Searching for a tent campsite near Marion? Find the best information on tent camping near Marion, including sites, reviews, and tips for getting the most out of your camping experience. From remote to easy-to-reach, these Marion campsites are perfect for tent campers.
Ada Lake Recreation Area is tucked away from the hustle and bustle of some of the more popular recreation sites on the Lakewood-Laona District. It has many amenities of the other recreation areas, just not all the crowds. There are plenty of sites to see on the district and Ada Lake Recreation area can serve as a home base. Clear water, a sandy beach, and a blue sky are all it takes for many to have a memorable camping experience. Ada Lake Campground offers this and more. The exceptionally clear water makes it great for swimming, and the lake contains northern pike, bass, rainbow trout, and panfish. Another nice feature is the boat landing which makes the lake easily accessible to non-motorized boats. The Ada Lake Recreation Area is near popular local site-seeing spots Quartz Hill, Jone’s Springs Area, Cathedral Pines and Knowles Creek Interpretive Trail. So, if you like to camp, swim, boat and fish then the Ada Lake Recreation Area is the place for you, conveniently located just 5 minutes southwest of Wabeno. Ada Lake is one of our dog friendly recreation areas.
We invite you to set up camp on our quiet shores of the Little Plover River and enjoy a break from the fast paced world. Located on 150 yards of water frontage, Plover River Retreat is situated by an old lumber mill, complete with a dam, which provides bountiful Northern Pike fishing during certain times of the year.
We have a wooded 5 acre homestead, with plenty of areas to set up your tent campsite. Trash bin and fire ring are available. We have one main site at the base of the dam, where the grass is mowed and maintained, with other areas available for additional tents. Can accommodate larger groups, but additional sites are very rustic. Each tent will be an additional charge. You are able to see our homestead from the river bottom, but natural foliage such as large fiddlehead ferns and trees block our view from the home, so there is privacy.
Come wade and splash in our slice of river paradise! Our water frontage is shallow, between 1-3 feet, and mostly sandy/rocky. Highly suggest water shoes for ease of walking and swimming.
If you’re more adventurous, kayaks and a canoe are available for rent and can be put in on either side of the dam. Tubes are also available for rent and can be used for a 45 minute float or a 3 hour float down the Little Plover River. It’s not uncommon to spot Bald Eagles, turtles, otter, and deer on our stretch of the river.
Each site is a short 3-4 minute walk from our main home where we are available to field any questions or address emergencies. Shores are quiet and mostly undeveloped. We are a 15 minute drive to Stevens Point, and a 25 minute drive to Wausau.
Firewood available for purchase on site. Flexible check in/check out policy.
$30 / night
Scout
Nice campground. hiking, fishing, bike trails. Tent sites 19.00 per night electric sites 25.00 no full Hookup.
Guide
Just off the White River, rafting just down the road. Boulder lake is clear and cold. There’s beach area, tent sites, tv sites with a few electric sites. Miles and miles of trails. We go in October, less bugs, very quiet.
Traveler
The tent sites at this camp ground are in the back of the campground located in the woods! There is a small pond with in the campground which you are able to swim in, kayak in and go frogging in! A play ground is present and the owner is wonderful! Very friendly place!
Traveler
I camped on the handicap site as I am disabled. The site is near the bathroom which is good it's a nice big site. It was big enough for an camper and a tent. Site was clean and well kepted. Was one of the better sites that I've been on.
Traveler
Stayed for the first time at this campground in July and loved it. We stayed on a tent site, it was huge and had electric. I love that the campground is right on the lake and there’s quite a few amenities for people who boat. It is pet friendly and the bathrooms are quite a walk but clean and hot water is available.
RangerGreat tent site on water, near excellent shower bath facilities, swimming and fishing right from site. This is only park that is w host in national forest, many others are available that do not offer discounts for senior and disabled w america beautiful federal pass this one does allow. With all amenities. W in forest there are many parks and dispersed camping as well.
Traveler
Quiet little campground, I was in one of the three canoe/ walk in sights and they were right on the water. All three sights were separated from the rest of camp and are tent sites. All have a picnic table, grill, and fire ring and are big enough for 2-3 tents depending on the size of the tents. Set back from a county hwy and state hwy, however not too much traffic and the traffic that does exist was not very disruptive. 2 night minimum, 14 night maximum reservation.
Traveler
Campground is adequate, it has a functioning shower house and private spots. I used a primitive campsite and it cost me $30 ($15 if your from WI). That was on top of the $11 non resident park entrance fee. So $41 for a primitive tent site, $47.50 if you count the bundle of firewood I bought from them. So yeah, keep that in mind if coming here as a non resident. I’m sure there are cheaper places nearby.
Scout
The park itself is beautiful, and the trails are nice. The tent sites were on the smaller side and kind of close together. The park ranger was good-natured and patient when we accidentally set up on the wrong site.
