Best Tent Camping near Bovey, MN

Scenic State Park has a variety of camping options, including a small lodge, standard RV campsites with hookups, and standard campground tent sites. But, best of all, they also offer numerous remote backcountry campsites that require you to either backpack in for a few miles, or paddle or boat in a mile or two, and a few where you can access the site via either backpacking or boating in. The backpack in only sites are on trails a few miles north of the lodge campground, and the boat-in only site is on Coon Lake about a half mile from the Lodge campground boat landing, and then there are 4 sites on Sandwick Lake to which you can backpack in or boat in. Sandwick Lake is located to the south and east of Coon Lake and is reached by boat or canoe by launching from the main boat landing, passing through Coon Lake , and then down a channel into Sandwick Lake. To me, the regular campgrounds seemed pleasant but pretty busy; the remote campsites, however, are absolutely exquisite and peaceful and quiet and off by themselves.  we camped at campsite #6 on Sandwick, you would have to backpack into it by hiking about 3 miles, or you have the option to boat in which we did. The boat-in campsites do each have a small dock, perfect for accomodating canoes, kayaks, and very small fishing boats like ours; larger boats would have trouble I think, because the docks are firly shor and there isnt much room to pull in alongside them. From the dock at our campsite there was a sloped path to walk up from the dock to the campsite, but the three others on the lake have a small set of stairs. Our site had a three sided log lean-to as well as a bear box, picnic table, and fire ring with grate. Our site had room for one tent, maybe another small one, but we visited site 4 and it had space for maybe 4 or 5 tents so you could had a scout troup or large family at that site. There is a pit toilet off in the woods, "al fresco"  because the site is isolated on its own. The campsite we had was up on a hill with a beautiful view, and faced north for catching wonderful breeezes that kept the bugs away! The lean-to was great for doing food prep, and would be a good shelter if a storm came up. The grill on the fire ring was sturdy, and the bear box looked to be brand new and indestructible. The shoreline had a pretty dense cover of cedar trees, but you can swim by your dock, and the water is crystal clear! If you boat in to this site, then you will be off on your own in a peaceful quiet spot, but you can hike either north or south on the hiking trail that passes nearby, you can paddle or boat acrros the lake to the unique esker where there is an educational geology trail, or you can go fishing, or bird watching, or get back to the main part of the park for nature programs or accees the many miles of trails that have trailheads near Coon Lake. If you dont have a watercraft of your own, the park rents canoes and kayaks that you can use. The state park is in the middle of the Big Fork State Forest, and the Big Fork River Water Trail runs through the area with many access point nearby. if you need supplies, the park's camp store is currently closed due to covid, but the town of Bigfork is about 7 miles from the state park entrance, so you have access to groceries, gas, hardware etc there, as well as a small hospital if needed. All the campsites are currently reservable online, and you must use that system because the main park office is closed to visitors at this time due to covid, though park staff are out and about in the park for cleaning and maintainence and campground supervision. I highly recommend this park, and especially the remote sites, but they are taken quickly on weekends so you need to reserve ahead!

Nice basic standard USFS campground in the Chippewa NF.

$14/night, self pay, no reservations, no host. There’s a vault toilet on site and a pump-handle water faucet. No trash service here, please pack out. Each site has a picnic table and fire ring. 

Mosquitos were brutal here! 

Surprised to have ok (not great) verizon and ATT service here. 

A little ways from the campground is the day use picnic area and boat ramp. You can walk along the main road or take a little connecting trail to it, but just a heads up that the mosquitoes are lying in wait in this trail. We decided to go for it and try out the trail (instead of walking back out to the main road), quickly regretting it and almost running through the whole thing to come out the other side (entrance to trail is near campsite 21). 

Campsites were decent, not very private, and some were oddly shaped where you just pull onto the grass, with no clear driveway or parking area. But they were fine.

This is a small, quiet state forest campground, off the beaten path from any direction. The main activities are quiet campig, and fishing! There is a nice lake with a convenient boat launch nearby, nicely spaced wooded campsitess, room for RVs but no hookups. There has been some fresh loggin activity in the area so that does affect the scenicness of the woods nearby, as well as the quality of the access road if it is rainy. Basic water, basic pit toilets, picnic tables and fire rings, no other amenities besides peace and quiet and fish ready for your hooks!

What a treasure! I was the first person to stay at this campsite and loved it! I am a full-time solo camper in my 5th year. I love off-grid camping. My rig is a GMC Yukon and 17' Casita camper. 

