Are you planning a tent camping trip to Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake? We've got you covered. Finding a place to camp in Minnesota with your tent has never been easier. From remote to easy-to-reach, these Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake campsites are perfect for tent campers.
River access only.
Ogechie is the more rustic of the park’s two campgrounds. This scene showcases campsite #11, which is a double site with vehicle parking on two sides. This shaded site offers tent pads, fire rings, and picnic tables.
$23 - $46 / night
Boat in canoe campsite on the Pine River
This campground is extremely clean and charming ! Has everything ! Private.
Was here every summer in the late eighties and early nineties as a kid with my family and it’s still as nice and peaceful as it was then. I’ll continue to keep coming back every summer
The campground was nicely maintained. Had a nice pool and friendly seasonal campers. The management and reservation process was less than desirable. Very difficult to get ahold of management and upon arrival they had given our reserved site away to someone else and moved us. Paid for a water/ electric site and were moved to an electric only site and no cost difference or refund offered.
Overall a very nice camp for a 4 day. Roads are tight for 30+ rigs. Very rutted. Having a ground guide for the tight parking is a must. Reviews dont mention the 4am horn blowing train. Great time had here.
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.
This gem is well loved and cared for. What a view of the lake. Not too often you get sunrise and sunset. Hosts were tremendous. Clean bathrooms and showers.
The campsite was perfectly good: nice and spacious over looking the river. It is well off the main hiking trail and quite private. The view of the river is heavily obstructed and there really is no easy and safe way down the cliff to the river. Still it is nice to hear the river. You need to bring on drinking water, otherwise you need to go about 1/8 of a mile to a small creek to get filterable water.
The hike in is easy, but once you are off the main trail (the first mile) the trail is grass—be prepared for lots of ticks.
We got to the site and we had low branches asked them to cut them. They said they were at there standards so we had hold it up. Them the site next to us had to have rock concrete us and 4 others called several times nothing
Lovely sites with plenty of trees so most sites are quite private. Mosquitoes are brutal here, especially on the hiking club trail and to a somewhat lesser degree in the campground. We were thankful to have a screen tent for this visit. No Verizon cell service at the campground. Surprisingly good cell service at the Loon Lake area of the park, which also has a beautiful short hike!
I had the entire park to myself. Beautiful view of the Mississippi River, not far from the headwaters. Enjoyed the sounds of nature as I relaxed in site #6. I took advantage of the on-site fire wood via the Yodel Portal app. Amazed that I had the place to myself.
There were a good amount of spots, and I seemed to be the only person. Was a good and secluded. I did hear some weird noises throughout the night, but all was well. It is your average dispersed site. I made it fine with 2wd, just take it slow.
Nice campground. We were dry camping in the RV since there was no water. Still a nice place for a winter getaway. Will go back in the fall!
Base camp for fishing Big Sandy. Stayed here several times in a tent and a trailer. Nice sites but surrounded by swampy areas so mosquitoes are thick.
Very clean, pay attention to north or south entrance. Have to drive on either end can’t cross the dam with a vehicle.
But firewood before hand as well.
Small and well maintained park as you would expect for a USACE site. Super clean bathrooms. Level sites and great views of the Mississippi.
Road noise from Hwy 2 is a downside.
As a tent camper, i prefer quiet and private sights. The circle this site was part of, was just that. The walk to the updated bathrooms (with showers) is pretty pretty. It was buggy (mosquitoes) but fire and bug spray kept it manageable. The pit toilet next to site 18 had an occasional waft of smell but nothing too lingering or bad.
Nice campground well maintained. The water and subsequently bathrooms were not available but this information was available ahead of time of the state park website. The vault toilets were in great shape
The site was nice a secluded but still close to water and bathrooms. The downside to this specific site is that it is close to the group camp so it was pretty noisy.
Friday afternoon 5:00 finished out my work day here. I've had great wireless I'm getting 5G Verizon believe it or not. We're the only ones here it is pretty rustic coming in so if your camper is very sensitive you need to take your time. But the river is going past it's lazy it's quiet I hope it stays quiet all nice and it's $20. Hi Summer might be hot most of the park spots are in the sun but if you had a tent you can find a shady spot down by the river. Their are mosquitoes this year and I don't think the four wheeler trails are highly used I was hoping there would be hiking trails we'll probably just stay one night because the limited walking and I won't go in the high grass with the ticks in the mosquitoes. But it's beautiful I'll upload some pictures in a video.
Smaller campsite with less spaces but right on the waters edge which provides a breeze and keeps the bugs down. Wet spring so Kathoy was terrible but works here. Trails, town which has a grocery store, place to wash cloths and a place to trade out the books I've ready for a new set. Good connectivity so easy to work from with decent bathrooms.
I came in the spring it was a wet spring there were a lot of bugs. The trails are probably not maintained because it was so wet but they were almost impossible to hike on simply because of the amount of mosquitoes. The bathrooms are nice the camp spots were nice they had good signage for the archaeological stuff. It was just very hard to enjoy it because it was so overwhelmingly buggy.
Hiking was great, we saw an albino deer on the hiking club trail! Site was a bit tight for our travel trailer and a tight fit to back up on the pad. Recent rain had the campsites pretty muddy but the paved spaces were well maintained.
We stayed in a cabin for a week of biking. Excellent location with all the trails. It has a great swimming area, though it did get deep fast for little kids. We brought our paddleboard and had a great time on the quiet lake. We did hike up to the top of the camp area and were glad we stayed in the cabins. The shower/bathroom house was nice. Overall, we would stay here again.
You'll want to come in on 640th lane. The road does a lot of winding, and sections aren't always in the best shape. I wouldn't recommend any trailers unless you have 4x4 and the trailer is set up for offroad. Ideally, this is a better straight vehicle spot. There are numerous spots off the road to camp. I stayed over at the very dead end, which, on Google, is labeled "deer camp." It's quiet and deep in. Good luck. No amenities.
Nice well maintained State Park. Some sites (12e) are hard to back a trailer into because the main road is VERY NARROW and not enough radius to back a 24ft trailer using a full size truck, extended cab, with long bed. Nice sized sites and picnic tables.
BRING DRINKING WATER! The water is VERY RUSTY! We even ran the water through a filter and still couldn’t get it cleared up. Sign says better water is by the park office.
Can hear the interstate highway in the park during the night.
Great trails.
We will try site 34 next time, nice location.
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.
Some sites that are closest to the river are close together but okay view. Vaulted toilet and recycling/dumpster close proximity.
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.
Camping near Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake, Minnesota, offers a mix of beautiful scenery and outdoor activities. Whether you're looking for a peaceful retreat or an adventure-filled getaway, this area has something for everyone.
Camping near Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake, Minnesota, has its quirks, but with the right preparation, it can be a fantastic experience for everyone.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the most popular tent campsite near Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake?
According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular tent campground near Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake is Jacobson County Campground with a 4-star rating from 1 review.
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TheDyrt.com has all 26 tent camping locations near Mississippi River Headwaters - Sandy Lake, with real photos and reviews from campers.
