Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Port Austin, MI

This Park is on our list of favorite parks to visit each year. With it being on the eastern part of the Saginaw Bay you have a great beach for swimming and sunbathing. We were noticing that this park seems to be in an overused state and what we mean by this is the bathhouses not so clean and not updated, sites littered with debris from previous campers and vegetation does not have the opportunity to replenish in between campers. The service roads although black top were in rough shape and hard to read the lot numbers. The State needs to send this park some love! 

The town of Port Austin does provide some tourist type things to do but mainly a quiet little harbor town. Port Austin does hold a Farmers Market during the summer months which has lots of local vendors. tour the Port Austin Reef Lighthouse, canoeing, kayaking, and hiking are all close by.

We arrived at the campground and it’s right across the street from the beach in their day use area. You are also not far from many other beaches if you are looking for options. There is an awesome farmers market in Port Austin on Saturdays which is within 15 mins of the campground. The park ran into issues with their water on our half of the park to the point they had to fully shutdown the restrooms/showers and water spigots. Our side(to the west) had the nicer bathrooms and showers setup individually outside the restrooms which were recently upgraded. We got diverted to the other end where bathrooms were dated and had only two showers for each sex inside their specific bathrooms. It was disappointing for sure. Our specific site was tight for a larger trailer because of a large tree right next to the road at the corner making it hard to maneuver around and place trailer away from the fire pit.

This park is in a great location—The Thumb felt quite isolated. There are some pretty rad sites right on Lake Huron—unfortunately, we were on site 41 which buts right up against a main road and it got quite loud at times (especially on the weekends). Bathrooms were good for a state park. The beach was a little small, but water levels are high this year. DNR staff were pleasant, helpful and good at being present. Firewood is for sale at the gate for $5 a bundle. This campground is close to Caseville, Bad Axe and Port Austin where I would recommend renting a kayak and checking out Turnip Rock (only accessible by H2O). This park didn’t get a full 5 stars because of the proximity to the road (which wasn’t really that bad…). Great Park!

We chose this campground because it had rustic/tent sites left and because it is right on the water. I chose the last of the rustic sites because they appeared on the maps to be on the edge of the property, and we hoped that would allow our crew some privacy/quiet. Unfortunately we ended up between 2 roads so we heard a lot of cars, more in the mornings because folks also come to use the boat launch. There aren’t any trees on the lots, which we found disappointing.

Wood was easily accessible - drop $5.00 and grab a bundle - and clean water was available. The bathhouse was clean and easy to get to. The sites were nice and grassy and the fire pits were cleaned out. Each site had a picnic table, which were in good condition. Loved that we were close to the lighthouse and to Port Austin (we went to the farmers market and t PAK) and Port Crescent State Park for hiking.

We would camp here again but try to get a site on the water, so as to have some nature views.

We rented their pet-friendly cabin.  It consists of a single room, two bunk beds, a table mounted to the wall, two chairs, a mini fridge, a microwave, coffee pot, a wall heater and a wall-mounted fan.  Nothing fancy, but serviceable.  There's a site with a picnic table, grill, and fire pit, connected to the cabin, as well as a decent sized front porch.  Also nearby the dumping station, but this isn't as bad as it could be, at least during our midweek stays ((We've done two weekday stays.)  There's a patch of grass across the drive, where puppy potty bags are dispensed, for easy bathroom breaks with the dogs, and it is also close to the campground host site and firewood vending machine.  The firewood is really decent quality, and the machine accepts cards, which is nice, compared to other parks.  The bathrooms/showers are a short walk away, and are really a lot nicer than most state park facilities.  Several accessible/family restrooms are available, offering shower seats, benches, a dual height showerhead, sink, and toilet with grab bars, all in one lockable room.  Several campsites are one the waterfront.  As other's have mentioned, the beach is seeing some significant changes, due to historically high lake levels, which has forced several campsites to close, and the designated dog beach to be inaccessible.  They have alleviated this by shifting the pet-friendly beach area to the site of the closed campsites.  It is still an amazingly beautiful place to just sit in awe of the beauty of Lake Huron.  There is a two mile nature trail that winds through the outer part of the park, and it supplied a great hike with our dogs.  The park itself is within a reasonable walk to the local grocery store, utilizing a paved path that leads from the campground to the town.  We just love it there.  The only thing holding back from a five star is the beach area's struggles.  But that doesn't even feel fair, because there's little that humans can do at this point, to change that.