Wandering Wheels Campground

Nice campground with big trees, pull through sites, close to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and friendly staff. If you like to hike or mountain bike or want to spend time at the beach (summer only!), this is a great area.

We got a site here after our reservation expired at the Tourist Park. (I had all intentions of getting into one of the pictured rock drive in sites...needless to say that was a failure on my part.) And we arrived here and reserved a spot during a torrential downpour. We drive to our spot to set up...and the entire...I mean ENTIRE campsite was flooded, with no chance of us setting up. It wasn't just our site, multiple sites were completely flooded out. I went back to the desk and told them the problem. They told us we could set up on their front lawn instead. You know, right by the road. Neat. I agreed and since we were hangry we got food and waited for the rain to stop. We came back a few hours later and miraculously the puddles disappeared. Yay. We set up, and hoped the storms were over, because if they happened again we would have had flooded tents. Not for lack of good products, but for lack of drainage/height. The water was that deep. As for noise, once again in Munising I had to get up at 1am to tell some loud, drunk @ss 5th wheel neighbors a couple sites down to STFU.

Also, for what it's worth, we had little to no choice of campgrounds during this trip. Everything was booked. (again, I thought we would find a site within Pictured rocks. Whoops.) Otherwise we would have left after seeing the drainage problems.

The campground is right off the highway heading west into Munising. There are picnic tables and a fire pit at each site as well as a trash can. There is a short walk to the restroom facilities that do include a shower. There is a pavilion, a playground and a heated pool on site. The campground also has a gift shop with a few camping related items. There are also a few cabins at the campground for rent.

Wandering Wheels was a nice facility. It is in need of improvements with the playground and bathrooms. Also would be nice if it had a store. It has an outdoor inground pool that was nice. Our site was clean, level and big. We were against the pool. It was a perfect location to travel to the area waterfalls and other attractions. The only downfall was the nearby landfill. On hot days the air was very smelly.

This park is a KOA property and just did not work for us. It is a typical KOA meaning it is packed with campsites, kids screaming at the pool, and where you get a “nothing special” overpriced campsite. The campground has rental cabins, tent sites, and sites perfectly suitable for RVs of any size. Some of the roads are a little narrow and there are some low hanging branches but nothing to prevent large RVs from staying here. A number of sites have full hookups with cable, some have electric and water, and some have no hook-ups. Tent sites set off to one side of the park which is not very close to the bathroom or you can pitch a tent on RV sites.

As for amenities, they are typical of a standard private park being heated swimming pool, horseshoe pits, playground, laundry and camp store. They advertise 440 aces with hiking trails but I never found hiking trails. There is one section on the east side that has old roads you can walk but I would not call it a trail.

Let me explain some of the things we didn’t like about this park. The bathroom situation was bad. They just did not have large enough facilities for volume of people in the park using the facilities. Even though they cleaned it daily, it got wrecked in no time because of the sheer number of users and discourteous campers. The laundry room was nice and clean but only had three washers and three dryers so you either had to wait or wash at odd times. The roads, as well as your site and patio, were dust and sand which made for a constant mess. Our site (#15) was not level and we just gave up after a while. I’m not sure if they limit the number of campers on an individual site (or police it) because the two spots across from us were always loaded with people. There is a dump station but only one RV can dump at a time and it is located near the entrance/exit which caused some traffic issues at peak use times.

The location of this park is good – you are only three miles from downtown Munising and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Just south of the park is the Hiawatha National Forest which is nearly 900,000 acres of beautiful woods, rivers, and lakes with plenty of recreational opportunities. Pictured Rocks Pizza made one of the best Pizzas we have ever had. A narrated boat tour to see the Pictures Rocks coastline is definitely worth the price.

Overall, we did not have a good camping experience and would not return. Alternative campgrounds are thirteen miles south in the Hiawatha National Forest or at the Munising Tourist Park three miles east of town on Lake Superior.