Directions:

Address for house just beyond campsite is 8214 E. Stone Lake Rd. Forbes, MN 

Coordinates are: N47.286675, W092.549313 

Turn on E. Stone Lake Rd. from Highway 7 and where the blacktop turns to gravel drive 2.5 miles then bear right at the fork to remain on E. Stone Lake Rd. Just beyond the fork watch for the red 8217 address marker. The drive into the campsite is directly across the road and before you get to 8214. Park and walk in to get a feel for the site. 

A big rig could back in as far as they want. Smaller rigs will probably pull in and then back into the site on the side with the lovely clearing. The area has some residential housing but the campsite is isolated and very quiet. There is a fern-filled clearing for the campsite which is surrounded by trees. My suitcase solar panels worked reasonably well. I used my generator sparingly. 

I had deer, squirrel, chipmunks and birds including Pileated Woodpeckers, Barred Owls and Common Loons on the lake. I had less than expected mosquitoes. 

The campsite is very close to the north section of Sax-Zim Bog and about 20 minutes from the Visitor's Center. Further down E. Stone Lake Rd. is the Blue Dasher Bog trail. The lake, left fork of the road, has a lovely picnic area with vault toilets, fire rings, picnic tables and boat ramp. 

This was just the kind of hidden gem I love to find.

This is a small county park and campground off the beaten path. It is located adjacent to the Little American Falls, and alongside the Big Fork River water trail. There are several campsites you can drive into, and if it is not the muddy season you could drive with a trailer or small RV into some of the the camping sites. Although the sites themselves are pretty well kept, campers are advised to pack out their own garbage but it seems some folks don't feel they have to--so there is some litter around, and evidence of campers burning garbage in the firepits. There is little to no cell phone service here, no on site ranger or camp host, but sites have basic picnic tables and fire rings, and there is an outhouse available. You should bring your own water; any RV's should know there are no hookups of any kind, but you are allowed to use a generator here. 

The main appeal of this campground is access to the river, which involves going down a steep bank (there are stairs) but worth it for fishing or kayaking or canoeing. The falls are beautiful, and worth a visit. There arent official biking or hiking trails but you could easily walk or bike on the back roads adjacent to the campground. If you want more privacy, there is a canoe campsite on the bank opposite of the county campground, just downstream of the falls, that is maintained by the Minnesota DNR and is water-access only.

There is no cost to camp here, but also no reservations so first come first served. For maps, you can refer to the Koochiching County recreation maps to see location, which are here: 

https://www.co.koochiching.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/135/Outdoor-Recreation-Map-PDF?bidId=

https://www.co.koochiching.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/994/Koochiching-Recreation-Map-2018-PDF

The Big Fork Water Trail map is here: https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/canoe\_routes/bigfork1.pdf

And for more info you can contact the Koochiching County Lands and Forests office here: https://www.co.koochiching.mn.us/178/Land-Forestry

Toward the last minute in July of 2024, I needed RV spaces near water (that I could kayak) for two travel trailers. I found this campground and booked two of the last three spaces available. Three hours from my house, as the crow flies, I found myself visiting Minnesota's iron range. This campground is next to a reservoir with many islands and no current (unless the mining company is pushing or pulling water from the lake. The sites are of varying sizes and some are pull through. Leveling took me a bit, but I found just the right angle to jack up the front of my RV for leveling. My site was smaller, but still large enough for my 20 trailer, a screen house, the picnic table and fire pit, my Grand Cherokee, and plenty of extra room onto which I could probably have put at least three more screen tents, with room to walk. Electricity is provided on each site. There are no water hookups per site, but there are a few water spigots around the grounds to fill fresh water tanks. Because the grounds are small (45 camping sites) a short walk gets you anywhere on the site; like to the showers, beach, and other recreational facilities. Frisbee golf is on site. There is no tank dump available. The campground is surrounded by forest, so wild animals can and do appear. The lake is large enough for some long and interesting kayaking, and there are multiple kinds of fish (from bullheads to northern pike). The woman in charge works very hard to keep these grounds as perfect as possible. The place is clean and mostly dead quiet after hours. Two free showers per gender, but they have minimal privacy. The free showers have sufficient pressure to do the job, although you cannot control the temperature; which I found to be fine, even if it was not the burning hot showers I like to have. The sites have pretty good privacy, although during the day I had to listen to the typical chatting from my neighboring campers. I very much love this campground and will be back as my time permits.There is no wifi. We had strong service on T-mobile and Verizon, so we used our hotspots for media connectivity.