Best Equestrian Camping near Kalkaska, MI

There are 2 sections of Schecks Place. One is a campground with picnic tables and site numbers.

The other is the trail camp. You drop your money in the box pick a spot of as much space as you want (there is hardly ever a lot of people).

The last 2 times we went there was maybe one or two people with their horses or just passing thru.

There are bathrooms and a well for water. No showers No electric.

The river runs by and is awesome to go tubing down.

There are trails that go through so if you are an equestrian this spot is perfect.

It was logged off and is essentially destroyed. I think there's 6 "sites" and an open field for equestrian activities.

Very secluded. Nothing of interest in the nearby area.

Looks to be seldom used.

No cell service. Verizon is the dominant service up here. 0 signal.

I like the location; very secluded in the State Forest but only a half hour from downtown Traverse City. This facility meets the recreation need of a diverse cross section of Michigan residents. It’s a great home base or overnight camp for canoeists and kayakers (my particular interest). The camp is also used by mountain bikers & gravel riders, ATV riders, anglers, and equestrians (separate camp area). Large wooded sites. Primitive means vault toilets, no power and hand pump water. No reservations — FCFS.

Negatives: can be noisy at times with the ATVs and also large camping groups. But for the most part I’ve found ppl to be respectful. A couple of the sites flooded after an unusually heavy rain today, so I would avoid any site that looks low if rain is expected.

Site 16 is good. High and dry after the rain.

The Luzerne Express Campground is literally all you need in one spot. The whole place is incredibly accommodating. Friendly, helpful staff. There is an array of sites available plus RV’s and Cabins for rent so winter camping here is a blast. The area is a trail riders Mecca. From horseback riding to ATV’s. There are horse pens available at the campground for overnight horse camping as well at a very reasonable rate. Walk right off the campground into the Huron National Forest.

Family friendly, there is fishing and canoeing, fire pits and swimming in the lake. They have a camp for horses too.

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

This campground is in some lower ground, with a beautiful river running though it. It's fairly wide open, with trees around, but this was great as it made stargazing easy. We were here for a night as we were traveling on the Michigan Shore to Shore Trail, the overall experience was excellent!

This is one of the worst campgrounds I have ever been to. The bathrooms and showers close at 10pm, and the restrooms themselves are nasty, the showers cost $2 (in quarters) for 6 minutes of lukewarm water, the locals are hostile to unfamiliar faces, and to top it off, the rental ATVs and dirt track to ride them on is o ly separated from the campsites by a board fence, so expect to hear all kinds of small engines zipping by at all hours. The RV trailers for rental are all used trailers circa 1995 and "refurbished", which entails a quick coat of interior paint and laminate flooring screwed to the floors with drywall screws. Guests who have rented the RV trailers are instructed to not use the showers in their trailers. Absolutely not worth the money, would rate 0 stars if I could. If you are looking for a camping experience that puts you in the heart of upper Michigan redneck territory, this is the place for you. If you want a good experience, look elsewhere.

We stayed at the trail camp it is quiet with no hookups. You can take as much space as you need and there is access to the river. We will be going back again next month.

Rustic campground with access to the Boardman river and many miles of trails in the state forest. Bring cash, no state park workers onsite, honor pay system. Lots of shade and when we were there not busy at all.

Awesome Campground! Not a parking lot, lots of trees! We had a family, socially distant reunion with 6 sites. We rented a extra site, so nobody could rent near us, sooo nice! Very close to Manistee River and canoe/raft liveries, very fun family togetherness activity.

Very clean bath houses and campground is maintained well.

Internet worked well using our hotspots, but, like all campgrounds, if you like being “in the woods;” internet is always a challenge. Most of our group had AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, the best service seemed to be Verizon in the morning and Sprint at night.

We will be going back

We thought this would be a good place for our first trip in our new to us 5th wheel! We have a 28.6ft 5th wheel and had not problem getting in and parked! Management did an awesome job of spreading out guests until they were full! Lots of things for the kids, basketball, volly ball, a beach area, pond with fishing….. so much more. Very clean, very kind and helpful staff!

Great campground, larger sites, pull thru sites available. Low rates even on holidays. Our first time there was 4th of July weekend, they have a large building for events....over the weekend they a concert! Live band and food truck....free to all campers and their friends! It was a great time and the owners and manager are very friendly. We will definitely be back there soon.

Website to check is www.northwesternmichiganfair.net/campground-information/

Campground is closed July 28th - August 11th

They have electric on all sites, both water and electric on some sites and a dump station. There's a bathhouse with limited individual showers

We stayed July 2021 for an RV rally. We had no building of shelter for community gatherings. But, weather cooperated and we had a great time.

Power 50/30 were fine. Water is a shared spigot on most sites, but some sites have water. There is a good dump station. Sites are level. No landscaping.

Lots of restaurants and attractions in Traverse City.

We would stay again.

Nice people. Some sites are electric only, some include water. Not busy and quiet. Did not use bathhouse.

We have a 36 ft Class A with a Cherokee Trailhawk tow and stayed in site 107 for 3 days in mid July. This is a relatively large CG, just under 100 wooded sites, which are reasonably spaced for a private CG. The CG is very clean and well maintained, but rather on the pricy side, even with all of the amenities. The roads and sites are gravel. Our site had a fair bit of slope side to side, which I mentioned to the person that led us to our site. He said they’d look into it. During the week, the CG was only about 1/3 full, but completely filled up on the weekend.  AT&T coverage fair, with 2 Bars of service that fluctuated between 5G and LTE, with speeds up to 4.3 MB/s. The CG is pretty heavily wooded, so access to satellite TV and/or Starlink is highly dependent on location. We had marginal views of the southern and northern skies, but we were able to get DISH coverage on all three western satellites at our site and Starlink was able to get speeds up to 6.5 MB/s. Unfortunately, the CG WiFi wasn’t very usable, less than 1 MB/s, even before the CG filled up.

Sites not paved and entrance roads not paved!!!