Warren Dunes State Park Campground — Attraction in Lake Charter Township

We paid $84 online for a two night reservation which seemed steep for 2 nights of tent camping, but we were willing to pay it to get out into nature as a family as that’s a big priority for our family. The campsites are pretty tight but we were again willing to overlook that because of the location to the dunes and the lake. The highway noise was a bit much but, again, we were willing to overlook that to an extent. The first night when the sun went down we noticed a considerable amount of smoke throughout the entire campground. This was unfortunate but we thought this may just be a “one off” anomaly due to wind, weather or whatever as this was our first time to this campground. HOWEVER, the second night (10/19/24) the smoke was even worse to the point that I had to get my wife and 8 & 6 yo old daughters in the car and drive down to the lake to get fresh air after the sun went down because everyone’s eyes and throats were burning from all of the smoke in the entire area. While down by the lake, a state park employee asked us to leave bc the beach area was closed and he was needing to lock the gates. I told him we were there to get fresh air bc the campground area was full of smoke. He said, “yeah, this is a regular problem and we get calls about it all of the time.” We then went back to our campsite where the smoke was even worse than before where we as a family decided to pack up our stuff at 9:00 PM and drive 2+ hours home bc the campground smoke was making us all feel sick. I don’t know what else to say other than that I hope this helps anyone in the future to have a more complete picture of the campground to make an educated decision one way or another. It’s truly unfortunate bc we loved the dunes and the lake experience but the (what appears to be) regular unhealthy smoke issue (per a state park worker as well as our personal experience) for the entire campground wasn’t worth the inconvenience it presented in the shape of packing up camp and getting home after midnight due to legitimate health concerns posed regularly by the smoke in the campground...

First off, not a horrible place. Not great, but not horrible. I will never go here again though. Couple of reasons: The fire pits have NO room for oxygen to get in. Every fire we tried to start failed almost immediately. Secondly, the wood there SUCKS!!! The guy selling it (and other things, it's at a convenience store near the entrance) is NOT affiliated with the State Park, other than he's allowed to sell stuff there (found out from a Casey's employee that he owns a fruit stand down the road from them as well). THE WOOD WAS GREEN AND SUPER WET!! I'm talking cutting open the wood, still literally green (or red, depending on the tree it came from). It was NOT dried out AT ALL. So, we wasted $16 on 2 small bundles of wood (stuff there is EXTREMELY overpriced, but that's the general deal with convenience stores, you pay more for convenience). We went and got wood from Casey's, and lord there was a difference!! Almost 100x drier, caught fire immediately. Thirdly, there are WAY too many campsites, and they are about 10 feet apart. Don't expect ANY privacy. In fact, you can't tell on the map, but a lot of the tent sites are by the highway (we had site 195), and you can hear the cars all night. Not a big deal if you're used to it, but I don't know about you, but if I'm going camping, I'd rather hear nature than cars. Summing it up: you can definitely tell they capitalize on the Dunes nearby. The dunes are so fun, the beach is fantastic, but if you plan to visit, just choose another site to tent camp at, unless you don't plan to use the fire pit. We didn't see ANY fire pits going on our first night. Picture is a panorama of how close the spots are. We are the black car, the tents as it pans right are our neighbors. Pros: beautiful area. There are a few trails, most no more than 1-2 miles round trip. Dunes are extremely close and the beach at Lake Michigan is super fun, and it wasn't too crowded. But we learned our...

We were excited to camp at Warren Dunes but there we experienced several problems while there. The right turn onto the campground road does not allow a RV to make the turn safely. Even with care, our toll dolly caught one of the signs inside the lane and dragged it a few feet. They told us it happens all the time. Move those signs or make a wider turn onto campground road. We full time in our RV and have never seen this kind of set up. NO one told us at the campground registration that the dump station and ONLY water fill up was out of order. We went to dump our tanks and found a small cardboard sign directing us up the road 10 miles to another park to dump. We decided to fill up our fresh water while there. Good thing we did since all of the water locations on the campground map are capped off. The park really failed on this.

Power went out to the park for a couple hours and not a single Ranger or camp host notified anyone of what was being done and when power might be restored.

The campground itself is very nice, roomy and shaded. The sites are easy to back into. Pretty level with a table and firepit. Nice camp store at the entrance to the...