J.W. Wells State Park — Attraction in Cedarville Township

We spent the weekend of June 22-24, 2018 at the park. It was our first visit there.

This is far from secluded camping in the middle of the woods. It's more of a mowed lawn park with electrical hookups. Definitely geared more towards families with kids looking to get out of town than hipsters with man-buns and Suburus looking to reconnect with Ma Nature. There are a good number of sites literally right on the shore of Lake Michigan with outstanding views. Most of the interior sites also have views of the water.

Firewood was $5 for a smallish bundle, or $12 for three bundles. Typically unseasoned stuff that lights easy enough but you can see the moisture boiling out. The fire pits are... well engineered.

There is an impressive playground in the middle of the campground that we had a tough time luring our 10yo son from and was always stacked with kids. The bath/shower house was very large, clean, generally above average. Every morning the camp hosts there offer coffe/hot chocolate/cookies, which was a nice touch. There is a very large beach area and the water was surprisingly warm and shallow quite a ways out. The bathrooms at the beach are quite a bit older, but still kept quite clean.

Surprisingly, there are a number of horseshoe pits dispersed across the park. We also saw tetherball and a kickball field. The beach had a few swings and a volleyball net.

They claim to have over 7 miles of hiking trails. We tried to hit them all. For the most part, they are super-easy. Very wide paths over generally flat ground mowed through the grass/woods. It had rained quite a bit leading up to our arrival, so some spots were quite muddy. But nothing completely washed out.

There are a number of cabins available to rent. I believe there are also some rustic camp sites, but we didn't make it a point to check those out.

In all, I'd highly recommend this campground to families. You're close to the neighbors, so there's the chance of barking dogs and screaming kids. But that's the same just about...

i'm a minor with parents who love camping, we've camp hosted here since like 2018, but we've been to multiple campgrounds before but this is by far my favorite campground. so i will put my best information about this!! im a little bit of a photographer, and i've captured my best pictures at this campground!! i reccomend if you dont like people at campgrounds be there before memorial day and/or on the weekdays, before summer/school gets out ! and if you're a person who likes it being loud at a campground its good for your kids! beware that this campground is in the middle of three towns, stephensin , escanaba and minominee (applogies for my spelling) all three being around 40 minutes from the campground. the closest place there is a resturaunt , a gas station and a fishing place . if youre looking for good food but slightly expensive, i would go to the gas station, if you want less-good food and expensive i suggest the resturaunt. (no offense). the fishing place is quite fun, the campground entertainer takes the kids over to the fishingn place and provides fishing poles aswell. very fun, activities are also held behind the camphost site every day (except for like sunday and monday i think), and the employees are very nice . overall the best campground...

We spent Spooktacular at J.W. Wells park again, something we have done for consecutive years. They have made so many sites first come it's almost impossible to get sites together for our group. When asked to move closer to our group from our reserved site to a first come it was a huge ordeal and one of our other group members they wouldn't even let move. They said it was too big of an ordeal, too much chaos, very frazzled. If checking in campers for a weekend is chaos, I'd hate to see what they would do in a highly stressful profession. There were many open sites for this weekend, it used to be full. Also, the activities have went down hill. This weekend could and should be a cash cow for the state and they put no money into it, only what the volunteers can come up with and look for donations in the front office to support the activities. The state should be investing in these weekends, so the campground is full; especially when you have to reserve so early then get charged to cancel up to the only days you want. With all the open sites, our group, which is a total of 7 campers will take our chances and not reserve next year, either by going somewhere else or relying on first come sites. Very disappointed in how things have declined...