Marquette, Michigan: Ojibwa Casino, Iron Ore Heritage Trail, Welcome Center

September 2024, 2 nights, weekend

We have previously stayed in Marquette Tourist Campground, and Rippling River Resort in this area, and had hoped to stay in a local campground again. You can find more details about those campgrounds by clicking on the "Marquette" label at the bottom of this post. For this trip, we decided the nightly campground rates had become too expensive ($45 to over $100 a night). And, Rippling River Resort was requiring a 3-night stay minimum. We also considered staying in a hotel with laundry facilities along the Iron Ore Heritage Trail; however, lodging for the nights we wanted was over $300 a night (and, our first choice hotel did not have parking to accommodate our trailer overnight). So, we opted to just stay in the casino parking lot.

View from inside our camper in Marquette Ojibwa Casino RV parking lot

Ojibwa Casino RV parking

Ojibwa Casino was in the process of building an RV park, which was not finished at the time of our stay. The sites are all full hookup, although I could not find any information about the campground rates when it is finished. There is plenty of overnight parking space for RVs next to the regular parking lot, and there is no charge to park in the RV lot. There were two campers that looked like they were staying long-term. This was our first time staying in a casino parking lot for more than one night. Other than the generator noise, which was not very loud, we had a quiet and uneventful stay.

View from picnic area at Marquette Welcome Center

Iron Ore Heritage Trail, and more

The Iron Ore Trail passes directly across the casino entrance drive. Heading toward Marquette, the trail is crushed limestone until you get to Harvey, which is about six miles. The tail is tar after this point. 

Since the casino parking lot does not have any campground amenities, we opted to have a picnic dinner at the Marquette Welcome Center.  The welcome center has several outside picnic tables, along with many state publications, and nice restrooms inside. WiFi was also available; however, the signal was not strong enough to use it in the picnic area. There are several more roadside parks and beaches along the trail between Harvey and Marquette.

Another sunset photo from Marquette Ojibwa Casino RV parking lot

Misc. and overall

This stay worked out great for our needs. We had planned to go into the casino; however, after we heard it was very smoky inside, we decided not to visit. We needed to get our trailer propane tank filled during our stay, and were able to do this at Ace Hardware across from the welcome center. 

Let me know if you have any questions, or info you'd like to share!