Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Keweenaw Bay, MI

We come up every year for the meteor shower, and every stay is a great one. New shower rooms, and huge dog park are awesome!

Beautiful & clean. Great site overlooking Lake Superior. Need to walk over highway to get to water. Very orderly and great Park Manager. Family & pet friendly with awesome playground.

We stayed at Van Riper State Park three times during June and July. The park is always clean and well-maintained. The bathrooms and showers and generally always nicely maintained as well, and there are plenty of both. The bathrooms do tend to run out of soap and toilet paper at busy times. Dogs are not allowed on the beach but also cannot be left unattended in your site. The rules are heavily enforced in this park. Park staff will ask you to move vehicles if you have more than two, and you will be asked to turn music completely off upon quiet hours. This is not the place to go if you want to party.

Sites 15 and 17, as well as several other sites along that side of that loop, now have a wooden fence at the back of them, so they are not as large as they appear in the photos online.

We have stayed in sites 14, 90 and 93. We travel with a 34’ trailer.

Site 14 is narrow but manageable. It is well-shaded by large pine trees on the site. Site is entirely dirt. There are trees to hang hammocks or clotheslines in.

Site 90 is on a corner by the propane tanks. It is a large site. It does have some roots and low spots. It is partial grass. It has nice shade and is adjacent to the bathrooms. There are trees to hang hammocks or clotheslines.

Site 93 is a large site that backs up to a small grass/tree buffer. It is across the road from the bathrooms. It has nice shade. There is a place to hang a clothesline but not hammocks.

Pros: Clean, well-maintained park

Quiet

Lots of playground equipment

Bike/scooter pump track

Excellent beach area

Lots of green space

Hiking trails

Wood and ice available for purchase at the entrance

Laundry is available; one washer and two dryers

Very kid and pet friendly

Cons: Park website has out of date information, specifically that there is no longer a store on the beach, nor are there kayaks/SUPs to rent

The Water Warrior Island is no longer in the lake

There are very few sites with buffers between

It is sort of far to the beach and laundry from the modern campsites

No non-reservable sites available

During our trip through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this was one of my favorite campgrounds. The only reason we didn't stay longer was fear of our rig not starting up again and leaving us stranded. This campground had LARGE campsites with 2 separate loops and plenty of room between campsites. There was only one other group at this campground on the second loop which we never saw. The road to this campground is gravel and is a very pretty drive winding through the woods. At night it is very surreal as the only sounds you hear are the ones you make and an empty night sky. The canopy tree cover makes it tough to see the night sky but there are openings where you can see the sky full of stars. The lake was very peaceful and calm. There were a couple of small docks at each of the campground loops. If you have dogs beware the lake bottom is heavy dark mud and can be troublesome getting off your dog if they decide to take a dip. They also have clean vaulted toilets which is always nice(just beware of large spiders). We would recommend staying at this campground for an extended stay!

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This is a state park with a host usually at camp. Games available for campers from the host site as well as dog poop supplies. Great waterfront improvement with a store, kayak and SUP rentals, and inflatable water feature to use for a fee.

This campground has it all! Rustic or modern you will enjoy the beach, hiking/biking trails (many right from your site), boating, fantastic fishing, kayaking and year round events! The sites are large and clean! Even a park for the kids! We love it and its dog friendly to boot!!

the campground is very nice and so are the campground hosts. its very close to 41 so you hear a lot of road noise (reason for my lower score). there are train tracks behind our site. we’ve only been here a few hours and havent had a train come by. it seems to be close to orv trails, lots of people here have sidexsides and quads. no one has been loud though. bathrooms are nice and clean and showers seem clean too (havent used them yet). no laundry here if youre looking for that. dogs are welcome.

The one lane dirt road that heads here is almost 5 miles long. With the road closed just after the campground, people only come out here on purpose. This means that the other campers are the only ones around. The area ranger station is close to the start of the dirt road. It wouldn’t hurt to check with them if you have a larger rig. The sites aren’t that big.

The small campground nestles sites in close but still gives some privacy on most of them. On this weekend, most of the sites were taken. It’s a nice place for a free campground. The dirt road provides a nice long walk for our dog too.

