Empire Township Campground — Hotel in Empire Township

I was looking for a place that accepted reservations in June and managed to find availability at the Empire Township Campground. I read many of the reviews on here, google, and yelp and found that mixed reviews, but after our stay, I don't see how anyone could rate this less than average!||||We stayed a Friday through Sunday. Check-in at 1:00 pm and checked-out at prior to 11:00 am. We booked two tent sites (6 & 7) and an RV site (57). The sites are huge! The RV site was large enough to toss a Frisbee back and forth, with plenty of space between your neighbors. The tent sites were also very spacious with multiple flat locations to pitch a tent. All sites seemed to be heavily shaded as well, in the pine trees.||||As for the camping facilities - the office offers firewood for $5.00 and also has ice available. The people are also super friendly! There is one flush toilet located near the office and all other toilets are pit toilets. Every one I visited was VERY clean and the ones near our tent sites were supposedly new. Hand sanitizer is located outside of every toilet, but there are no sinks. Showers are $0.50 per 3 minutes. There are places to hang items in the shower room and a small bench in most. Quarters may be obtained from the office if needed. The only downside was that it seemed that you had to walk a little ways to the toilets showers, but it is a small inconvenience. ||||The campground does back up to a local runway (small planes). We thought it was neat to be able to watch a few planes come and go while we were there. Over the weekend we saw about 2.||||Campground location is great! A few minutes from the Platte River and Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. ||||Overall,...

We were nervous when we booked our reservation here since we don't typically choose campgrounds without electricity and outhouses. But we shouldn't have worried. ||||Without electricity offered, it keeps the big rigs away and therefore there are less cleared out spaces and camp sights. There are trees a plenty at this campground and I love that! Our sight was so shaded that our picnic table didn't even get wet when it lightly rained. There were enough trees to hang our dogs tie out line, 2 clothes lines, and we should have brought our 2 hammocks because we could have hung those too. We have a very large tent for our family and we could have put it in at least 5 different places. We didn't have any neighbors on site 25 either, it was lovely. ||||The outhouse near our site was very nice compared to any I have used before. It never smelled, there was not a bug or spider web inside, it was well stocked with toilet paper and hand sanitizer. We didn't mind using it. We did bring a lantern though to set on the floor at night as it was rather dark inside. The showers were very spacious and light, much better than any of the state park showers we have used. I forgot to count, but there were probably 4 or 5 showers total. Our family members were each able to shower with $1 in quarters, 6 minutes, and the water was always nice and hot. ||||Our only complaint was that one night there were two men who were very loud all night. They didn't seem close to our site and I'm guessing they could be heard anywhere in the campground. It's unfortunate when others don't follow the rules and make it difficult for others. So I don't think that the quiet hours...

The Empire Township Campground is a quaint little campground a few miles from town. This is a rustic campground with 3 coin operated shows and 1 flush toilet. The renaming toilets are outhouses that are maintained daily by the campground. $1 will get you about 5-6 minutes.

Most of the sites are heavily wooded (hard woods). The 9 electric sites are tucked away in a stretch of pine trees and are well spaced. Note the electric sites only have 20 amp service, not the more common 30 amp. Also, there is only one electric box per two sites and it's located near the front of the site, nowhere near the rear of the site, where they are typically located. Many RV would require both an extension cord and adapter (cheater) to connect. It's generally not recommended to do this by the RV manufactures.

The electrics sites back up the a small township airport for private planes. During our stay there our son was excited to hear and see some planes take off.

There is not much to do at the campground itself. There is but one swing set and not other activates other then walking around and seeing the other camp sites. Most people are likely to see parts of the area including the Empire Township Beach (very popular) or different parts of the Sleeping Bear National Park a few miles away.

The campground has ice and wood on site. Also there are a number of spots to get water from. There is a fill station for filling an RV's fresh water tank. There is also a dump station.

It's a nice little rustic campground. When we stayed there in Mid July is was only 1/2 full so it should not be difficult...