Best RV Parks & Resorts near Mancelona, 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.

While it was pricey at $65 night, we had a very spacious full hookup site within easy walking distance of pool. Shower house was very nice and modern, with 4 shower stalls. Full coin laundry was helpful too! They had kids activities over the 4thof July weekend, and our kid loved it. The KOA is about a 5 min drive to Otsego Lake and the state park, where there's a nice beach and easy lake access. There's also a newly paved bike trail right by the lake for you to log some miles on. Nearby towns of Gaylord and Boyne provided us with plenty to do, and only a couple hours to get to Sleeping Bear sand dunes. We thought this place was worth the expense- big, flat, level sites with fire pit and full hook up. Nice pine trees and plenty of space for kids to play. Did not like the additional fee for kid to get wrist band for jump pillow and mini gold, but did it anyways.

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.

Full hook up great beach and fishing!

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.

Definitely a campground full of long term, retired RVers, but that being said everyone is very nice and the beach is right there! Downtown is also just a few minute walk away, but it's still quiet. We were only here to stay somewhere for one night real quick, and the bathrooms were clean, the wifi was great, and the guy in charge was lovely.

Really nice little campground. Not fancy, but clean and well kept. Pool and petting zoo for the kids. Small store with ice, few necessities and ice cream. Pond in the back on the small river for fishing. Quite a few seasonal campers. Anywhere from rustic to full hook up. Pet friendly. All gravel/dirt/grass sites. Most have trees. Fire pits quite small. Bathrooms very nice and updated.

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).

This is a nice KOA with nice facilities and amenities. We camped there in the July and our first impression when we drove in was “wow, this place is busy!” It is a very family-friendly park and you feel like every other site is having a family reunion with so many people at each site.

We were assigned a pull-thru in a spot where most of the campers were transients. (There is another section that appears to be most of the seasonal campers.) Getting to the site in our RV was a little tricky because of all the trees and cars parked everywhere. The site was level, paved and had a paved patio and was full hook-up with cable and WiFi (which worked well at our site).

The park is a typical KOA with tons of amenities and things going on. We chose not to use the pool because it was overrun with kids and seemed way too small for the number of people in the park. There is an off-leash dog park but it was pretty small for our lab to get a good run in. The laundry was nice and clean but a bit expensive $2.25 per load. When we checked in the staff raved about the onsite KOA café’s pizza but we didn't try it. 

The park is very convenient to downtown Petoskey but the traffic on Hwy. 31 can be horrible at peak times. It is also close to Petoskey State Park and the Oden State Fish Hatchery (which has trails and a great place to visit). There are lots of breweries in the area, a great farmers market, and really good restaurants. We personally loved Beards Brewery, Palette Bistro, and the Crooked Tree Bakery. There is a great paved biking trail located nearby that runs from Charlevoix to Harbor Springs.

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.

General: Nestled in between Lake Michigan, a waste-water treatment plant and a hospital is Magnus Park, a public city park and campground. 77 sites, 36 with full hookups, and the remainder with electric hookups. There is also one cabin. 

Site Quality/Facilities: The campground is laid out in typical RV park fashion with zero privacy between sites. Each site has a picnic table and a fire ring. Although some of the sites have somewhat of a gravel or dirt driveway, mostly it seems like areas where the grass has just worn away. IMO, if you are not able to get Sites 3-16 or Sites A-C which face Lake Michigan, then the best sites would be the ones that back up to the trees. When we reserved many months ago, we were lucky to get one of two available sites, and ours did back up to the trees. Be aware that sites 61-68 back up directly to the hospital. Other than it being imposing and detracting from the feeling of camping, the only thing I found objectionable was more frequent loud sirens of ambulances arriving. On the other end of the campground, there are nine lettered sites (A-I) that are larger but are on a grassy area with no driveways or defined separation. These sites (as well as 18,19, 20, 22) are close to the wastewater treatment plant. When I walked by, I did not notice any offending odor, but other reviewers have said they did. I did, however, hear a humming noise emanating from the plant. By luck of the draw, the site NEXT to ours (51) flooded significantly with heavy rains overnight. Ours did not puddle up too badly.

Bathhouse: Was generally clean considering it is part of a public-use city park. Rarely did I see anyone in there as most of the campers were in RVs and on our second day, it rained so no one was at the beach. The showers were warm with somewhat wimpy but adequate water pressure. They were on the small side, however, and are only available to campers with a code to access (although there was one shower in the restroom that could be used by all). 

