Best Glamping near Lake City, MN

Each cabin has four sleeping spots: 2 bunk beds, and the 2 couches convert to beds. There's a heater inside, but no AC, which makes these the most suitable during the spring and fall.

There is a fire ring outside of each cabin, along with a table. No cooking is allowed inside the cabins, which can make things rough if the weather isn't cooperating. 

We enjoy hiking around the trails, but we primarily go to decompress, lounge around, and play games, read, etc. There's WiFi available, but depending on which cabin you reserve signal will be took weak for real usage. Same for mobile data -- don't plan on cell service here.

The bathroom facilities are nice. Outside water is shut off during some parts of the year, so bring your own drinking water if you are camping close to/during winter.

Cabins are accessible for those who need special assistance, which is nice. The only caveat is I don't recall there being an automatic door opener to the cabins.

While the cabins are close together, noise is not a factor once you're inside. 

It's difficult to get reservations, so I recommend trying to start booking 120 days in advance, which is the farthest out you can reserve. For example, as of this review (early June), all weekends are booked for all cabins.

Chester Woods is a county park just east of Rochester, MN. It has a campground and man-made lake (created when Bear Creek was dammed for a flood control project) with hiking trails, a horse trail, picnic shelters, a beach, and a playground. The campsites have nice, soft ground for tents, and electrical outlets are available. It can get noisy on the weekend, but the sites are nice along the edge of the campground.

The lake offers the opportunity to fish for panfish, catfish, and bass. There are a lot of submerged trees from before the Creek was dammed that provide good habitat in deep water, and there is also good shoreline structure and weed beds. There is a fish cleaning house next to the campground which has electric lighting, but no running water.

We stayed for 2 nights at Whitewater State Park with a group of 4. Site 53 was close to the showers and water spigot and it was a big enough spot for 2 tents while being private. It was a 10-20 minute walk to anywhere else. We hiked up chimney rock for some great vistas, swam at the sandy beach, bought ice cream sandwiches at the nature store, and enjoyed talking with the visitor center staff. There were a lot of picnic spots, pavilions, and fire pits for day trips. There were a lot of fresh black berries all around the state park which were fun to gather and eat. The Elba Firetower was a quick 3 miles down the road by car and was a nice little outing. Whitewater was a bit spread out for our liking and unfortunately the woman's shower/bathroom had toilets that were pulled off the entire weekend so you could see and smell raw sewage. Once they fix the bathrooms it'd be a 5 star knowing you'd have to walk a bit. We would stay again at 53, but sites 62, 63, 64 or the walk in sites looked awesome since they were along the river. They are expanding the state park camping which will be a welcomed update and addition.

Great state park with lots of amenities. This was only my second camping trip, my first being the superior trail with an 8 mile hike in and no amenities. More fun in my opinion to search for your own firewood and really rough it, but it was to have water and wood available close to the site we were at (site 22) because we got in later and lost some daylight. The hike in was shorter and far less strenuous than my first trip, but note that it is uphill. If you’re carrying a heavy pack, expect to sweat a bit. Paved sidewalks into the park, wide dirt and rocky paths into the camp site which was nice given the amount of other day hikers (space to spread out). My boyfriend and I loved that our site was so secluded. There is also a lot of variety to the sites. The sites 1 through about 10 (if my memory doesn’t fail me) are fairly wooded. Our site had a nice balance of wooded area and open terrain/sky. We were lucky to get to see some beautiful fall colors.

A few notes: the wood provided is THICK. They must haul the logs in with a truck. Saws are provided at the wood site, but be prepared to take some time on it. We had a hand saw so we were able to pack our packs with some large pieces and do some sawing at our campsite as the sawing station was busy with families and other campers. Lots of bark available to get a good fire started. The wood is not covered so if it rains the night before you come in, be ready to deal with some damp wood.

Water station takes about 30 seconds to start up. There are also two bathrooms within the camp site that are what you expect them to be. Hand sanitizer and TP stocked.

Never saw a ranger while we were there. We loved the privacy. Lots of spiders. Comes with the terrain.

The site was perfect for our hammocks. They are super kind if you want to call ahead to get an idea of what your site looks like. It was also great to be able to see what other sites were occupied on the day we decided to make a reservation. There is a grill top on your fire pit (we packed our own grill top, could’ve left it at home).

Overall it was a great overnight trip. Close to our home so I’m sure we’ll be back for a quick trip next year.