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I don’t do a lot of camping when I travel around this region. Camping is a leisurely kind of travel, and I’m always moving too fast. But that doesn’t stop me from admiring a great campsite when I see one.
Here are 10 of the campsites that have made me say, “Wow, this is really choice.’’ For details on finding
other campsites, see Camping like a king.
Saxon Harbor County Park on Lake Superior. I found this Iron County, Wisconsin park while seeking out nearby Superior Falls, on the Montreal River between Wisconsin and Michigan. It has everything anyone wants in summer — a sand beach for swimming, showers, a protected bay for kayaking and a bar that serves burgers and pizza on days when it’s too hot to cook. Sites are first-come, first-served — weekends fill fast — and cost $15 with electricity. Harbor Lights bar gives out information, 715-893-2242, or call Iron County, 715-561-2697; www.ironcountywi.com.
People who want choice campsites in popular state parks need to plan ahead. Here's how to do it.
Iowa: In Iowa, sites can be reserved three months in advance at 877-427-2757, www.reserveiaparks.com. The reservation fee is $4 if made online and $6 if made by phone, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays.
Only 50 percent of campsites can be reserved. For details, call 515-281-5918, www.exploreiowaparks.com.
In summer, the nomads are on the move.
These days, their dwellings might look the same whether they’re herding yaks on the steppes of Kyrgyzstan or exploring tidepools along the Oregon coast. The round, cloth-sided hut called a yurt — or ger, in Mongolia — originated in Central Asia but now can be found in state parks across North America.
Oregon provided the first yurts for its campers in 1994 — “No tent? No RV? No problem. We’ve got you covered’’ — and now offers them in 18 state parks, mostly along its famous coast. Then Washington state built some yurts, and Idaho and Colorado, and now yurts can be found in two dozen state and provincial parks across the continent, even in Texas and Georgia.
At its best, camping is like going to a resort, except cheaper.
You've got everything you need to have fun, except a roof. In Grand Marais, the municipal campground is right on Lake Superior and next to the city's indoor pool and hot tub. In Lanesboro, the campsites of Sylvan Park are right off the Root River State Trail, and campers can buy morning pastries across the pond at the Saturday farmers' market. In the Brainerd area, the Crow Wing State Forest campground on Pelican Lake has one of the state's best beaches.
People who need roofs pay a lot more for locations like these.
For people who love the outdoors, luxury is in the eye of the beholder.
Is it a Jacuzzi or a latrine? A four-course breakfast or a fire ring?
The answer is not so obvious. If the choice also includes starry skies, silence and snow-laden pines, many folks would take a camper cabin over a fancy inn, even if they have to use vault toilets and cook over a fire.
In Kandiyohi County, it's thanks to the last Ice Age that life's a beach today.
Near Willmar, a lobe of the last glacier came to a grinding halt 12,000 years ago, dumping massive blocks of ice that made big dents in the ground.
Now, they're lakes, popping up like mirages at the edge of soybean fields, behind screens of ash and cottonwoods. Farther north, they're hidden amid rocky meadows and rolling hillocks full of glacial rubble.