Activities/Amenities: There is a centrally located playground. Easy access to the bike trail, however, it was closed just south of the campground due to erosion (north is not a problem and a short walk into the town of Petoskey). WiFi is available and you are given the access code upon check-in, although I did not use it so cannot comment on how reliable it was. 

Our first thought upon arrival was “yikes, why in the world did we decide to stay here?!” but the proximity to the town of Petoskey (less than a mile walk), and views of Lake Michigan outweigh some of the negatives.

It is a municipal campground so we didn't expect much but the access to the Little Traverse Wheelway and views of Lake Michigan were awesome - and full hook ups for the price was great.  It has a small bathhouse and the sites are pull-though with back to back setup (so utilities are at the same post as one of your neighbors) but we scored that the 2 sites in front of us cancelled (it was wet, cold, windy and in general miserable weather but we lucked out day 2 and got a bike ride in to Petoskey State Park and a stop at Burnt Marshmallow Brewing before rain rolled back in) so we had a big open space for the kids to bike around on and allowed a view of the lake.

link on The Dyrt doesn't work - try this:

https://www.petoskey.us/departments/parks\_and\_recreation/campground.php

PROS: was really quiet, our neighbor is a regular and was extremely friendly and helpful.  The bike path to Petoskey State Park is right in front of the campground and takes you by the harbor and can branch off into town too.  Really close to downtown (which we did not explore but looks really nice).  We originally planned on staying at the state park but the campsite was half closed due to construction (so it will probably be really nice next year) but this worked out great.  Full hook ups on long pull thru sites for the price was great.  Firewood was available at the check-in kiosk and there is a playground on site.  Bathhouse with showers.  Less than 1 hour from Mackinac Island.  I read mentions of the hospital noise and while trucks unloading during the day was noticeable during the day, we didn't hear anything from there at night - the camp ground did have a transformer that was loud the first night but it was fixed by the next night.

CONS: it is no-frills and could be packed in during summer, but that should be acceptable for the price if you are looking for an easy base camp with access to everything in Petoskey.  The bathhouse was clean but dated.  The campsites look like they did not get a lot of cleanup - I filled a grocery bag full of trash from our site and the 3 open ones next to us.  

Ideal site would probably be as close to the lake as possible - the road in front is not travelled much since it dead ends at the campground.  There was a city facility at the end but it was not open on the weekend and we were told is pretty quiet when it is open.

NOTE: This was our first MI campground as part of out trip from GA to MN via TN-KY-IN-MI-WI-northern MN before staying in MSP for a week, then return via MN-IA-MO-IL-KY-TN-Home.

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.

This park is operated by Emmet County and offers a very remote feel yet it is only 15-20 minutes from Petoskey, Michigan. Camp Pet-O-Se-Ga sits on the 1,080 acre Pickerel Lake and has 90 campsites which offer electricity and water and five of which are pull-through sites with sewer hook-up. There are also rental cabins, playgrounds, a recreation hall and pavilion, a canoe/kayak launch, basketball court, hiking trails, beach area, restrooms/shower house, and it has various events like pancake breakfasts throughout the year.

You really get a feel of remote peacefulness here but have the luxury of pretty modern facilities. As we drove to the park we got the feel that we were in the middle of nowhere but realized from downtown Petoskey it was only a 15-20 minute drive. The 300-acre park dates back to the 1930’s and started as a boys camp where young men learned various skills like archery, shooting, tennis, orienteering, camping, and aviation. Emmet County purchased the property in 1992 and added modern facilities and opened it to the public.

The grounds and sites were very well maintained. We were thoroughly impressed with how clean and cared for everything was. Despite having lots of green space and open fields for lawn games it was all mowed and not overgrown. There was no trash at the sites and fire pits were clean and picnic tables were in great shape. The roads throughout the park are paved.  Sites were a mix of gravel and paved but all ADA accessible sites and pull through sites were paved. The restrooms were very clean and seemed large enough to handle the volume of campers. Showers are in individual rooms across from the restrooms and were also clean.

You can reserve a site by filling out a reservation request online or calling. There is a two night minimum. The price was $22/night for Emmet County residents, $25/night for non-county residents, and $30/night for a full hook-up pull-thru. There is also a $10 reservation fee. Sites vary among 30 and 50 amp so be sure you reserve one that fits your needs. There are also some sections that are RV only. 

The canoe/boat launch has a floating dock that extends into the lake that makes for easy access. Fishing is popular in the lake with game species like largemouth bass, walleye, pike and trout being favorite target species. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqbMWvL2GLw