Best Dog-Friendly Camping near Florence, WI

Park is located in the Peshtigo River state forest. Pet friendly!! Your pets are aloud on trails and with you at your campsite. They must be on a 6 ft leash. The park is beautiful. What surprised me the most was the pit toliets that looked like tiny houses. Pictures are attached. There is a small lake which is great for kayak and swimming. This park also has a boat launch onto the Cauldron Falls Reservoir. I've attached photos of the map. Almost all the campsites are private and hidden away in their own little spots. There are a few hiking trails which i enjoyed spending time on. If you go down the street a bit you will find Old Veterans state park which has a secluded quiet lake and beach. I spent an afternoon at the beach and never saw a soul. There is not a camp store. The only thing you can buy at the park is firewood.

We were in Site# 14. We had electric/water with a paved pull-through. We travel towing a 14 foot trailer and were able to fit both in our pull through site along with my jeep.
The site was easy to level but the wheels of our motor home were off of the ground.

Check-in is at the hotel. The RV park is not visible from the hotel (it’s back in the woods). There is a phone at the shower house that can be used to request a free shuttle to the casino.

Our site was not shaded with limited trees. This was a smaller lot with our neighbors fairly close.

The lot comes with a picnic table and fire ring.

There was not any WiFi (we used our Starlink). They do not offer Cable TV.

There is not a community outdoor kitchen or community fire pit.

They do not provide garbage service at your site so you must walk to garbage dumpster.

They do have an indoor Swimming pool at the hotel with a sauna and steam shower.

There is not a Playground. There are not any additional play areas like Bocce ball, shuffleboard, basketball sport court, horseshoe, or volleyball courts.

They have a general store in the parking lot of the casino where you can also get gas.

There are restaurants on site in the hotel as well as a spa. The closest big town with stores is Escanaba (about 20 minutes away).

This is solely an RV park. They do not have any cabins to rent or any tent areas.

They have one shower house. The shower house has individual showers (toilets & sinks are on opposite side of shower house).

The laundry facility is located at the BP gas station (located in the parking lot of the casino/hotel). It is a cash only facility, but they have a change machine. It is approximately $2 to wash and $2 to dry a load.

They do not have a fenced in dog park. There are areas to walk dogs.

Bugs did not seem to be an issue.

Some fun things to do outside of the campground are to visit the Sandy Point Lighthouse or Ludington Park in Escanaba.

The casino is smoke-free. It states that the tables are open from 10am to 2am. Not all tables are available though (for instance, roulette wasn’t always available and if they did open up the one roulette table, it wasn’t until 6 or 7pm). The slot machine options are abundant.

We stayed at Van Riper State Park three times during June and July. The park is always clean and well-maintained. The bathrooms and showers and generally always nicely maintained as well, and there are plenty of both. The bathrooms do tend to run out of soap and toilet paper at busy times. Dogs are not allowed on the beach but also cannot be left unattended in your site. The rules are heavily enforced in this park. Park staff will ask you to move vehicles if you have more than two, and you will be asked to turn music completely off upon quiet hours. This is not the place to go if you want to party.

Sites 15 and 17, as well as several other sites along that side of that loop, now have a wooden fence at the back of them, so they are not as large as they appear in the photos online.

We have stayed in sites 14, 90 and 93. We travel with a 34’ trailer.

Site 14 is narrow but manageable. It is well-shaded by large pine trees on the site. Site is entirely dirt. There are trees to hang hammocks or clotheslines in.

Site 90 is on a corner by the propane tanks. It is a large site. It does have some roots and low spots. It is partial grass. It has nice shade and is adjacent to the bathrooms. There are trees to hang hammocks or clotheslines.

Site 93 is a large site that backs up to a small grass/tree buffer. It is across the road from the bathrooms. It has nice shade. There is a place to hang a clothesline but not hammocks.

