Manistee, Michigan: Lake Michigan at Manistee/Lake Michigan Recreation Area

July 2024, 4 nights, weekdays – weekend, campsite 73

We have stayed in this campground a few times, and you can find more information in my previous posts from: July 2021 and August 2016. This is a brief post with a bit of updated info.

View of Lake Michigan from Lake Michigan at Manistee National Forest Campground

Facility information

This campground has two reservable loops: Oak and Orchid, and two First Come, First Serve loops: Violet and Hemlock. There are flush toilets in Hemlock and Orchid loops, only. There is fresh water and a trash dumpster in each loop. There is no electricity, dump station, or showers. Generators can be run during non-quiet hours. It was very hot during our stay, yet this was the quietest experience we have ever had at this park, in terms of generator use.

Campsite 73 in Lake Michigan at Manistee National Forest

Reservable campsite in Oak loop, #73

Our campsite had a reserved tag on it when we arrived. There was also the addition of new pink signs on each post in the reservable loops, stating that the sites could be taken for one night, if there was no reserved tag present. Reservations need to be made 24 hours in advance, so if a site was not reserved, anyone arriving could stay for one night, and potentially longer, if no one reserved it online for the following days.

Lake Michigan Recreation Area / Lake Michigan at Manistee, Michigan

 July 2021, 3 nights, weekday-weekend, Violet loop campsite 87

Looking toward Lake Michigan at Lake Michigan Recreation Area from trail

Arrival 

This was our second time staying in this campground. You can find more information about this park in my post from August 2016. I am sharing new info here. Last time, we made a reservation in Orchid Loop, and this time we arrived on a Thursday afternoon without a reservation. We had thought this would be a good time to arrive before the weekend; however, that did not turn out to be true. There were apparently many vacationers at the campground because it was [almost] full, and many people left on Saturday. We got the last available campsite when we arrived, and it almost started a fight. From what we overheard, it sounded like the person across the street had been saving the site with some belongings on it for his friend who was not arriving until the next day. Someone who had arrived just before us, had taken the only other site available. When the person who had been saving the site saw us coming in with our camper, he decided it was not right to save the site, so he removed his stuff (from what we overheard). Apparently, the guy before us did not like the site he had ended up with because he walked by and there was a heated discussion between them while we were parking. I do not know what site he was on, but I did not see any campsites in this loop that looked worse than the one we ended up with. When we had driven through the other loops before Violet loop, it actually looked like people were savings sites in Hemlock loop, too.  

Campsite 87 at Lake Michigan Recreation Area

Campsite 87

Our trailer is 25', and the tar pad on this site is barely long enough to park our trailer and truck on. Just like last time, if the posts at the end of tar were a bit shorter or farther back, we could have backed up farther and still kept our tires on the pavement. There is actually plenty of room to park on this site, if you did not have to park on the tar. Parking on the tar is about the only rule we saw enforced at the park, and they are particular about that. In fact, the host stopped to tell us to move our truck before we had a chance to move it back over after unloading our wood. We also saw him stop at the site next to us during our stay to have them move a vehicle out that was not on the tar.

Campsite 87 at Lake Michigan Recreation Area

There was just enough room for our awning to open. We were glad that our camper door is at the back of our trailer, and not the front.

Hesperia, Michigan: Pines Point Campground and Kayaking White River

June 2020, Weekend, 2 nights, Campsites 9 and 10 

We had driven to this campground in our car to check it out during the pandemic when it was closed, because we wanted to make sure we could get our fifth wheel back to the campsites. Be sure to follow the brown campground signs on the road, and not your GPS when arriving. Our GPS told us to drive down a seasonal road, as did our friend's and our son's. Our son decided to follow his GPS, even though I had told him not to. He said that a ways down the seasonal road, there is a sign that says, "Your GPS is wrong. This is not the way to the campground." 😳 I wish he had taken a photo of the sign! Seems like that sign would be a lot more helpful at the start of the seasonal road. Luckily, he was in his car and not pulling a camper.

Campground arrival and campsites 6 through 10

We had planned to stay in this campground 3 nights; however, the opening was delayed due to the stay home order, and it did not open until Friday morning, June 12th. We were one of the first campers to arrive that morning. We took site 9, and our friends camped on site 10. 

Pines Point campsite 10, site 9 is to the right

Campsite 9 is very spacious; however, it does not have a tar pad. The dirt ground is hard packed and fairly level. We parked on a slight angle, and the campground host came over to tell us we could not park that way. It was difficult to know exactly how he wanted us to park, since this site does not have a pad like the others. We straightened our rig out somewhat, and he did not say anything more about that. He did, however, charge us for our kayak trailer, which we later found out we should not have had to pay for. Initially, he told us we had to pay for it since it has a license plate. So, we added that in to our total when we did the self-registration. Later, he told us each site is allowed two vehicles. Our son was going to be arriving later, and our friends would have parked the trailer on their site, if we had known this! The trailer is owned by both of us, and carries all our kayaks (the guys designed and built it). At least we have this information for next time we visit.

Pines Point campsite 6 above, site 8 below

Surprisingly, I did not get a photo of site 9. I am sharing photos of a couple of other sites we looked at during our road trip. The river is barely visible down the hill from the first few sites in the campground. The traffic by the first few sites is a bit more of a concern, if you have children, because during our stay, drivers did not slow down until just before the road split in front of our campsites (#9 & #10).