Au Train Beach Campground — Hotel in Au Train Township

I'll preface by saying I am not a camper. I was attracted to this overnight experience because we did a kayak tour with this company a few years ago and had a lot of fun. They are friendly tour guides and kept me and my family safe while taking in the incredible beauty of this part of the UP. Their yurts on the water appealed to me as a great way to dip our toe into camping, and in this time of COVID, a way to be on vacation with some physical distancing from strangers. ||||I booked another kayak trip for my family, but didn't want a package because that would mean 3 nights when we only wanted to try it for one. This is where I made the misstep. I was specifically looking to book a yurt on the water. I read all the reviews about their yurts on the water and learned that yurt #3 was the right one. I should have called the company directly to inquire because the website does not give great descriptions, and their pictures don't give you a great visual of what you are reserving. They run two campsites about 7.5 miles apart and you book them through one website. Only one of them (Paddler's Village) has water front yurts. We picked the wrong one. The campsite we stayed at was called Au Train Beach Campground and contrary to it's name, it's not on the beach. It is actually located close to a two lane highway. You cannot see the beach from anywhere on Au Train Beach Campground. We could hear loud road noise all night instead of the sound of water lapping onto the shore. Big let down. None of this is made clear when you are booking. In fact the name Au Train Beach Campground is very misleading. Be mindful of this when you are booking. If you want a beach front yurt, you should not book one at the Au Train Beach campground but rather at the Paddler's Village.||||The yurt we ended up staying in was large with two bunk beds, a refrigerator and a large table and chairs. No attention has been paid to style. Rustic, woodsy, utilitarian are the best descriptive I can give the furnishings. Everything was in good condition but felt a little dated and lacking flair. This place looks like it could use some love. No one is paying attention to details that would elevate the experience and make it worth the price.||||The best part was the fire pit and the 4 Adirondack chairs in front of our yurt. We were in yurt #3. We brought fire wood and s'mores ingredients and really enjoyed our evening outside of the yurt. We brought our own bed sheets and blankets as advised. I should have brought more blankets because it was very cold after the sun went down and the yurt we were in did not have heating as I had assumed it would. We found the beds to be extremely uncomfortable. With the road noise and the hard, thin mattress on the top bunk where I was, I could not sleep well.||||I slept so restlessly that I was wide awake in time to rally my family to head across the street to enjoy a beautiful sunrise. It was gorgeous and serene and no one was there. We had the beach to ourselves.||||With the caveat that we aren't campers; I do believe if we were, we would not have been too impressed. As other reviewers have noted, the yurts and tents at this site were positioned very close together. All the guests were respectful of others and quiet and we didn't have any noise complaints about the humans around us. From the reviews I gathered that was a problem at the Paddlers Village campsite. That was not a problem at Au Train Beach Campsite. This is a family friendly campsite with many kids playing at some tether ball polls and swings that were centrally located in the campsite.||||For the amount of people they had booked, they definitely needed larger bathroom and shower facilities and I would have felt a lot more comfortable using them in if there had been some large windows or ventilation. There were only three sinks for guests to brush teeth and not enough space for physical distancing. It didn't feel sanitary. Luckily we had an early check in at a nice clean hotel in Marquette for my family to wash up safely.||||Overall, I feel like this place could be so much better for the price. Some small improvements to the furnishings and amenities, within the yurt would go a long way toward making a stay here a better value. ie: A French press for coffee, a small microwave, a space heater, a place to hang towels. Also, they need to do a better job of differentiating the Uncle Ducky's campsite locations on their website with photos that give you a better visual of...

UP camping on easy mode! I booked a 'Grand Island' Vacation Package and our stay included a unit at this campground in August. Great as a home-base for adventurers and families, I wouldn't recommend tent camping here.

I didn't have any issues with booking online. My party was 4 adult friends. The entrance is easy to miss, they have a wooden sign, but trees block its view from the highway until it's too late to stop. They put some generic signs closer to the freeway, but I found them a bit hard to read from the car.

