Munising Tourist Park Campground — Hotel in Grand Island Township

All right, I've been meaning to write this review for awhile, but somehow kept putting it off. And now a year has passed. (We actually stayed here in August 2022). However, the main reason I wanted to leave a review was so that I could share some info that I myself had been looking for prior to booking our stay. First, the location is great for touring Pictured Rocks and the view of the lake and beach are beautiful. The kids loved going swimming. ||Now, onto the info. We're tent campers, we stayed 3 nights, and did enjoy our stay. We stayed in rustic site A. I like seclusion and was concerned the beach front sites wouldn't offer much in that regard. And I was right. Site B probably has the best seclusion from your fellow tent campers, but you will have people (like us) walking right by on the public path to access the beach. The other sites have basically nothing between each other. (I didn't walk though to see what the beach sites on the other side are like, but from what I could see they don't offer much either.)||Sites A and C, which are in the woods, did offer nice seclusion. They do, however, back to up to the highway and you can see flashes of cars through the trees. You'll also hear the traffic. This was not a problem for us (though it should be noted we also slept with my 4 year old's white noise going--the sounds of the ocean), and we actually had fun making up stories about some of the noisier vehicles. ||I was worried about bugs being in site A since it was next to a stream, but we didn't have any during out late August stay. We did see several frogs and a field mouse visited our site on multiple occasions.||We were fairly close to the parking area, but especially those staying on the beach sites should know that you will indeed be hauling your stuff quite a ways. At the time of our stay there was only one wagon for all to share.||Which brings me to this...while we enjoyed our stay and would recommend it, we just couldn't help but think of how much better it could be for tenters. This campground gives very much an RV campground vibe with tenters as an afterthought. For example, there were no water spigots/wash sinks for the tenters. We had to take the longer-than-idea walk to the bath house, fill up two rubbermaid containers with water and walk it back. (I think we amused a lot of the RVers.) We had initially asked at the office where to get water and the kids working there just looked at us like we had 3 heads and directed us to wash station for the RVs, which was obviously not what we needed. We asked a group of tenters who seemed to be regulars what they did for water and they just brought a hole bunch of store bought water gallons with them to use for washing. So, tenter, BRING WATER WITH YOU for washing dishes/cooking if you can stomach paying for water you are literally going to throw away. The RV sites all had water spigots, and it seems like it wouldn't be that big of deal to add one more for the tenters to use near the parking area.||Speaking of the parking area, it was not quite big enough for all of the tent sites, and several vehicles had to kind of park off the road.||The bathhouse at our time of stay was always kind of gross. The people who washed it basically just power washed every thing, leaving the floors soaking (I had to roll up my pants), and because the bathouse is surrounded by dirt, it would immediately become muddy as soon as some one walked in. Be prepared to roll your pants.||All of that said, I would stay here again and, as I've said, we did enjoy our...

Let me start by saying, you MUST book Dec 1st at 8am sharp or you won't get any sort of beachfront site. I was on the computer, refreshing every few seconds on Dec 1st, to get a FHU beachfront site for our August 2025 stay, and they were sold out within SECONDS. Not minutes, SECONDS. I had a site within my cart, and it was taken out from under me! Refreshed at 8:01am and every single beachfront site was sold out for the week we wanted to come. Our fault, I should have been faster with the mouse clicks! If you are unable to get a beachfront, there are plenty of other sites, although they seem to book up within 30-60 minutes. We had to settle for a 30amp site (water/electric only) which thankfully worked fine for us (although we are 45'+ long with 3 ac's) that week because high's never reached 80+ outside of the last day. Here's our Pro's and Con's list!

Pro's:

1. SUPER Convenient to all things Munising. Closest campground to downtown.
2. Beautiful beach with easy access for everyone camping there.
3. They do have FHU's and beach front sites. Good luck getting them however.
4. We had no issue with utilities and the dump station was convenient.
5. Large flat grassy area centrally located that many kids played kickball/baseball on.
6. For a city owned campground, it was kept in pretty good shape. Information about the park is easy to find on their website.
7. This can be a pro or con, depending on how you enjoy camping. Many sites are very "communal" -- Meaning, there isn't much privacy. We saw many families taking several spots together. We tend to stay on the more private side of things, so this was a negative for us. But, for many it would be a positive.
8. Navigation through the campground was easy and wide turning available (for big rigs). Many spots however we tiny! Pay attention to the site size listed on the website.

Con's:

1. Very limited FHU or even 50amp sites. Most are Water/Electric only with a 30amp and 110v connection. The pedestals (atleast ours) was shared with our neighbor.
2. Water hookups are all over the place. Ours was shared with 4 total sites. Some are at the very front of the site, others are at the very rear. If you've never been here (like us), keep your fingers crossed you picked the right spot and have long enough connections to make it work.
3. Incredibly difficult booking schedule/window. Would prefer a rolling 180 or 6 months schedule as opposed to everyone trying to book on the same day of the year. The rolling 180 days keeps things open for more people. I have a feeling many people booked weeks at a time on Dec 1st, just to modify it later on down the road without penalty.
4. Limited amenities. Outside of the beach, and a run down basketball hook, there wasn't much there for kiddo's to do except ride bikes and stir up trouble.

We'd certainly stay here again, but only if we were able to nab a 50amp or FHU site. A beach site would...

We've been coming to this campground for 20+ years. The proximity to the water, the onsite facilities, and the short trip into town if supplies are needed are definitely positives.

Munising features tours of scenic shoreline and of shipwrecks shockingly visible in the cold Lake Superior water that can be absolutely transparent down 20-30 feet.

The beach faces water sheltered by Grand Island which keeps the water conditions (temp/waves) fairly moderate for Lake Superior. A North wind often brings the warm top water to the beach...and the shallows run out from the beach a fair distance. That said, Lake Superior is a fresh water sea and the conditions that go with big water sometimes don't register for those used to small lakes and rivers who look out and see Grand Island so close. I'm a kayaker and I pack serious safety gear for this area if I plan on going any distance as weather and water conditions change quickly.

It's a beautiful place and you'll be drawn to paddle out into it, and I'd encourage you to...but be certain of your safety gear as the water temp 12-16" down can cause hypothermia relatively quickly...even on the hottest August day.

Munising is a small town that is big enough to take care of any supplies forgotten or depleted.

Weather is something one needs to be prepped for as it can change on a dime. If you have a travel trailer with an awning, be prepared to deploy and stow it as the wind picks up, shifts, and then completely dissipates making shade worth rolling it back out again.

This campground's appeal has changed the atmosphere over the years as when we started camping here, drop-in no-reservations campers could get a spot almost anytime outside of the particularly busy weekend here and there. These days, you have to be on the website when reservations open for the year and act quickly.

We have many long-time friends we've seen here each year for what seems like forever who are finding themselves unable to book and are disappearing from the site. If you've not camped here before, the good news is the system gives absolutely no advantage to long-time repeat customers...if you've camped here for 2 weeks every year since tha late 90s, the bad news is... it's as difficult to book for us as it is for everyone else.

We continue to book here, but the process seems to be increasingly...intentionally...difficult.

Beautiful spot, well kept...can be...