Bear Cave RV Resort Thousand Trails

Bear Cave is a good location to take a family. Great swimming pool. Most sites are level (side- to-side), although extra blocks were required to level front-to-back. The resort is located about four miles North from Buchanan, and about 20 miles South of Saint Joseph, Michigan. Buchanan does not offer much for entertainment. However, Saint Joseph is a great town offering many restaurants, plus shopping.

Bear Cave was a convenient location for our military reunion.

Besides this park being a little worn out and the cave tours being less than exciting - this was great!

Near Buchanan which was a nice cute small town (go to Union coffee house!), getting to the park was pretty easy. The gate seemed a bit tight but we got through it. We checked in after hours and they just left the packet and told us to pick a spot. The full hookup sites were a few rows of back in but we got in just fine. Grass was a bit long and they mowed the next day.

The site we were in had a good amount of space around it and a large field in the middle of the park for playing with the kids.

The amenities were there with a playground, really small laundry, fine bathrooms, pool, and some other things. They were all quite nice, but being at the end of the season as well, it was all just a bit worn.

Overall, this was really nice and hopefully over the winter they get things cleaned up just a little bit.

No management. Amenities were dirty and run down. Utilities were par. Annuals take up most full hookups. Maybe saw two employees total. Trees are overgrown.

We enjoyed our stay at Bear Cave RV Campground. This Park offers reservations however sites are assigned first come first serve. We had reservations and there were some concerns when we arrived if they had a site large enough to accommodate our rig. We ended up in the loop along the river which was shaded and level. The Park has a new manager, and you can tell she is putting money into this park to make it a nice campground. There are seasonal campers, but all seemed to welcome us transient campers. We would stay again.
Although we did not use the Restrooms and Showers were clean.
This Park offers many amenities including a pool, clubhouse, boat dock and launch. Interesting History within this park with the Bear Cave and the Tulip Tree. It is close to the Redbud Moto Cross track, Fernwood Botanical Gardens (which offers hiking), in the heart of West Michigan’s Wine Country, Warren Dunes (Lake Michigan), Silver Beach (St. Joseph) swimming, dining, and shopping.

We really enjoyed our stay here, this was a low key stay for us since going full time traveling. The sites are good size. Unfortunately they are first come first serve. We really liked our spot with full hook ups. This park is just outside the town of Buchanan and about 30 minutes for either attractions in ST. Joseph or South Bend. You can tell the property is well maintained also, AT&T service was weak but our T-mobile hot spot worked just fine.

not a lot of sewer and river front site as most are taken by annuals.. the amount of annuals has gotten larger and there is only like 20ish site available to non annuals.. more or less.

most of the site on river are taken, so you either get luck and get site with sewer, maybe 5?, or go by the bathhouse and get on of the open grass site with no sewer.. dump is behind the bath house so not that far to pull your tank or for $10 they will pump you out..

the road coming in from Red Bud is a bit rough.. (you turn between two houses oddly enough) some large "dips" out by the hwy and a couple of speed bumps to deal with. the entrance is gated and they call with gate code before hand. :)

there is a mix of 30 and 30-50 sites.. more 30 it seemed.. (we are 30 so not a big deal)

the bath house has been updated and looks good. new tile, toilets and the showers have strong pressure and hot water.. problem is the head sorta not able to adjust to not shoot water out past the curtain.. need to have another joint that will allow it to bend down more.

SPeaking of bathhouse.. the entire time there the floor was NEVER swept or mopped. toilets are cleaned, paper replaced etc counters at sinks wiped off but no sweep or mopping the floor.

you are close to south bend and notre dame university.. down the road is Red Bud motocross track.. the put on national and international talent races from time to time. Redbudmx.com

also not far is the RV Museum down near Elkhart IN home of a lot of RV manufacturers. Many give factory tours so be sure to call and find out more.. (covid had restricted them so be aware)

The Bear Cave is an actual cave.. lt was part of the "Underground Railroad" helping to funnel slaves from the south to freedom in the north and canada.. plus it was a location in a silent movie about bank robbers.. be sure to check the info inside the store and the waterfalls out back.

the pool area was redone and look nice.. the hot tub shown on map does not exist.. (a lot of stuff on the map is not correct)

if you bring kayaks there is a nice place to put in the St Joseph river right at the park and you can leave it tied up on dock.. there are lots of boat on the dock adn the river has lot of activity during the weekend.

Be sure to take time to check out the store and talk with the lady there. she is a hoot and super friendly. ( I think she is the manager but not sure.. )

there are some nice bike trails in town and in Niles to the east. (also the walmart store)

water is super hard.. had rust stains on my regulator from slight leak of backflow preventer. tested out at 399 TDS.. use softener if you have one.
Tmoblie and verizon were low, bearable usable.. ATT was good.. 22 meg down. no booster.

Well . . . At the low end for Thousand Trails. Pulled up to gate and pushed intercom button and was told they were closed ???? 2.30pm on Wednesday?? The drive to the gate was the first clue this wasn’t a place for me. The second was the price. All roads are dirt and dusty and I felt as though I was intruding. I now know where all of those 10 yr old plus trailers go. Most are seasonal and/or annual and many need cleaned. Makes the whole grounds feel run down. Bigs rigs going to the left after passing through the gate are doomed. Guessing those sites could accommodate up to 28 ft ?? Sites to the right can accommodate larger but only a site or two were open. And those are close to one another. This is not a campground but more of a place to live in a trailer.

As we drove down the long gravel entrance, I wondered how this would go. We went over a LOT of bumpy roads coming from the west (though leaving to the east, not too bad ). As other reviews have noted, a lot of dust, and seasonals/annuals have claimed the best spots. We also had a wild turkey squawk at us as we entered our site, which seemed weird. Turns out the turkey is almost a camp mascot--hanging around that section of the park for at least six weeks or so, and (s)he seems pretty domesticated. After walking around, I saw the awesome access to the St. Joseph River which changed my mind about the location. Next time, we'll look into some of the lower sites and see if we can get closer.
I still have some mixed feelings--the convenient check-in let us choose our onsite and give/receive all our registration online. However, that leads to an isolation of sorts, and I didn't see any park employees our entire time there. We also dragged our back end trying to get up the hill toward the dump station, and the lane also had an overhanging limb that made us a little nervous. A bit better signage would have made this easier as we could have taken a different path. We would have had to turn the RV around to dump, but that would make things a bit less adventurous.

One of my favorite Thousand Trails park. Most of everything is well maintained compared to other parks. Wish cell phone service was a little stronger. The paid Wi-Fi is fast enough to stream and do remote work.

This campground is very nice. There are not a lot of full hook up sites available due to annuals but they have pump out service twice a week for $15. Speaking of annuals, they maintained their sites and almost all were well manicured. The amenities weee very nice. Bathrooms updated and clean. This campground could use some road maintenance as the dirt roads with very little gravel created an incredible amount of dust.