrooms and showers (in separate rooms) that we have seen all summer long. They are modern, clean and well-stocked so a big “thanks” goes out to the people who maintain them and do such a great job. 

The main roads are paved while the ones leading to the waterfront sites are gravel. Some campsites are gravel while others are grass. Patios are grassy and really nice because the grass was thick and not sandy so you didn’t feel like your camper was always dirty. There was a heavy downpour during our stay and some big puddles of water in low spots. All sites have a picnic table (which was in good condition) and a fire pit which was clean when we got there. 

Our site (#20) was pretty close to our neighbors but some are really well spaced – especially the water/electric only or no hook-up sites. As mentioned earlier, we really like the campground and for $30 for a 50 amp full hook-up site (with WiFi) that is a good price. We did not really spend any time in Gladstone (except to go to the grocery which is a couple of miles away) but we did go to Escanaba a couple of days. In Escanaba we visited the lighthouse and historical museum which was interesting ($3 entrance fee) and ate at the highly-touted Swedish Pantry where we had the most delicious Swedish pancakes with lingonberries. We also stopped at Dobber’s Pasties to get some frozen pasties for the road. There is an ice cream truck that comes through the park for those of you with a sweet tooth.

One thing we noticed is that some campsites have lots of people staying on them.  On Labor Day weekend two campers came in with lots of people who stayed up until well past 2 a.m. having a fire and good time. We were two sites down in our RV with pretty good noise insolation and still heard them. It’s great that people want to enjoy the holiday weekend but some rude campers ruin it for others.

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Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I occasionally get products to test and evaluate. At Gladstone Bay Campground I tested clothes from Roanline. This company’s philosophy is to provide quality outdoor clothes and gear from up and coming companies with a commitment to giving back to the environment. Super cool!

I had a hard time picking out what to order because so many of their items appealed to me. Finally, I settled on two shirts featured by the company United by Blue (who pledges to remove one pound of trash from waterways for every item sold.  Hooray for them). The first one is the Knowle Plaid long-sleeved shirt.  This item was a good choice since the morning temperatures were dipping into the high 30’s.  The first thing I noticed was how soft this shirt was. It has a nice outdoorsy look with the plaid pattern but has a feminine fit. The shirt was not too bulky so you could wear it under a sweater on days that you need to layer. After a couple of washings it stayed true to size, color and that great soft feel. 

The other item I received was Pine Bear Tee. I was looking for a tee that was more stylish than just a typical unisex shirt and this one delivered. This shirt has a nice fit with a v-neck and is super soft.  It is lightweight enough to be worn hiking on warm days. The stitching and material in this shirt makes it high quality and it has definitely stood up to the wear and tear I put my clothes through.  

Will definitely be ordering from this company again. Their quality products are at a good price point (and they offer many sale items and discounts) and the company has a great mission and philosophy.

For a video review of these Roanline products click here.

This was our first time in Door County. At the time of my booking, we knew a lot of people that had visited, but not in an RV so I was on my own looking. I will list the good before the bad and hopefully you will understand why the rating was given. The campground is in a great location as far as we we’re concerned. It is just outside of downtown Bailey’s Harbor, one of the many picturesque and quaint towns in Door County. From there you can go up or down the peninsula. The owner and staff were helpful and friendly enough but I have had a lot more friendlier greetings. The campground is fairly well maintained with clean bathrooms/showers. The stalls are small and some have hooks, some don’t. None have benches, a couple have a plastic lawn chair. Minor issue really but one of my pet peeves. The pool is of decent size and was heated, a big plus for this far north. Our site was incredibly level. I have only found cement sites that require less effort to level your rig. Now the bad parts. The office provided minimal information, had very few supplies beyond candy bars and t-shirts. They did have adapters to convert 30 amp to 50 amp plugs. There was minimal shade in our part of the campground and insufficient space to erect a screen house. They also seem to wait a little long to cut the grass. Our neighbors moved all their stuff off the grass before we arrived and after the previous guest had left in hopes that the lawn would be mowed. Didn’t happen. We were fortunate to have a small tree that did provide a little shade but also stopped us from putting up the screen house there. We could have still erected it but then our neighbors would be left with no room (more on this later). The cable provided no better channel selection than your antenna nor better reception. The WiFi was weak and our T-Mobile service was horrible (not the campgrounds fault) The worse part of the campground was for daily rental sites. They faced each other and were about 12-15 feet apart in the front and about 10 foot or less on your utilities side. This would be great for camping with friends or family. Not so much when you are given a randomly chosen neighbor. We were lucky, our camping neighbors were great people and we enjoyed the time we spent with them. See the photo for a better idea of how close we were. It was less of an issue on this trip because we were here to see the sites. The RV was our home base and we didn’t spend a lot time there. If we come back, it will be a different campground.

I enjoyed my visit here. Clean and quiet camping, friendly workers. We were the only tenters but didn’t stop us! Great place to bring a friendly dog. Plenty of space/other dogs here

We wanted to stay here on a rainy stormy day, do some laundry, take hot showers, dump and fill, etc. They are in the Passport America program, so rates are discounted 50%, but they’re actually a few dollars higher than what’s listed in Passport America. A FHU site would be $20 with the discount, so $40 full price. 

I’d recommend calling them ahead of time and not the morning of the day you’re looking to stay, like we did (and always do). We had a really hard time getting a hold of someone, but I think they had something going on that day so I don’t want to say that’s the norm. We drove to the campground hoping to just talk to someone in the office, but that didn’t work either. The husband finally called us back but by then we were in the mindset to just leave and go stay at Walmart in Escanaba for free. 

The campground is really nice and low key, lots of trees, definitely nothing fancy, it’s dumpy in places, but it’s fine for us. You can get a FHU site or electric only (there is a dump station and water fill). There are also tent sites and cabins. 

We had good Verizon service there and ok ATT service. There’s lake access from the campground with a $5 fee, not sure if that’s just for putting in boats though. 

Note- check in is 3pm and they are really into their policy of charging $10 for an “early check-in.” There are several signs in the office stating this, and the husband made sure he told us over the phone as well, even though it would have been just an hour early.

We stayed here for 2 nights. The site is nice, close to the lake and quiet. Beautiful morning view down by the water! There isn't a lot of open space for tents, but it was just us and our dog so we had plenty of room. The trees are not very close together to put up hammocks, but worked great for our dog's tie out zipline. The outhouse is a short walk down the path but it's kinda gross. (Spiders, flies, stinky - I know, it's an outhouse lol But I kind of prefer the pit toilets at 14 & 15 to the shared outhouse)