Review - Lakeshore RV Park, St. Ignace, Michigan

 “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor

July 27 to August 3, 2024

We typically prefer state park campgrounds when we travel. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get reservations at any of the very popular Michigan state parks along our route during our Michigan trip. When we aren't traveling with our grandchildren we don't need the typical amenities found at most family campgrounds, such as swimming pools, playgrounds and organized activities for kids. Instead we look for small campgrounds with few of those extras - not because we don't like families, but because we just don't want to pay for amenities we aren't going to use. The following campground is a great example of a nice, reasonably priced, low amenity campground.

Lakeshore RV Campground in St. Ignace, Michigan, is a small, family owned and operated campground. The campground is located just off of Michigan's scenic Route 2, high on a bluff above Lake Michigan.

The campground is full-service, offering 20-30-50 amp electrical service with water and sewer to all of the 53 RV sites. Big rigs are easily accommodated. Both pull-through and back-in RV sites are available. The back-in sites are closest to the road, but provide the best views out over the lake. There are 9 tent sites - 2 of which have water and electric service; and there are 3 yurts available for rental. The campground is pet friendly.

Amenities include fire rings and picnic tables at every site, a laundry with 4 washers and 4 dryers attached to the campground office/store, and a little free library. There's also a small, rocky beach across the street with benches and a fire ring from which you can get great views of the Mackinac Bridge. The campground does not have a playground, swimming pool or other activities for children. It does have a small pavilion, but it wasn't used at all during our week-long stay. WIFI is free and was pretty good during our stay. We were also able to bring in some local channels on our TV using our antenna. There is no cable hook up. A dump station is located on the grounds.

The bath house is attached to the back of the pavilion. It had 3 showers on each side, was very clean, and had good water pressure.

The campground office/store was very small with only the bare necessities. However, you could arrange for free shuttles to the Kewadin Casino and the Mackinac Island ferries from the campground. We found the staff to be friendly and helpful.

The campground is located close to all area major attractions and is only minutes from downtown St. Ignace.

We enjoyed our stay at Lakeshore RV Park. Although the sites were quite close to each other, we didn't find that to be a problem. Our site was right next to the pavilion and we had a nice view out over the water, even though we were one row back. Our awning almost touched the side of the pavilion, giving us plenty of shade, and the bath house was only steps away. Normally that could be a problem, but we found that most people used the showers and toilets in their campers, so traffic was minimal with most people waking through the pavilion to get to the bath house, rather than walking through our site.  And we never had to wait for a shower!

Our campsite. Bath house entrance is to the rear just past the truck.

View from our camper window.

The campground was quiet and clean. We enjoyed walking across the street every evening and sitting on a bench by the water looking toward the Mackinac Bridge on our left, and St. Helena Island with its lighthouse in the distance on the right. In addition, we watched beautiful sunsets from the beach. 

Mackinac Bridge view from the campground beach Sunset from the campground beach

St. Helena Island Lighthouse viewed from the campground beach Mackinac Bridge at night.

The only fault we could find was that there really wasn't an easy way to get our kayaks from the campground down to the beach, because you had to go across the street and down a fairly steep path to get to the water. Instead, we drove to a nearby park to launch them.

We would recommend this campground to anyone wanting to stay in the St. Ignace area. However, if you have young children who need all the extra amenities to keep them happy and occupied, you would probably want to stay somewhere else. The older children we saw during our stay seemed content with swimming in the water at the beach, even though it was rocky. I wouldn't recommend the beach for very young children because it was very rocky.

We used Lakeshore RV Park as a base for exploring the eastern end of the UP. Check out future entries in our blog for posts regarding the places we visited and and the fun things we did while staying in St. Ignace.

* All photos and videos are the property of the owners unless otherwise noted. *