Best Glamping near Balsam, MN

Loved the proximity of True Nortb to both Crosby restaurants and bars and the incredible trails of Cuyuna Country. Lovely cabins for glamping with incredible views of Armour Mine 2. Nice beach for summer. Bathrooms were fine but the men's password didn't work and it took away to get someone to fix it since this campground wasn't staffed. Looking forward to our next stay nevertheless!

True North Basecamp is great for those wanting to “camp lite”. You’re enjoying the outdoors & camping in a tent but there’s a bathroom (outhouse style) & fresh cold water near by. Town is close enough you can even skip the cooking if you choose. Heck, the BBQ joint in town (excellent, btw) even delivers to the campground! The heated shower house has modern toilets if needed. The hot shower is nice after riding the trails all day. I wouldn’t call it glamping but it’s definitely not backcountry camping in the least. We go here for Mtb trail riding trips for all these features. Close enough to town to bike in, trail access from the campground, a lake/beach area in camp & clean, quiet campsites makes this a favorite spot.

As this was our second time here at Minnesota National, we had no problem finding the course or RV park. The RV navigation in our new Ford 450 was also spot on. When you turn in at the golf course, drive all the way to the club house/lodge parking lot and there’s a road to the right that takes you into the campground (CG). As you check-in online prior to arrival, you simply proceed to your camp site. As you turn down the short road to the CG, there’s a sign to help you identify your site location. We proceeded to back-in site 25 with full hook ups. The utilities are in the back of pad in this CG, so you may need 20+ feet of electric, sewer, or water cord/hose depending on your rig’s configuration. The sewer grade is a bit up hill. We got 3 bars LTE on Verizon and no CG WiFi. There is only a vault toilet/out house in the CG. We came here to golf for two weeks. The 18 hole course is quite challenging where the 9 hole Savannah is shorter and a little bit easier. The golf course restaurant has decent food and a good deal on draft beer during their Sunday to Thursday Happy Hours.There is not much more to do here except golf. McGregor is about 15 minutes away and is where we did laundry and got our groceries.

We camp frequently in Minnesota state parks. This had to be one of the hardest parks to find. The lack of signage is really a problem here. If you are camping, you need to know you are looking for 'Portsmouth Campground' and ignore every other sign that says Cuyuna. The park office is in town and also hard to find. They are also not open very much. There is no wood for sale, no dump station and the water has a funky taste. You will need to go to the memorial park in town to fill/dump your rv and the Holiday Station for firewood. The roads are very bumpy and narrow. There is a tiny beach off of the campground and a larger one at the Cuyuna Recreation Area about 1/2 mile away from the campground. If you want privacy, this is not the campground for you. The outer ring has some foliage but the central ring is wide open with very few trees. The upside is that the campsites go the whole width of the inner ring. There are lots of bike trails at this campground and people love mountain biking here.

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Our RV GPs took us to the golf course, but we called the info phone number, which was the golf course clubhouse, to find out exactly how to get to the campground(CG) area. We were told to take the main road into the clubhouse, and right at the clubhouse, there’s a road to the right with a sign that shows the CG and where the sites are situated. We went in that way, where our other travel partner went past the golf course entrance(on the left side of the road) and took the unmarked RV park entrance less than a 1/4 mile past on the left. Either way works fine. We had registered online so we could go straight to the CG and to site 25 with FHUs. We had no issues backing our 40’ Brinkley TH into the site and still had room to put our patio down and park our F-450. The only problem with site 25 is that the entrance to site 24 comes in at a weird angle right next to the entrance of site 25. If our truck was centered on site 25, someone coming into site 24 might clip our truck. The utilities are in the far back of the site. I needed about 20’ of sewer, electric, and water hose to reach my rig. We got our Starlink maneuvered around the trees to get a good north shot of the sky. The loop we were in had quite a few trees along with the first loop as you come into the CG from the clubhouse area. The 44-50 loop more towards the golf course had fewer trees to block satellite. We got 3 bars LTE on Verizon, and there was no CG WiFi. The water pressure is very good at 60+ psi, so suggest a reducer. The sites were gravel with a picnic table and a nice fire pit. There were three 5th wheels in our group, and we parked in adjacent sites and did not need to use levelers; all the sites here are FHUs, and the CG does not have a dump station. There was one outhouse in the CG, along with a dumpster. The clubhouse has a locker room and shower, but there is no CG information or rules we saw at the clubhouse about the CG or whether you can use the showers, and we did not ask. The workers at the pro shop could answer simple questions about the CG. There is no playground or lake to fish, just golf. We had no issues, so did not need any more info or help. Occasionally, a worker drove a golf cart around checking campsites, and when we stayed, there was no CG host. The registration email stated that they charge 10 dollars a day for each dog. During our 7-night stay, along with the four seasonal campers, only one other camper came in for 2 days. The 27-hole golf course was in good shape and fun to play. McGregor is about 15 minutes away and has grocery, gas, hardware store, and restaurants. We plan to come back to this CG sometime in the future.