Make sure to store your food correctly! The two sites beside us were ransacked by raccoons all night long because they left their supplies out. Three raccoons came to smell around our picnic table as soon as we zipped up inside the tents but left quickly after not finding food.
Ranger
If you have kids looking for adventure, this is a great place to be. The camp is primarily used for a program similar to Boy Scouts called Royal Rangers. There's primarily tent sites with trails, a lake, an obstacle course and more right nearby. Camp Wilderness is a good place to initiate your kids with the outdoors and teach them fun skills. I last visited in July and look forward to the day when my kids are old enough to fully engage.
Ranger
Place is filled w activities for kids, heated swimming pool large large pool, water slide, free movies on fri night cartoons sat morning, the tent sites are on a mowed grass area w porta potties, but free showers and restrooms are in park, very crowded on weekends. Many rentals available pass for water slide includes free mini golf, arcade free games for kids to participate in.
Staff does well to keep up with the crowds, holiday weekends usually live music in pavillion. Its a place to have fun and enjoy others, not a quiet place, just depends what you are looking for.
It is on lake partridge for fishing and boating activities, also connected to the Waupaca chain of lakes, fishing pond w in park, canoe rental. They added a newer section for campers a few years ago, there is one trail for walks but along the lake shore swampy and tooo tooo many mosquitoes.
Ranger
This campground is right on the Ice Age Trail and a nice place to stop off during an extended hike.
There are not that many sites available here and most do supply electricity. More people tent camp here rather than RV camping. There are pit toilets but no shower house although there are water spigots for drinking water. The sites are closer together than some campgrounds but it's not like a city block of camps like some KOA's I have camped at. The night time temperatures dipped in the low 30's in the middle of May when I was there. The campground attendants were on site twice a day to sell firewood and collect camping fees. The DNR rangers do patrol the campgrounds on a regular basis. There is places all along the river to fish and I was told the fishing is good, however I did not have very much luck when I was there. The campground firepits with cooking grates were OK and the wooden picnic tables are worn, but there is level ground for pitching tents.
The scenery and hiking along the river and on the Ice Age Trail is great. If you had better luck fishing than I did this would have been a great camping weekend. Bring warm cloths and a great sleeping bag.
Guide
This campground has been my favorite so far this year! Great customer service and the other campers were the best. The seasonals were all friendly and welcoming. The other weekenders were all friendly and respectful as well. Upon arriving we were checking in and the owner was explaining where our site was. She asked if we ever have been there before, I told her no. She said she had a last minute cancellation and moved us to a different site just down the road from the store/bar/game room. She said its a better site, the site was amazing! Big and spacious, had tree coverage. It was a corner site so it had busy traffic, we were ok with that as we met many new people and it was close to everything for our kids. There were plenty of activities for the kids and adults. Theres a man made swimming pond, filtered and aerated. Like i mentioned before an arcade for the kids and a onsite store with all the basic necessities if you forgot something. Bar served food if you didnt want to cook. Everyone was respectful and quiet at a decent time. They had motion activated street lights to light up the roads at night when needed without staying on all night. They have water/elec sites. As well as rustic tent sites. You wont be disappointed with this place! Definitely will be going here again.
Scout
The campground is part of a larger park. There are multiple playgrounds, tennis courts, splash pads and even an amphitheater and ice rinks within the park.
There is a lot of traffic during the day from park visitors. The evening is mostly quiet, but with traffic noise from the outside of the park streets and occasional loud vehicles that can be disruptive. Morning was largely quiet as well.
The campsites themselves are small — if you have a camper there’s not much room outside. Even the tent spaces are small.
There are no open fires allowed - which didn’t bother us given it was just an overnight stop. You can use grills etc though.
Being a city park it is quite well lit - which has its pros and cons. The back left corner where the nonelectric tent sites are seems to be one of the less bright areas. We slept fine with the rain cover off.
There is a 2 day minimum for online reservations. That’s not required for walk up self registration so you can do one day as a walk up. Self registration has a 3 day maximum.
There is a bathroom/shower for the campers. As a walk up registrant you will have to contact the phone number on the board to get the code. Not sure if online registrations get it in the email. There are other bathrooms (no showers) that are not locked that are a further walk into the park though.
Overall it was a nice place to stay over spending $100+ for a hotel room on a quick overnight on our way further north.
Legend
On the Wisconsin River, there are four “loops” of campsites, with some on the river side of the road and some off the river. The main RV loop looked crowded, but it is also where the very clean bathhouse is located. There are restrooms on the other three loops, but they are not as updated as the main bathrooms and bathhouse in the RV loop. Most of the tents were put on the sites around the ballfield which is across the street from the river. The good thing about that is that the dust from the ballfield seemed to keep the deer flies at bay, which was not the case on the riverside sites. It’s a good thing the road is not too busy as you have to walk along the side of the road to get to the shower house from the other camp loops. There is a nice dock that is a good spot to watch the sun set over the river if you can stand the bugs.
