Baker Park Reserve

Baker Campground is located in the grounds of the Baker Preserve County Park located on Lake Independence just north of Maple Plain Minnesota. The preserve is run by the Three Rivers Park district and has a wonderful beach area, picnic and children's play area and campground as well as a canoe trail waterway and bike trail.

The campground consists of multiple loops set above the lake. There's no view of the lake due to trees. The camping area is in an area with large deciduous trees and short grass. The trees hung over the loop roads and some sites and might be problematic for taller rigs. Our 5th wheel was brushed several times by low branches but there was no damage. There is little to no undergrowth to provide privacy between sites. The loops and driveways are gravel. About half the loops have 30 amp electric-only hookups, some 50 amp sites are available as well.. There is an available RV water fill and RV dump as you enter. Bathrooms have flush toilets and free showers. Water is turned off in early October but off-season dry camping is available for a few weeks after that.

We arrived on a weeknight with a reservation. The campground office was closed and the hosts were off duty so we proceeded directly to our site. Our name and dates of stay were posted at the site. We never did interact with the office or hosts.

Verizon cell service was steady with 2-3 bars of 4g LTE.

If you're considering coming here, you're probably looking for something in the Twin Cities metro area that isn't an RV park or casino. This might be a good location option, but there's zero privacy. On a non-summer weekday, that's no big deal because the place is practically empty. But any other time, kids ride around on their bikes screaming non-stop, and it's just not a place to find any peace and quiet. Better than a parking lot, though.

This campground has multiple loops. The non-electric loops are $21/night, the 30 amp loops (B, D, G) are $26/night, and the 50 amp loops (H, J) are $29/night. I had no problem with the 30A electric. When you arrive, you turn into this loop area that passes by the dump station. When the office is open, you go inside and talk to them and they give you a piece of paper to put in the site number sign, a parking pass, and a slip that gives you the gate code (which is closed after 10pm). An obnoxiously slow check-in process.

Most of the sites are level front to back, but some are not level side-to-side, and are super narrow. Three Rivers Park District park police officers (yes, they're real cops) patrol the campground and yell at people. There's a shower building (it's clean) and separate RV water fill once you get in, between the H and B loops.

Good LTE on AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. AT&T speed test: 46ms ping, 8.9mbps down, 5.9mbps up.

Three Rivers' online reservation system is hopelessly broken, and has been for a long time. It routinely says there’s no availability, despite over half the sites being available. You also are not able to make reservations same-day. Your best bet is to call. If you reserve in advance, there’s a $7.50 fee, which you won’t pay if you reserve upon arrival.

If you're able to, drive around and look at spots before selecting one. It's difficult to recommend one spot over another because it largely depends on who else is nearby.

Here are some other options near the metro area that offer same-day online reservations with an interface that actually works:

• Bunker Hills (Anoka County)
• Rice Creek Chain of Lakes (Anoka County)
• William O'Brien State Park
• Afton State Park

This may be the closest campground to Minneapolis that isn't an RV park. It's about 30 mins from downtown. Campground was was clean. Bathrooms/showers were adequate but not super clean due to so much use. There are tons of kids here and for good reason- lots of paved bike trails, a massive playground with zip lines and a swim beach. I would recommend water shoes on the swim beach as its a little rocky and we found a couple pieces of glass on the ground. There are volleyball courts and horseshoe pits in several places throughout the CG. Staff here was super friendly and helpful. Lots of grassy areas around the sites and some tall trees but not much privacy to speak of. Good quality cell service- didn't need to use the amplifier.