Reservation at Grand Haven State Park MI

travelnutz we realize from your postings that you are a huge booster of Grand Haven. How about backing up some of your statements with links to show us they are correct.

drsteve,

I stand by my comment that Grand Haven State Park is the most popular of the 102 Michigan State Parks is people going into the park annually and backed up by the Michigan DNR who is the controller of all Michigan State Parks. They do not count the estimated 1.6 million visitors who enter or go thru the GHSP on the boardwalk or off location parking and walk in. There's also a beach shuttle bus running daily from a big parking lot about 1-1/2 miles away on US-31. It was monitored an counted for the state by Grand Valley State University thru a grant 2 years ago. The long boardwalk go right thru GHSP to get to the very popular 1/4 mile long south pier and the beach without going thru any entrance gates. Foot traffic, bicycles, skateboards, etc as when the parking lots are full in the park as happens by about noon daily, they park closer to downtown and use the very busy boardwalk along the river to get to the beach!

The roughly 2 million is ONLY how many went thru the park entrance gates and there's no gates on the very popular boardwalk as it goes from the end of the south pier to downtown GH .7 miles distance and then continues miles further all the way along the Grand River across 2 bridges and into downtown Spring Lake. Yes, it's very tough to reserve an RV site at GHSP because it's always booked full all summer long and into the fall. That is what the OP is talking about! You or some other's may not like camping on concrete surrounded by gorgeous sand and water but GHSP has no problem booking full for the year on January 1st yearly!

2 million + 1.6 million is 3.6 million and doesn't include the gobs that come by boat either!!! I'm sure the thread OP has seen it personally when he was there!

As for Belle Isle State Park? The DNR nor the people of Michigan do not own Belle Isle, it's been leased for 30 years time period in 2014. Belle Isle is owned by the city of Detroit and was is a bad state of repair and crime ridden and scheduled to be closed down. Why, the City of Detroit had filed bankruptcy and had no money nor intent to either run or fix up the park as they were bankrupt so the DNR offered to lease the island for a 30 year period and initially spent 32 million dollars of state park money to repair the park island which didn't sit well the the most residents of the state. Meaning the other state park's needed maintenance was put on hold. Belle Isle is NOT an RV camping park etc either, just a day use park.

It was virtually giving the City of Detroit the initial 32 million dollars as the lease ends and the island reverts back to the City of Detroit. The 32 million dollars is GONE! The state nor it's residents will own NOTHING then. Many millions more has been spent on Belle Isle since then too. A very touchy subject! In other words, at best Belle Isle is only a temporary bailout for a state park not like the rest of the people owned state park system.

travelnutz wrote:
Grand Haven State Park is the most popular of the over 100 Michigan State Parks and has roughly 2 million visitors each year.

Belle Isle had 4 million visitors last year. Holland has over 2.5 mil per year.
The Grand Haven area is nice, but camping on a concrete pad in the sand is not my cup of tea. Hoffmaster is my choice, nice, quiet park with easy beach access and lots of trails. And shade.

travelnutz wrote:
GordonThree,

OP wants electric and that means lots of wooden steep steps to go up and down for the beach as we have camped at Manistee Orchard Beach SP and know. The CG's on top of the a overlooking the lake. Even the State Park site pics on the Internet show it too.

OP mentioned a few pages back they weren't opposed to boondocking either.

GordonThree,

OP wants electric and that means lots of wooden steep steps to go up and down for the beach as we have camped at Manistee Orchard Beach SP and know. The CG's on top of the a overlooking the lake. Even the State Park site pics on the Internet show it too.

A bit farther north is Muskegon SP and Pioneer Park a county park. Both have nice sites not on top of each other and less than a 1/4 mi. walk to the beach.

No steps. Boondock right at the beach. Town is a short walk for shopping and restaurants. Depending on proximity to the 4th carnies might be taking many of the boondock spots.

Yes there's a tiny State Park as well, with lots of steps. If you don't like boondocking or need electric and don't have a generator.

Grand Haven State Park is the most popular of the over 100 Michigan State Parks and has roughly 2 million visitors each year. The OP knows why as he had stayed there last year. There's so much to do at the state park and also around town for kids and adults of all ages in a very clean and safe local area with NO run down areas anywhere that you really couldn't do it all even if you stated there all summer long. 2 million people each year know why they want to be there and just keep returning! We know also because we have lived in Grand Haven for 76 years now. True beach camping on one of the top 5 beaches in the USA as so noted by a poll taken by Good Morning America.

Shade is not even necessary because being right on the Lake Michigan shore brings natural air conditioning breezes off the huge deep lake.

www.visitgrandhaven.com

I'd sure pick P J Hoffmaster State Park which is 5 miles north of Grand Haven and is approx 1200 acres in size and has 2-1/2 miles of pristine Lake Michigan beach and is just a short walk of a couple hundred yards on flat ground to the beach from your campsite (300 campsites with 30/50 amp in the woods having 4 loops with excellent bath houses too) over any of the other mentioned near beach CG's. At Hoffmaster, the campground has their own private beach section complete with a flowing shallow clean and warm sand bottom creek and very popular with kids to play in right where it empties into Lake Michigan. No long steps to climb to and from the beach like at Manistee for instance.

troubledwaters wrote:
Try Petoskey State Park, further north (about 3 hours which is what you spent in take down and move 3 times), on the beach, and much easier to get into. Also you can try Platte River Campground (Sleeping Bear Nat'l Lakeshore). I also second Higgins Lake South SP. Any of those is going to be a lot easier to get into.

Grand Haven, Mears, Hoffmaster, Ludington aren't worth the hassle to try and get a reservation - overhyped if you ask me. Lots of other (better) choices - JMO.

Petoskey is one of our favorites, but be aware that neither of the two campgrounds within the park are on the water. From the Dunes campground there is a short trail over a low dune and across the parking lot of the public beach area.

South Higgins does not have lakefront sites either--it's a short-to-medium walk, depending on where your campsite is located, but it is enormously popular with boaters, because campers can leave their boats in the water for the duration of their stay. The lake is beautiful and crystal clear, and well stocked with fish. It's very hard to get a reservation there.

Same goes for Platte River, which is very popular, and about a mile from Lake Michigan.

Most of the Lake Michigan shore is lined with tall dunes, and most of the campgrounds are on the other side of the dunes from the lake.

Enjoy your visit, best of luck finding a site.