LegendCampground 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.
Guide
Bagley Rapids Campground is located in the Lakewood- Laona District of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, which is about as far South as the Forest goes. This makes Bagley Rapids Campground the perfect spot for a quick weekend trip from surrounding larger cities. It's roughly 2.5 hours away from Madison and Milwaukee and just over an hour away from the Green Bay area.
If outdoor recreation is your thing, this is the perfect base camp. The campground entrance is right off the ATV / Snowmobile / Horse Trails which connect to thousands of miles of trail systems all throughout the Northwoods of Wisconsin. I've stayed here 5 times in the last two years and frequent the local logging roads on my Dual Sport motorcycle. I'd say over 1/4 of the spots are actually located on Bagley Rapids, a very clear, crisp refreshing spring fed river that runs around the campground. It's great to wade into and enjoy after a hot day hiking and exploring trails.
A couple miles from the campground is nearby Mountain, WI where you can get basic groceries, gas and a great bar burger. Within 30 minutes you can be in the smaller town of Wabeno, which is home to some of the best ATV trails around and also has a very cool old style downtown.
The sites are a mix of tent and RV with some really great spots with some elevation that back down into the river. It's always been peaceful during my stays and never gets loud and rowdy.
As there isn't a beach, small children should stay out of the river due to it's strong current, so this might not be the best choice if you're going purely for the water.
Legend
Great place for relaxing summer weekends surrounded by woods, lakes and countryside. Nice locals and stunning sunsets over rolling Wisconsin fields.
TravelerThe staff was great to work with finding a campsite on a walk-in. The campsite was very clean and read for us to set up our tent. The hiking and lookouts were breath taking
Guide
Didn't camp just stopped and looked. Small shallow lake soft muddy bottom no beach. Two sites close together not much shade at the two theres a third site down road a little bit. Third site is tent only very uneven has wilderness toilet.
GuideIt was a bit chilly to enjoy the lake unfortunately, but the hiking is amazing. There are great rock outcrops for bouldering and exploring. All over just beautiful. Definitely one of my favorites in Wisconsin!!
Scout
Very nice place to camp. Quite and friendly. Small but accommodates all types of campers. Has 30 and 50 Amp hookups. Tenting up to cabin, they have two. My second year long term camping here. On the edge of the city and close to everything.
TravelerGreat place to explore with the fam. Hike the trails to see pieces of Wisconsin history throughout. Some trails on the Ridgeline offer vista views and moderate inclines that add to the adventure. There's plenty to do from fishing to hiking mountain biking lookout towers and parks .
TravelerI stayed three nights over Labor day weekend. There was an ATV festival in lakewood that i was unaware of until arriving so there was a lot of dust and noise. ATV riders also frequently walk into your camp to use the toilet. I had to adjust my camp for privacy after the first couple of groups.
Aside from that the camp is the perfect size for vans, small trailers or tents. The ground is not very even but you could probably get one or two tents in there.
No fish in the lake. Don't bother trying.
The worst part was finding the pay station. Its at a campsite on highway T about 3 miles south of 64. It's $5 per night cash or check only. I spoke with a park ranger who was checking in at camps, he said they were going to post maps next year at each site.
There is a small easy to climb path straight down to the lake. It's a fairly soft, muddy bank but I was able to launch my kayak easily from there.
If you are hammock camping this is a fantastic spot.
Legend
This campground is right on Jack Lake and Game Lake. There are a bunch of trails right in and around the campground, as well as opportunities for canoeing on Game Lake (there is a canoe you can just use for free). The Ice Age trail, the 1000 mile trail that goes throughout Wisconsin, also passes right by the campground.
Ranger
As a father with 3 young kids, I thoroughly enjoy this camp for the activities and amenities available. The water area is a favorite for kids and the grounds sport plenty of things to grab their attention from mini-golf to the lake. The sites themselves had enough to meet your needs, as well as enough tree cover to still help you enjoy the feeling of being in nature. The drive in is nice and accessible even for bigger rigs. It's a good entry point for the nature in Northeast Wisconsin.
ScoutThis was my first time camping in a Wisconsin state park and I thought it was great! Our site backed up to a trail along the cliff which was awesome for a family that loves to hike. I felt for a state park most of the sites were spacious, ours was particularly because we had no site behind us. Shower house was clean. Will be back!
Tent camping near Marion, Wisconsin offers a fantastic opportunity to immerse yourself in nature while enjoying a variety of amenities and activities. Whether you're looking for a peaceful retreat or an adventurous getaway, there are several well-reviewed spots to consider.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the most popular tent campsite near Marion, WI?
According to TheDyrt.com, the most popular tent campground near Marion, WI is Camp Wilderness with a 5-star rating from 1 review.
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TheDyrt.com has all 8 tent camping locations near Marion, WI, with real photos and reviews from campers.
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