Young State Park Campground

We decided to stay here after someone told us it was their favorite park in the state.

There are 3 camping loops. The Oak and Terrace loops are more spacious and private and a decent number of spots have lake views and the few lake front spots are amazing if you can get one. The terrace loop is closer to the boat launch and dog friendly section of “beach.” The third loop is the Spruce loops which are set up more like an RV Park with row after row of rigs right next to each other in straight lines- however this section is closest to the swim beach with many short paths leaving from the campground. The spruce loop also has a large playground.

The park also has some hiking trails, sports fields, camp store with ice cream, fishing lake, and the camp host had all kinds of games, books, and activities available to borrow.

We had no issues with our AT&T service, streaming football games with no problem.

The Michigan DNR site has pictures of every site when you are choosing to book definitely look at them because it’s hard to tell which have water views and which do not from the map since parts of the shoreline are blocked by trees!

Also please note that you must have a Michigan Recreation Passport which as an out of stater is $9/ day or $33 for the year and is good for all Michigan State Parks

You can easily walk to Lake Charlevoix. Great beach access from the park. There were also great bike trails all around the park. The facilities could use some updating. They weren’t terrible but they also weren’t the best. Overall a great location if you’re looking into going to Petoskey or Charlevoix.

The hiking trail was not maintained at all. I tried to hike it but it was a swamp and not passable. Our site was great because we could make it private but most were in the open. We were in Spruce and the other campground looked nicer.

Been our go to camp ground for 40 years

Great trails, great camping.