Harrisville State park is located on the North-East Coast of Michigan between Oscota and Alpena. From our home in Southeast Michigan, it is about a three and a half hour drive. This was our third time visiting this campground and it remains one of our favorite.
There isn’t much to do outside of the campground without a little bit of a drive. This time we planned to chill out by the fire and lakeside the whole time. The campground itself has a plethora of things to do. The sites are nice and large with lots of trees for hammocks and privacy. There is only one bath house which is centrally located. We never had to wait long for a shower and not at all for a toilet. They do keep the bathrooms pretty clean. But, keep in mind that it is a beach with sand so the bathrooms tend to be wet and sand/mud on the floors. I honestly think that there isn’t much they can do about that.
First, I want to give a shout out to Pat with the DNR!!! She was AMAZING. She had all kinds of activities for kids and adults alike. There were activity sheets, scavenger hunts, and educational materials for kids. She taught us how to hunt for petoskey stones and explained the kinds of other stones we may find and how to polish them by hand, providing us with the sandpaper we needed. She then told us about Yooper stones (aka Yooperlites) and lent us some black light flashlights to go hunt for them after sunset. She was super nice and helpful. Thank you, Pat!
The Beach is very rocky. I would suggest wearing some sort of water shoes. Even though it was July, the water was still very cold. It was fun hunting for rocks. We found plenty of petoskey stones and some other really neat looking ones. There is a day use area that has more sand but still has a lot of rocks nearer the water.
There are hiking and biking trails which are easy to follow. One trail will lead to the edge of the campground to a quiet road that you can continue to walk to get to ‘town’. I walked down to Main Street then back to the Campground on the main road, almost like going around the block. Once I got to town, I found an ice cream shop, coffee shop, grocery store, and pizza place. It looked like a new restaurant went in on the corner of Main St and State St. I couldn’t find the name of it. We got the pizza on our first night from Harbortown Pizza and it was delicious. We did have a hard time calling them, but it is so close to the campground that you could walk there and order in person (which is what we did except we drove).
On my way back to the campground, down State street, there is a Hardware and Lumber store. I wanted to get a new flashlight so I entered the front door but, I saw it was dark like half of the power was out and there was no one around. There were cars outside and it was only 4:00 and they are open until 5:00. The aisles were jam packed and very close together. I said ‘hello’, but no one answered. I didn’t get past the entryway because I was creeped out, like I was in an end of the world movie, so I turned around and kept walking. Halfway back to the campground I came to a Dollar General and found a flashlight. (tip – the small bag of ice is cheaper at the campground)
Other amenities at the Campground include a sand volleyball court (at the day use area), basketball courts, horseshoe pits, and sand boxes. There are 195 campsites and also some cabins you can rent.
We had a fantastic time visiting this campground and we will definitely be back. Please enjoy the following photos of the campground. Have you ever camped here? What did you like? If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments! Be sure to like this post and as always, thanks for reading! Cheers!
The Mouse Traveler 