Pros: Clean, well-maintained park

Quiet

Lots of playground equipment

Bike/scooter pump track

Excellent beach area

Lots of green space

Hiking trails

Wood and ice available for purchase at the entrance

Laundry is available; one washer and two dryers

Very kid and pet friendly

Cons: Park website has out of date information, specifically that there is no longer a store on the beach, nor are there kayaks/SUPs to rent

The Water Warrior Island is no longer in the lake

There are very few sites with buffers between

It is sort of far to the beach and laundry from the modern campsites

No non-reservable sites available

We stopped here for a quick overnight pit stop on our way from Minneapolis to our final destination camp site in Rowleys bay , Door county, Wisconsin. We were in a bind & needed something last minute but we still had specific wants.....like privacy! Their online reservations were easy. Pics of the sites were clear. Electric hook up & a great rate!
This camp is well off the beaten path , narrow windy roads abound. But all paved & no traffic. In fact, we never saw a soul. The drive is lovely thru the Nicollet State forest. Although, you will lose service & it your relying on GPS directions, you’ll find yourself in a bind like us. But we got out our trusty map & winged it. Cell service kicked in just in time & we made it!

Check in was a breeze. The gal was lovely & helpful. You will need a Wisconsin park’s admission sticker. The drive is still a 2.2 mile trek beyond the check in building. Our site was perfect. It was lush, green, & private . Well sized, easy to find, part grass, part gravel. Picnic table & fire ring. If you need it , they have a few bathroom buildings peppered around the loop & a very well kept shower & bathroom building upon entering the campground. I’m telling you, this place is PRIVATE. It is out there.. but still very well maintained. We were impressed by that.

If anyone one else was camping , we didn’t know until we walked the dogs around the loop. Our site was surrounded by forest & the dogs were able to roam our site freely. There were mosquitoes, as it was slightly humid & rained a bit. But nothing mosquito spray couldn’t handle. FYI- if you have kids they will be bored. There is no playground that we saw. But if you just want some peace & quiet - this is the place for you! Most of the campers were older retirees. It looked like there were trails to explore but since it was a quick stay, we didn’t get a chance. We plan on coming back for sure & checking it out. For reference: We have a 19ft travel trailer & a ford truck. We stayed at site 19 , it is pull in & it was perfect,with plenty of room for everything. We took a walk to be nosy &also liked site 20, it was even bigger! Site 14 looked great for a pull thru site. There were also some much larger sites for bigger rigs. There also plenty of tent sites that looked great too. Dogs are welcome. As an added bonus- there were raspberry bushes everywhere! They were just coming in , but if you catch it right. You’ll be up to your eyeballs in fresh raspberries.. yum!

As of this writing, 2024, they have recently installed new showers and flush bathrooms. I live near this campground, so I have stayed at almost every site in the park. If you cant have or don't want a lake site, site #4 is the largest. It is almost 35 yards across the front. Trees are growing back, but not many mature trees on the East of the park. There is a really nice beach area adjacent to, but not in the campground. It is a nice short walk. Each site has electric hookup, and some sites have more than one box.  Not much ambient light in this park, so it is great for viewing stars and Northern Lights. This  park also is situated near the ATV trail, and has access to the 160 mile Blue Ox trail system.

We stayed at Bewabic State Park in a 34’ trailer. We stayed in site 61 which is a narrow site at the bottom of a small hill and on a corner, which made backing in tricky. The site was very nice and had buffers all around, with only a neighbor to one side. We chose 61 because on the map it appeared close to the bathrooms and park. It is close, but only if you walk through a fairly grown in path. The only park we saw consisted of a swing set and a slide. Loops A and B have some hills and tight corners, making them more convenient for tents or smaller trailers. Loop C would be best for larger units. The park has many C-shaped pull-through sites.

It is a fair distance to the beach from the campsites, and most people seemed to drive there, as the road is decently hilly. The beach was very small, with a large grassy hill behind it. The hill was unfortunately COVERED in goose poop, which was disgusting. You cannot have dogs on this beach, but the Canada gooses sure are allowed. The bottom of the lake was kind of slimy in places. We did not get cell service at our campsite. You could get sparse service at the bathrooms at the start of loops A and B, or at the entry.