We always stay in the cabin. It’s a remote paradise! The price is right. Refrigerator, microwave, queen bed along side a bunk; double on the bottom bunk and a twin up top. The neighborhood is welcoming.

We are KOA members (who stay at a lot of KOAs) - our 1st visit at this Cloquet KOA was Sept 2020:

The staff were friendly. One staff drove a cart right to our campsite and helped us determine the best way to back in our RV for the most privacy. We needed a couple of items for our RV and the store had everything we needed including a hose adapter, ketchup, buns, dog treats & s’mores fixings. The camp is close to Duluth but still far enough away to get you completely out of the city and, while exploring, we came across Jay Cook State Park (only about 15 min away) which is beautiful!! The camp was relatively quiet. We were about 20 feet from another campsite on one side and 50 feet on the other. There are a lot of trees and wooded areas so our site felt semi-private. Our Pomeranian, who loves to camp, loved the woods!! Across from us were two camping cabins filled with 20 year olds celebrating a 21st birthday but the staff drove through often and we never heard noise. This KOA offers full hookups in some parts of the campground but our site was only water/electric so they offered a complimentary pump-out with a mobile truck during our stay. We will stay here again!

Staff here very helpful. Provided good information for our day trip to Lake Superior and downtown Duluth. Also info on other things to see in the area. We would visit again if in the area.

Nice campground...a little rural but close to town. Helpful staff, decent size sites and hookups. Pool area was nice but busy on our stay. Great family camping. Kwik Trip down the road has everything you forgot to bring but there's a full grocery just a few miles from the campground...small but well stocked.  Easy on easy off from I35 and close enough to Duluth to make a day trip. Would stop here again!

Sites are cramped, leaving no illusion of privacy. Bathrooms were cleaned every couple of hours, but highly trafficked thus quickly undoing the cleaning. Site was dirty - previous campers had left lots of micro trash near the fire pit and picnic table which killed the ambience.

Came in august for Thomas the train in Duluth. This campground is great. Tons of trees for shade. Everything you Need to enjoy a weekend away. Pool, hot tub, WiFi, showers, arcade, laundry, c store, and lots more. We will be back!!

This is your standard KOA with RVs and tents on top of each other. If you are just looking for a place to stay for the night, this campground will work great. If you're looking for peace and quiet over a weekend, look elsewhere

It has all of the amenities, including a fenced in dog area, but the RV sites are close with no privacy. The cabins and tent area looked better. It was fine in a pinch but not my idea of camping.

I fully recognize that my lack of enthusiasm for this campground may be due to circumstances on the particular weekend we were there. Our site was directly across from the playground and the kids playing at the playground were all pre-teens who screamed non-stop. Our neighbor also had a dog on a line that was long enough to come into our campsite. The dog was perfectly friendly, but he did his business right in the middle of our site and until we pointed it out to the dog's owner, it didn't get cleaned up. The sites were also very small and very close together. We won't be returning to this campground. 

We did, however, love the area. We rode the Gitchi Gami trail up along the north shore of Lake Superior, hiked around in Jay Cooke State Park and explored Duluth a bit. We liked the Streetcare Cafe in Carlton (great food), The Cedar Coffee Co and Castle Danger Brewery.

The campsites are large, beautiful tall trees, lots of trees for hammocks, and on the way to Duluth. We would definitely come back.

Decent four wheeling campsite for a weekend trip.  Located a few miles from the soo line trail.  A little bit smaller of a location and traffic.  Offers outhouses and water.  In town amenities close by.