MidwestWeekends.com — Your Travel Guide to the Upper Midwest
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Camping like a king

The best campsites await those who know how to look for them.

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.

If you can rough it a little, you'll have a great time for very little money. All you have to do is decide where to camp.

Many people think of state parks when they think of camping. Those campgrounds are great, but they're also the hardest to get into, especially on summer weekends. Yet there are many other public campgrounds where sites may go begging, in town parks, county parks and state and national forests, recreation areas and riverways.

The question is, how can you find out about them?

You can call towns and counties and scour state and federal Web sites. Or, you can take a look at two very helpful books, "The Best in Tent Camping: Minnesota" by Tom Watson and "The Best in Tent Camping: Wisconsin" by Johnny Molloy, both from Menasha Ridge Press, $14.95, and subtitled "A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs and Loud Portable Radios."

Each book discusses 50 campgrounds in detail, rating their beauty, privacy, spaciousness, quiet, security and cleanliness. Many are in well-known state parks, but others are lesser-known gems, such as Hok-Si-La Campground on Lake Pepin and the St. Croix Campground in Governor Knowles State Forest.

The Wisconsin book has a nice mixture of site description with information on recreation, but the author of the Minnesota book devotes most of his space to the privacy and spaciousness of individual campsites. Both are a little short on the kinds of things many people care about — whether there's a camp store; which beaches are shallow and covered with algae; which campgrounds are plagued by mosquitoes and which aren't.

Most campers would have been pleased to know, for example, that Beaver Creek Valley and Whitewater, both listed in the Minnesota book, are among the bluff-country state parks known for their lack of mosquitoes.

And neither book tells how far in advance sites can be reserved — an important thing to know for summer weekends.

But both authors obviously are knowledgeable and did their legwork. And there's a solution to the omissions: Call campgrounds and ask, always a good idea, anyway. Phone numbers are listed, as well as many Web sites.

Meanwhile, here's how to get started when looking for a campground.

State parks: As of June 2, 2008, Minnesota state-park campsites can be reserved a year in advance. Call 1-866-857-2757 or reserve online at www.stayatmnparks.com.

In Wisconsin, campsites can be reserved 11 months in advance. Call 1-888-947-2757, www.reserveamerica.com. In both states, some sites are first come, first served.

For details on other states, see Camping in state parks.

State forests and recreation areas: For information on state forests in Minnesota, call 651-296-6157 or 888-646-6367, www.dnr.state.mn.us/parks.

For Wisconsin camping, call 608-266-2181, www.wiparks.net.

For Michigan, check a map for state forests.

National forests and riverways: For information on camping in Superior and Chippewa national forests in northern Minnesota, check www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/superior/and www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/chippewa.

For camping in Chequamegon and Nicolet national forests in northern Wisconsin, check www.fs.fed.us/r9/cnnf.

For St. Croix National Scenic Riverway campsites, check www.nps.gov/sacn.

For Mississippi River recreation-area campgrounds operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, check 1-877-444-6777, www.reserveusa.com.

County and regional parks: In Minnesota, check www.co.(countyname).mn.us. There's also a helpful book, "County Parks of Minnesota" by Timothy J. Engrav (Trails Books, $18.95).

In Wisconsin, addresses differ. Use a search engine or call Wisconsin tourism, 800-432-8747, www.travelwisconsin.com, which also lists hundreds of public and private campgrounds.

Municipal: Call the city or check its Web site. Sites almost always are first-come, first-served. See 10 great campsites.

Last updated on May 3, 2008