Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Mitchell, SD

We stayed at the Mitchell KOA one night as a stop over on our way to Custer, SD. The feature we liked best is that all RV, 5th Wheel/Camper sites are set up as pull through. We called while on the road to see if they had any open spots, and they got us in for the night:) The campground hosts were very welcoming and friendly. There is an outdoor pool, but it was pretty crowded (With temps in the 90's who could blame anyone!!!) and they have a cute little miniature golf course too!! This is a pet friendly place with a large fenced in area for your pets to play in. The only drawback we saw was the lack of trees for shade and privacy. You can literally shake hands with your next door neighbor while sitting at your picnic table.

We stopped here on our way through south Dakota headed back to Colorado. The staff were really friendly when we pulled in. Got us checked in right away, gave us directions to our site and sent us off. Thry also sell firewood for $5 a bundle. We are in tent site 4. There are only 4 strictly dedicated tent sites. you park across the street and walk a very short distance, maybe 200 feet to the site. The bathroom is in the parking lot along with a water source. The lake is on the other side of the parking lot. There is also a dumpster there in the parking lot.

The camp site is extremely spacious. plenty of room for tents if you have more then one. It's nice and mowed out with the bordering area still long providing an edge to the site. The four sites are clustered fairly close but the way it's landscaped, you won't see your neighbornuntil you step out to the path to your car. They all have fire rings with a grate to cook on. The picnic table has a nice shade canopy over top. The bathroom surprised me a little. most pit toilets are dark at night but this one has a light! it also has a trash can and hand sanitizer! it smells decent and it's very clean. it will quickly become BYTP but we are only here the one night so hopefully it won't run out. The lake is gorgous! it's a huge long lake and seems to be a favorite boat spot. water skis were abundant, which also meant it got pretty loud with boats buzzing, people partying and music blaring. this is why it lost a star. it was pretty loud up until probably 9 pm. The mosquitos are bad, bring bug spray!

The super nice and informative couple who own the campground (CG) checked us in and then we were escorted to pull through site 41 with FHUs. The site was more than long enough for our 39’ 5th Wheel and F-450 truck. WiFi was average but there were not many RVs in the park for our 3 nights stay, and we got 4 bars on Verizon. They do not have cable and not being too far from Sioux Falls, we got a good amount of OTA channels. The CG was well taken care of and very clean. We did experience flies this time of year and they were aggressive about getting inside our RV. I had some insect fogger and that worked well spraying before entering our rig. There is no formal dog park, but plenty of area around the CG to walk. The town of Salem down the road has your basic amenities and we enjoyed playing a round of golf on their 9 hole course that is decently priced.  Well run little CG that we would definitely stay at again.

South Dakota charges a day use fee ($6) plus a fee for tent camping ($17); I opted to pay for an Annual Pass of $30 since I plan on doing more SD camping this year. The park had East and West areas, the tent sites (4) are only in the West side. As typical, the more scenic lakeside camping is for RV's, with flushing toilets and showers, but the trade off for privacy and seclusion at the tent site was worth it. Picnic tables have built in sun covers which were really great and with winds I didn't experience any bugs or mosquitoes. There is no tree cover so I enjoyed the night sky. The staff is friendly and helpful. There was only one trail, Otto Stream (no stream, no otters), which is about 1.5m trail thru restored prairie.