Whispering Pines Camping Estates — Hotel in Benton Township

We knew next to nothing about this campground before coming here, it was just a week long stop on our way to Maine. We were especially concerned as we got deeper and deeper into the country and further and further from civilization because if this was an awful place it’s not like we could just hop over to another campground nearby. But we were very pleasantly surprised by how great this place was!

Pros: One of the quietest and most spacious campgrounds we’ve ever stayed in. As you’ll see in the pictures, our campsite was probably a good 200-300 feet or more from the other sites on either side of us so we basically had a large front yard. Throughout the week you could basically hear a pin drop outside, it was only on the weekend that it got “noisier but that was because families had come in like you would expect so it wasn’t bad at all. Each site has a picnic table and a fire ring which is always nice. They have a small but very nice pool with a couple tables and some poolside chairs and they provide life jackets for kids and even a poolside cornhole game. My wife and I work remotely and, even though it wasn’t amazing, we had good enough wi-fi through them to be able to work on most of the week and even stream tv with. We did have to rely on our jet pack from time to time but anyone who knows about campground wi-fi knows to even be able to use it at all is a huge plus!

Cons: Really the only major con was the phone service. We have Verizon and my work phone is T-Mobile and at most would get 2 bars of LTE but it mostly stayed at 1 so if we weren’t connected to the internet or our jetpack our phones were basically useless. But again, out in the country like we were it’s to be expected. There’s also not much in the way of grocery stores or restaurants nearby. There’s one small grocery store and a couple restaurants about 9 minutes away but no big store or fast food place (not that we needed fast food but sometimes it’s nice to have that option when you don’t want to cook). The nearest Walmart is about 25-30 minutes away so just have everything you need before you come.

Overall: This was one of the best campgrounds we have stayed in in our nearly 1 year of full time traveling. You can tell most people here are either seasonal or full time residents but unlike most campgrounds with that, all their sites were very nice and well kept up. And unlike so many campgrounds we’ve stayed at, people were out sitting by fires or riding bikes and just enjoying the campground which brings a nice charm to it. The only reason it didn’t get a 5 star from us is because of the cell service and quite honestly because we’re very careful to just hand out 5 star ratings unless we’re absolutely blown away. But we would definitely recommend staying here for a week or a month or however long you need to, you’ll enjoy...

Three is too sharp a rating, but I hesitate to give four. I stayed for 3 nights tent camping from a Thursday thru Sunday. I stayed with myself and 3 children. Management was nice and brought firewood to our campsite for us, let us know the wifi password (the wifi actually works!), and sent me emails to keep me updated on the activities in the campground. The first two nights were wonderful- my kids enjoyed the pool, the arcade, and we were situated close to the playground, so all of the children teamed up for night games of manhunt past 10pm. I was nervous that they were making too much noise as I normally stay at state parks, but nothing was said to us.

Unfortunately, this was the case for even rowdier campers. We wound up having tent camp neighbors the last night. It was 4 adults, and one of them was an alcoholic (If not on harder drugs) who did not understand the meaning of conversational volume. Granted, it was a Saturday night, but this is listed as a family campground. Curse words and inappropriate language were the course for the entire day and evening, despite there being young children around. I finally had to get out of my tent at midnight and beg them to keep their voices down and turn their radio off. After about an hour, things finally quieted down.

I never complained to the management of the campground. By the time it was obvious that these campers weren't going to settle down, the office was long since closed. I didn't know what to do, and didn't want to wake up any other campers by pounding down the office door, especially since there are no quiet hours in force at this campground. I decided to deal with it myself, but am very unhappy that I had to do so. If there were quiet hours posted as a general rule, I may have felt more empowered to go to the front office and try to find some help.

My suggestion to the owners would be to have a quiet curfew posted so that campers with children don't think that they're being unreasonable. If this is something that management has no interest in, then I cannot in good conscience recommend this campground to families. This was one of the few times in my life that I did not feel safe because I had to deal with the problem completely by myself, and I...

We were overall delighted with our camping experience. We were the only tent campers in the entire campground who stayed here on a Thursday night. We asked for power and privacy and were given the chance to drive through the area to pick our own campsite. We settled with a lot tucked in the corner-ish area where we felt as though we had the entire campground to ourselves. Our spot had Wi-Fi access which was a nice touch, there is a pool at the front office where snacks, firewood, blankets, toiletries, or anything you can thinks of can be purchased. We traveled with 2 dogs who were required to be on leash but that was fine with us. The campground was very quiet at night and we had a fair walk to the heated bathroom (but again that was fine with us! We wanted seclusion, not convenience). I’d give the campground 4.5 stars if I could, my only two draw backs is that I wasn’t expecting to pay for a shower (it was only 25 cents for 8 minutes but we weren’t told about it and I had taken all my things to the walk to the bathroom and just decided against it when I realized I would have to go all the way back to the car to root around for a few coins and then walk all the way back with all my stuff in tow) and the other is that our power wasn’t working in the morning so we weren’t able to fire up our grill for breakfast which is why we wanted a camping spot with power in the first place. I think the bathroom situation could have been avoided had it just been mentioned at check in (or written somewhere on the campsite information we were given). Not sure what the power deal was, we left pretty early in the morning so we didn’t make a fuss, we had too much to accomplish the following day to investigate. Even with this all said, we would stay there again. Thanks for a...