Overview

Now, I’m the first to say that Mackinac Mill Creek Campground is definitely not my family’s normal choice for a place to camp. We tend to stick with state and national park campgrounds or go with backcountry options. Mostly rustic, mostly out of the way and secluded when possible. This is very different from all that.

The place is massive compared to our usual stops. This is more like a camping resort than a campground. There are hundreds of sites of all varieties. They range from small rustic sites, to full hookups, to cabins. There’s a long list of amenities, many of which I’m not accustomed to seeing. The whole place has the feel of a small town during the busy season.

Despite all of that not being my cup of tea usually, this is our second stay at this camp and will likely not be our last.

The Camp’s Location

Location, location, location, right? That is true in so many scenarios, and it was 100% why we were here again. The campground sits a bit over two miles from Mackinac City down US 23. Aside from the driving convenience of this, there is also a hike-bike trail on the other side of the road that leads into town. This trail is part of the North Central State Trail that runs the 17 miles from Cheboygan up to Mackinac, and a full 75 miles if you continue all the way to Gaylord. Aside from convenience, this means that this spot could easily serve as a spot on multi-day bike trip.

This puts all the history of Mackinac right at your front door: Fort Michilimackinac, the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, The Mill Creek Discovery Center, and of course Mackinac Island. More about those wonderful locations in a separate post.

Due to this proximity and the popularity of the campground, there is even a shuttle that will take you directly to the Star Line boat dock and back for your excursion to the island. The shuttle had a trailer for bikes, and as of our stay departed every half hour in the mornings starting at 8:30 am. This put us on the dock in time for the 9am ferry under the bridge. As stated, it’s not a long drive, but this is crazy convenient, avoids any parking issues, and is one of the reasons we came back to this specific campground.

Camp Amenities

The campground caters to a wide range of campers. Sure, there are weekend travelers, and folks like us there for four nights or so, but there are also RVs staying for weeks, even months at a time. This means there need to be facilities here that you just don’t see at the little state campgrounds we tend to favor.

There is free Wi-Fi in areas of the park that get a signal, which was a bit of a surprise to me. Sites with a strong signal could even opt to pay for faster service, that was billed as suitable for streaming. This wasn’t that type of stay for us, but I very much appreciate the option. If you’re not going backwoods, why not appreciate a little tech if you’re there for an extended stay. We also found that this area still isn’t the most reliable when it came to cell signals, so having a backup for looking up details on local attractions is a nice feature.

The camp store sits next to a mini golf course, pool, showers, a basketball court, and main playground. Smaller playgrounds were also available on the edges of the camp, including one a short walk from our rustic site. The satellite playgrounds were smaller, but still plenty for my boys to enjoy.

Firewood was our main purchase from the store, but it was well stocked with all necessities and a large selection of non-essentials. I was told firewood could be bought in large quantities at a discount and delivered to our site. We weren’t planning enough camp time for this, but I highly recommend considering this for longer stays with more chilling at your site.

On our side of the campground there were multiple fill up spots for drinking and potable water, as well as what were labeled “Primitive Toilets” on the map. If your experience with seeing the word primitive comes from state and national parks and forests… it doesn’t apply here. These are nicer than many modern public restrooms I’ve been in. Yes, it’s a vault system without running water, but the one near us consisted of multiple stalls and was shockingly clean. My youngest boy honestly kept looking for how to flush the urinals.

The Shore and Beach

Alright, the main attraction. Being on the shore a short distance from Mackinac City means the views from the shoreline can be spectacular. Mackinac Island sits right across the way and the Mackinac Bridge is a can’t miss sight.

If you’re not all that familiar with the Great Lakes, they are still a major shipping area and are becoming a larger and larger cruise destination. This doesn’t even count the numerous ferries, privately owned boats, etc. I could probably spend the better part of an entire day just on one of the benches water-watching. At least, if the mayflies didn’t carry me off. Nothing to be done about that though, it was just that time of year, and they were nothing more than a nuisance. Bring repellent and a high tolerance for all the flying sentinels you find by the water in summer.

The beach had the same bug population as its only real downside. This just meant more time in the water rather than lounging on the sand. The severity of this will depend entirely on the season and the time of year. This is nothing against the campground in any way, just a heads up. In fact, I kinda like having some bug issues these days. When they are suspiciously missing all together, I start to wonder why.

The water itself off the beach was extremely kid friendly. Water conditions can vary a lot, but while there the area was mostly sandy and easy on the feet. The shallows ran further than any of us ventured. Even my 5-year-old could walk out pretty much as far as he pleased. This means this spot is more suitable for rock and shell hunting than swimming but made for a great afternoon regardless.

Our Site

Unlike state campgrounds, reserving a site is not necessarily site-specific, at least for what we chose. We booked what falls under the “Super Saver” rustic category but didn’t know our exact site until we arrived. Our first time staying here I was a little nervous about this since I can be somewhat picky😊. This time around, I wasn’t worried in the least. Our previous site had been great, and this was no different. Despite the “Super Saver” in the name this was a large site for our purposes: over 30’ x 20’. More than enough room for our new 8-man tent with space to spare.

If you’re looking for a secluded woods feel, obviously you’re not really getting that here. This doesn’t mean that you’ll end up in a field, however. Our site was partially treed in and shady a good portion of the day. This type of campground does always run the risk of feeling crowded, but both times here we’ve stayed rustic and had few neighbors. This time around, even in mid-June, my boys pretty much had the run of our section.

The only partial downside of our location was that it was on the roadside of the camp which meant a little extra traffic noise. This isn’t I-75 though. It wasn’t enough to distract from the experience and wasn’t an issue for sleeping. There was also more than enough of a wooded gap between us and the road that there was no visual distraction and no sign of headlights at night.

The fire “pit” at this type of site was of the removable metal type. Think of the bottom section of a metal barrel. This was a little different than anywhere else we’ve personally camped but worked just fine. It also meant that it was completely empty when we got there and gave us some freedom in where our fire was placed, which was a plus. The fire danger was a little elevated during our trip, so we kept this to a minimum. Still, need to roast hotdogs and marshmallows at least once though, right?

Wrap-up

Given the location and the amount to do in the area, four nights didn’t give us a whole lot of time to spend exploring the camp this time around. The boys would say their favorite parts were the beach and the playground. However, they would be forgetting that they spent most of their free time at the site just with a frisbee, a soccer ball, or simply running around like little crazy people😊.

It was a very relaxing stay. Quiet hours ran from 10pm to 9am and fires were to be extinguished by midnight. Some might have an issue with the lack of late-night partying, and my boys wondered why they had to keep calm until 9 in the morning since they’re early risers. I appreciated this though. With the number of people in the space that’s there, it would get out of hand in a hurry if they didn’t enforce some stricter rules.

I won’t lie, I missed the feeling one gets of being out in the middle of the woods. I have no complaints beyond that though, and I knew going in that it wasn’t going to be that kind of stay. Mackinac Mill Creek bills itself as Award Winning and a “Top Family Friendly Campground”. After a second stay I’ll say that I have no arguments against those claims.

Everyone I dealt with was friendly, the amenities we used were as billed or better, everything was well maintained and very clean. While waiting for the shuttle to the dock we watched camp personnel cleaning cobwebs off the lights and playground equipment across from the bus stop, which pretty much sums it up.

We talked after our last time up about possibly trying a different place when we came back to Mackinac, but we found ourselves back here. Chances are, the next time we decide to make a trip to the island, the same thing is likely to happen again.