Newaygo State Park

If you are into mountain biking, this campground is an affordable campground for riding The Dragon (a 43 mile single track trail that loops Hardy Pond) and boating on Hardy Pond. Most campsites are level and well shaded with pit toilets. There is water available in the camping areas and a dump station at the exit. There are campgrounds in the area with more facilities, but most of these are very crowded and noisy. Most Newaygo campsites are private and separate by trees. My experience is that this campground is quieter than others in the area as well.

This is a great rustic campground near a large sporting lake. There is a boat launch and a small swim beach both walking distance from the campground.

Despite being right next to the lake you cannot really see the water from anywhere in the campground which is in a more wooded area which if you are relying on solar may not be great.

We stayed in the oak loop in site 35 which did have some clearing above us so we stayed charged but the majority of sites had more tree cover.

The oak loop is surrounded by the disc golf course which is pretty technical with all the trees. The poplar loop is closer to the swim beach and has a hiking trail that follows the shoreline and then loops back. Site 85 in the poplar loop almost has a lake view and it’s steps from a great clearing overlooking the water- if we went back we’d try for that site. Sites around 66-69 we’re closest to the beach access.

There are water spigots and vault toilets throughout the campground and they sell firewood and ice at the park entrance.

If you do not have a Michigan Recreation Passport for entry you will have to pay that as well- for out of state residents it’s only $33 for an annual pass otherwise its $9/day.

AT&T worked fine- we didn’t test speeds as we were her for pleasure rather than work

The road in is in need of repair. The beach is small & people were playing loud music.

We stayed on a Friday night & the campground was full of many young adults that partied extremely loud all night. Our campsite was near a trail & people were still walking on it throughout the night.
We never slept.

Wish we would’ve kept driving & this hadn’t been one of our stops.

We arrived on a Wednesday in the Poplar loop and things seemed pretty nice at first. There were only two other occupied sites on the half of the loop we were in, which made for a very peaceful and quiet campground. However, the next night an obnoxious group came in and they were loud and disrespectful the entire night until a big storm interrupted them at 1:30am, despite 5-6 other groups asking them to be quiet throughout the night. Park rangers appear to only patrol on the weekends. This would be a perfect spot for midweek camping, but in the future I'll avoid any weekend trips.

Not the greatest place for kids. There were a few good trails right off the campsite with some nice overlooks on the lake. There aren't really any playgrounds, and while the roads are paved, they're in need of major repair and aren't the greatest for bikes/scooters. The beach area on the Poplar side is hardly a beach - it has sand, but it looks more like a boat/kayak launch area than a beach. Side note: there's surprisingly really strong (Verizon) cell reception at the beach, but seems super spotty elsewhere.

This place is in the middle of nowhere. It's really great if you want to be secluded, but not so much if you need to stay connected (e.g., work).