Best Tent Camping near Maribel, WI

General/Site Quality: Small (35-site) campground on the west shore of the Bay of Green Bay; some have water and electricity, and some just have electricity. Sites 14-23 are on grass while the others have paved camper pads. All are level and very generous in size. While they don’t necessarily have a physical separation between them, sites are spaced a good distance apart from each other. Each site has a picnic table and a fire ring. In the center of the loop, there are some nice mature trees. 

Bath/Shower: At one end of the loop, there is a two-stall, one-sink restroom for each gender plus two showers; at the other end of the loop there are two vault toilets. All were clean. 

Activities/Amenities: There is quite a bit to do here. Fishing, boating (separate fee for the boat launch), swimming, kayaking (but you need to bring your own – although the literature says there are boat rentals, I did not see this). There is a nice playground and a smaller swing set; both are in different locations behind campsites, making it a bit awkward to access. In the day-use area, there is a fish cleaning station, a basketball hoop, and a somewhat dated playground. There used to be a volleyball area, but the net was no longer there. Self-serve firewood is available. There is a dump station.

The fee of $20 per night was very reasonable and our stay was very quiet and peaceful for a campground that was about 2/3 full on a Monday after Father’s Day.

We've camped at Long Lake twice - both times with kids, and thoroughly enjoyed. The sites are spacious and clean. Each site comes with a fire pit, grate and picnic table. We have camped in the 800s but hope to get back for more variety in the future.

Long Lake has two separate beaches and we much prefer the South Shore beach. North Shore is a little less populated, but the hike/stairs down into the beach area can be annoying with kids, toys, camp chairs, and a cooler full of food and beer. South Shore has a boat launch, clean restrooms and a picnic cabana that can be reserved. Both beaches are large and ample. We spread out with a pop-up canopy and did not feel crowded in or like we were imposing on others.

Long Lake is big, so motorcraft are allowed. It's fun to sunbathe and watch waterskiiers and tubers fly by off in the distance.

Campground Review

High Cliff is a generally wooded and shaded campground on a cliff overlooking Lake Winnebago. The sites are average to above average size, with a good mix of electric and non-electric sites. We are tent campers and the ground was pretty flat and there was a good spot for our tents in our site. Our site was nice and spacious with a good fire-ring that had a grate that rotated. Typically I use an adjustable tripod grill, but since was a rainy weekend, it was nice to be able to not have to get that out. The one thing about our site(and the campground in general) in the rain was the mud. Since it is heavily shaded there isn't really any grass, so the ring forest floor soil turns mucky and muddy.

There is one main flush toilet/shower building in the campground, and a bunch of pit toilet buildings. The pit toilet buildings had some issues with the lights in some of them, but the shower/flush building was mostly clean and not too far away. There is also a really nice playground nearby.

Within the park are plenty of hiking/biking trails, a lookout tower, and there is beach access. The beach/water is definitely swimmable, but this isn't the most beautiful beach for swimming. When we were here, it was cool and rainy, so the most we did was put our feet in the water. There isn't much sand, but there are large grassy areas.

The weekend we were there a local theater group happened to be performing a minimal version of Romeo and Juliet. It was awesome.

Product Review

As a Ranger for The Dyrt, I get products to test from time to time, this time I got to test the Wenzel Ivanhoe 6 tent.

I've owned a bunch of tents throughout the years, but mostly they were small backpacking size tents. We have use a large 8-person Cabella's tent for the past 9 years for car camping, but it is time-consuming to set-up, so we thought the Wenzel Ivanhoe 6 would be a nice complement tent for us.

The Ivanhoe is part of Wenzel's "Tribute" collection, with a retro-inspired design. The Ivanhoe reminds me of my parents' old canvas tent. The Ivanhoe is a single-walled house-shaped tent made of weather-treated polyester and taped seams. It held up really well in the rainy weather we had camping and there was just one small area that the seam tape failed: a"troubleshooting" tag that hangs down inside the tent.

What I like:

• The single pole design is simple and quick to setup

• There is good airflow with the large screens on the doors and the two side windows; The rear vent is a nice touch

• It has a great look and it well made

• It actually fits in the bag it came in

What I don't like

• The top peak vents don't really work

• There was a slight leak by the tag (I'll use some seam-sealer to fix this for the future)

• Since it isn't freestanding, there are a lot of guy lines that are easy to trip over in the dark

For a sub-$200 tent, this tent is awesome. It's easy to set up and looks great. It is a simple design that is spacious and comfortable for 3-4 people. It did great in rainy weather. I definitely recommend this tent for for those looking for a car camping tent around this size and want to spend less than $200.

This was the strangest camping experience I've ever had. It was early June and there were maybe two or three other sites set up in the entire campground. I made my reservations online for a tent site and nothing indicated that the site I selected was an overflow site. These "overflow" sites were scantly numbered, and there were fewer fire pits and picnic tables than indicated online. All of these tent sites were scattered in a grass field among the frisbee golf. We were glad no one was playing frisbee golf because it was intermixed with where the tents would be, so people would be getting hit with frisbees.

My friend and I pitched our tent closest to the bathroom because we could not find the actual spot we reserved online. We could not find anyone to ask about our site other than the waitresses at the restaurant who were very busy. We ate at the restaurant too and were unimpressed. Unless you get the day's special, it is very overpriced and the portions are small.

The bathrooms were clean (because no one else was at the campground), but there was no drinking water. We were on a bike tour and had to bike over 10 miles in the morning to find some good drinking water. I don't believe I paid $25 for something that was barely a campsite and had no drinking water.

I might of enjoyed it more if I had time to explore the area and the tower, but just dropping in for the night was not a great experience. It felt the campground only came to be because somebody wanted to open a restaurant and his buddy thought it would be a genius idea to let people camp there too.

The tent sites are a great size and semi private (you can have a conversation and not be heard at other sites). The bathroom and showers are decent and cleaned daily around 6 am. There are reservable and walk-in sites. The sites also have extra parking across from them.

There is a lot to do for kids a great play area, swimming, fishing, boating etc. There are hiking trails but not a lot.

The couple I went with had issues with the site next to them ( loud inappropriate language and using drugs) the rangers responded quickly and efficiently!

I have been there summer and late spring.