Watch out for cost of Michigan State Parks

travelnutz wrote:
A little explanation:

Have to read the OP's post as he was only going to stay one night and a very busy huge extremely popular Michigan SP and why was the cost was so high? There's more than 100 State Parks in Michigan and most are a lot cheaper than Ludington SP, Grand Haven SP, Holland SP or PJ Hoffmaster SP and you can include Silver Lake SP in it too just on the West Michigan shorelie of less than 100 miles length of its 586 miles of its West Michigan shoreline length. These parks are fully booked all summer long and have a very long waiting list. Must be a lot that don't think the fees over a length stay is too high as these SP's sure don't hurt for campers ever, for the last 50-60 years or more!

For most campers in MI SP's, it's a 1 to 2 week long stay there or in other MI SP's. So that reservation fee is a one time charge of $10 divided by how many days stayed. 10 days = $1 per day! Remember that the SP doesn't even get that $10, the reservation place does! It's your option to have or not have a reservation and you know the reservation cost even before you reserve or don't.

The OP is including the 1 day entrance fee and if staying in any MI SP of any combination of MI SP's for a total of 4 days in an entire year's time, it's much cheaper to buy the annual pass as it's good in any SP anytime in the state for the year.

So that $49 number comes way down to under $40 or even down to approx $32 at these popular shoreline SP's and still much lower staying at the less popular SP's. Mid $20's would be an approximate average including your annual pass and with no reservation since in many MI SP's parks, reservation are not really needed other than on holiday weekends. Ludington SP is a very old park and the sites were built when RV's were very small. Most MI SP's have much larger sites and many are paved rv and vehicle areas on the site. There are way over a thousand good camp grounds in Michigan to choose from with hundreds of thousands of sites. On average, camp sites in Michigan are well below the national average in cost to stay at. Been several threads here on rv.net forum giving daily CG cost per day to stay and even $49/day isn't high according to what had been posted.

Why stop at 10 days or so? Of course the longer you camp the cheaper it will be. AS far as the "reservation place" getting the money, they make the deal with the state. If they Reserve America like North Carolina does then the fee is based upon the contract with the state. North Carolina charges $3 per day for reservations. The park I mentioned is probably the most expensive NC park. Matter of fact not many other state parks in NC have hookups. But they also only cost about $20/day including the $3/day reservation fee. Matter of fact you can camp at the same campground I mentioned for $30/day without hookups there. And as I mentioned, no entrance fees to the state parks. But it's not really a good comparison either way, when you can say well if you stay longer or if you stay only one day.