Best Tent Camping near Oconto Falls, 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.

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 campground is HUGE! Definitely take a map if you’re offered one or find one. It is so beautiful, lots of shoreline and so many things to do from biking and hiking trails, to a lighthouse & museum and much more. Located in Door County, the peninsula also offers lots to do from Mini Golf to Shipwreck kayak tours. I could have spent a month here and still have more things to try out.

Do beware of raccoons though! Be sure to put all food in your vehicles at night or if you leave the campsite. The showers weren’t amazing, but I did get to shower with a tree frog, so that’s an experience.

I also suggest bringing an air mat or sleeping pad if you're tenting. The ground is really quite hard. We had a tough time getting our tent stakes into the ground and ended up tying the tent to trees in a couple spots instead!

Visited June 2018

We stayed at the Heron's Retreat campsite on the Caldron Fall Reservoir. We checked in at the Gov. Thompson State Park headquarters then launched our canoe from the boat launch at the state park. From there it was a short 1 mile paddle to our campsite on the northside of the lake. This site was wooded, with many tall trees which gave great shade, and also spots for hammocks. A fire ring and grate were included along with a picnic table and two chairs.

Bathrooms consisted of a pit toilet on site, about 40 yards back into the woods along a path.

This was our first time in "bear country" so we found trees to hang our food and garbage from to keep from attracting wildlife at night. Many downed trees provided enough firewood that we needed for the couple of days we were there.

The lake had very little boat traffic considering it was a holiday weekend when we stayed. This is definitely a site to consider if you are seeking seclusion as the next nearest campsite is a half mile paddle away.