Michigan state parks west side of the state questions..

For those who have never been to the beach etc at Grand Haven or even Holland, this may help you ubderstand what it's like:

The reason Grand Haven and Holland State Park's beach front CG camping is on concrete similar to a very large space parking type lot is because it's all really soft pure beach sand in the entire state parks and if you ever drove off the concrete, your RV and vehicle would sink down to the frame quick and you'd need a good big tow truck to pull you out! The sand in Michigan is not a bit like the ocean beach sand where you can drive on it. The type of beach sand in Michigan mainly only exists here and there's a little in Australia. The only two places on the planet Earth. It sings when you walk on it from the motion of your shoes or feet. That's why it's called "singing sand" or "golden singing sand".

There's sand sculpture contests, kite festivals, pro beach volleyball tournaments, college beach pole vaulting tournaments, skimmerboards used along the shoreline, windsurfing, surfboarding, and gobs of humans soaking up the sun and swimming. The beach is very wide at Grand Haven State Park and close to a mile long and parking for a few thousand vehicles right there. The city beach starts at the south end of the state park. The Grand Haven SP campground beach area has no day beachgoers parking as it's mostly used by the campers. The wide boardwalk with benches, bathrooms, and food/snacks out to the end of the pier and/or to downtown .7 miles is at the north end of the CG and all along the Grand River with grassy park after grassy park all the way. Boats galore everywhere and over a hundred huge ships in and out of the harbor each season. We love to watch the eyes of the visitors and the kids who live in inland areas when a huge 2 block long ship goes past them 50-100 feet away. Camera's just a clicking away and chattering away like magpies and waving to the crew while running to keep up with the moving ship. Something very different for them!

Occasionally you'll see a bunch of kids or adults with bare feet in a circle trying to play out a simple musical song by scuffing their feet at different angles etc thru the singing sand. Some of the groups we've heard are pretty darn good at it. The same sand is under the water but when wet it makes no noise at all. There's no stones or rock as it's pure clean light amber/golden colored beach sand and there's no salt in the water to make it stick securely to your skin. When it's dry, it simply falls off unless you have greasy sun tan lotion on!

Snowman9000,

"travelnutz: Do the no-hookup parks get booked up just as far in advance as the others?"

No, the no hookups parks are seldom totally full except for holiday weekends. Leelanau can be full much more often because of it's location but it's usually small TT's, class B's, and tents because most of the site parking areas for RV's is small in size. It's not a parking lot type layout as the sites are mostly between trees with some on gravel pads on the beach sand. It's really a very neat CG with beach sand about to the water's edge and mostly stones or non-sharp rocks under the water. The CG is right next to the preserved Grand Traverse Lighthouse on the point to the west which many visitors go to but it has a buffer zone of woods between them and also the lighthouse parking/picnic area. We've camped there about 5 times so far in the last 20 years, usually in the fall.

Thanks everybody for your help.

save

Both Holland and Grand Haven look like parking lots rather than campgrounds. Most don't seem to mind though as the best sites are booked from day one of the opening season.

travelnutz: Do the no-hookup parks get booked up just as far in advance as the others?

On the west side of the Lower Peninsula, Grand Haven has the best view of Lake Michigan from your campsite which may be only 100yards from the water and NO pbstructions in your way. Holland's beach unit being second and depends on which site on the water side. Both are very popular and reservations are a must as early as possible, and I mean very early! Orchard Beach at Manistee is probably 3rd as it overlooks the lake from on a bluff. Leelanau north of Traverse City is about 4th but has small tight sites with zero hookups. 5th would be the Wilderness beach unit west of Mackinaw City. 6th would be Fishermans Island but again, no hookups. Traverse City has some sites along US-31 that you can see the East Arm Bay when looking across the busy highway.

Warren Dunes with a long beach and Hoffmaster (2-1/2 miles of beach on Lake Michigan) have high sandunes between the CG and the lake but have valleys/passages to get to the pure sand shore. Muskegon, Mears, and Petoskey have low dunes about 10' to 40' high so you can't really see the lake from your site. Waterfront land on Lake Michigan goes for $10K to $30K, thats thousands of dollars per front foot of lake shore so most state parks have limited shoreline length in the very highly desired areas.

Several on inland lakes on the west side but an inland lake is a like a mud puddle compared to huge Lake Michigan where the sunsets are simply spectacular nearly every night.

Grand Haven.

Warren dunes and Van Buren are both on the water but the dunes are in the way to see the lake. Grand Haven and Holland both offer sites on the sand that look out at the water. Use the Michigan DNR web site to find exact sites. But plan on booking early as they are really popular parks and will book solid at six months to the day in advance.