The parking lot is medium size and while it was pretty empty on Wednesday night when we arrived, on Friday night before we left it was full.

The safari/platform tents were clean, though close together. You can't drive up to the units, so they provide wagons to carry your stuff in. The yurts looked similar in amenities to safari tents, but the safari tents were further to the back of the campground and the yurts are closer to the parking lot. Since we were a group of adults, the proximity to other tents made us realize we need to watch our language around people's children. Quiet hours start at 10pm which seemed early to us. It would really depend on your neighbors' tolerance to noise if you're wanting to sit by the fire at night. We were considerate, and avoided being too loud so we didn't have a problem. We were not bothered by our neighbors, though in site 22, it's across from the woods, so we weren't surrounded as some of the sites were.

Fortunately, the beach is a short walk away and behind a wall of sand, so we were able to enjoy drinks and conversation under the stars without interruption. The beach is long, but short, and is a great place to star gaze. Careful though because it is separated from the campground by a state highway with a speed limit of 65 mph (many people seem to drive 70-75).

You will hear the highway, and children playing during the day. So if you're looking for a quiet, isolated campsite, this isn't it. If you're looking for a place to sleep while you're going on adventures or if you don't mind a busy campground, then this spot is good. I generally prefer a more isolated campsite, but I'll take the sound of children playing over an RV generator and cars and trucks driving by and doors slamming.

A couple of the spots looked pretty close to the highway, or close to the parking lot, so watch out. I didn't choose my spot when I booked in January and was placed in the back corner where there were fewer people running around, which was nice. Some of the spots just looked like they'd be pretty unpleasant, especially the pitch your own tent sites and tipis.

They have multi-person bathrooms with plumping. They have a separate building with 3 showers. Both looked pretty clean.

Complaints: Vault bathroom smells if you're standing next to it, which is easy since it's right in the middle of the common area. The wi-fi doesn't reach very far and kept disconnecting us and other campers, it seems to come from the host office, which isn't where you'd want to sit and mess with your phone. The common yurt closes at 8, which seems kind of early considering quiet hours aren't until 10 and that is where they have the outlets to charge your phone. The camp sink is slow, and there is only one for all the campers to use.

Overall, it was a good stay and this campground is in a great location for a homebase while you go explore this side of the UP. I probably wouldn't book a site here outside of a package or another service with the Uncle Ducky Outdoors company only because I typically go for campgrounds with more private sites. Great alternative to a motel if you're still wanting to have that outdoors feel with...

We stayed at this campground because it wasn't far from the attractions we were going to visit. We stayed in our own large tent. The tent area is small and sites are small and very close to each other. I don't think the map on the website is very representative of its true layout. Tents are very close to each other- I can't emphasize this enough. I could hear my neighbor snoring one night and the couple next to us the next night were very busy (if you know what I mean). ||The bathrooms are the WORST. They smelled like a pit toilet even though they are in a building with running water. Only one shower is in the area with the toilets. There is a separate building with 3 private unisex showers to accommodate the entire campground. And then there is a pit toilet inside a building with no sink. This is probably the biggest downfall of the whole campground. There's just too many people who have been hiking and swimming etc that there just weren't enough bathrooms and showers to accommodate. The workers were friendly enough and I did like that the beach was just across the street. It is a street with high speed cars so you have to be careful about that but the beach and water are beautiful. People were having fires and playing on the beach. Clean sand and clean water, little to no rocks in the water there. ||Each camp site was big enough for a large tent, some had 2 or three tents. Others were big enough for just one medium or small tent. They did have nice fire rings and most if not all had an outdoor picnic bbq on the site too. ||There are yurts and other "safari tents" but we didn't use one so I'm not sure about these. There was a small playground and a couple games for the kids to play but not a large area. ||It was also a little on the expensive side (we paid about $50 a night for a camp site with no electric or running water and that you have to carry your things to or use their wagons to get to the site. Its a park and carry situation). Wood and ice and other items you may need are available at the camp store and are...