The Michigan Recreation Passport Solar does not cover local, county, municipal, or metropolitan parks or recreation areas.

We are not a big state park fan as, in Michigan, there are very close sites and tons of noise. This one was relatively quiet. The site were the standard Michigan close but the campgeound was t full and there many options to choose from. The lake is real nice and the beach area is clean, spacious and it has a general store that has firewood for sale. We first reserved a rustic site, then changed to an electrical hook up site after arriving. The ranger was very accomodating.

Van Riper State park has very unlevel sites with no water and 30 amp service. Unacceptable with today’s campers. Time to update Michigan

The sites are overly spacious and well disbursed. Everything is super clean. Over a mile of beach gives every camper enough room to feel like the entire lake is there‘s to enjoy alone. I couldn’t be much happier with this campground. The best state campground I’ve been to in Michigan so far. It’s a gem.

We took a week long trip and toured Michigan. We spent 2 nights at Van Riper, the other campers were nice, the playset was large, and the beach was nice. The beach was steps down to the access (difficult with a wagon- we didn’t know), and the bathroom wasn’t the cleanest during our stay. The stars were gorgeous.

Mclain State Park Campground is the first Campground that you will encounter upon entering the Keweenaw peninsula of Michigan. It is located directly on the shore of Lake Superior off of Highway 203, and is within quick driving distance of many food options, grocery stores, and gas stations, not to mention Walmart. McClain has campsites and cabins available, reservations are recommended as it does get busy in the summer. The cabins are available for year-round rental and make for a cozy place to come back to after hunting or snowmobiling.

We discovered this campground 6 years ago when my nephew wanted to camp as far north in Michigan as we could. Since then we've spent 2 weeks each August tent camping on the shores of Lake Superior. The facilities are well maintained and the owner and camp host are the some of the most down to earth people we have met. There's a camp store that has limited supplies but have the essentials. Everything is based on the honor system

Hi, all. So, everyone’s been traveling haven’t they? Us spontaneous no planning SOB’s are SOL. My family could not find anywhere to stay and this was the very last campsite on the map in the state of Michigan. We thought F it. We will pay 30$ for electricity and a shower... honestly worth it for the shower. But definitely not a destination spot if I do say so myself. If you can, PLAN your camping. I’m from MN and am not used to having to reserve your campsite. Plan ahead and get the best of the best. Although, we did have weird luck camping at smaller lakes outside of pictured rocks for free.

Wonderful campground beside Lake Superior. We had a site backed up to the lake and enjoyed the sound of Lake Superior waves! Quiet and friendly, this campground is great for those who enjoy Up North in Michigan (like us!). Lots of places to walk our four legged camper (and us!) Plenty of room to pull in and park our 42 ft motor home! No WiFi but our ATT allowed us to remain connected and our Dish satellite had a good signal. There are bathrooms and areas for group camping. We would not hesitate to camp here again!

What you would expect of a Michigan SF campground: vault toilets, no hookups, hand pump, no reservations, $20/night. The outhouses are new and the sites are right on Beaufort Lake. There is a boat launch and small beach area. We did some kayaking and saw multiple Bald Eagles - they would fly over the sites from the lake to the beaver pond across the street. Local ducks were very welcoming and came right up to us. There was a beautiful sunset one night we stayed. Not too busy, only 3 or 4 campsites were filled over the weekend. We stayed connected by running Starlink off of a battery (very fast, no interruptions)

I will be totally transparent and say I definitely prefer rustic or dispersed campsites.. however, I always give state parks an honest chance.

Baraga State Park... I have tried. Ohh, have I tried to like you over the years.

However, this is the WORST example of what a Michigan DNR campground can be. They squeezed in WAY too many sites in this place. You can hear the campers next to you fart in their sleep.

Not even a stones throw from US-41 makes for constant road noise... and sites that have been submerged in water a day following rainfall. You always see campers here moving their tents, RV’s, etc... to drier portions of their sites.

The only reason I give this TWO stars is because of the well-kept and nice bathhouse.

I stop here solely to shower during my travels. I will stay on the side of the road before I set up camp here again.