Big Cedar Campground

This campground is within a few hours of most of the major attractions in the UP. It has full hookups at some sites, most are just water and 30 amp electric. Dump station is available. Has a clean bath house and nice playground area.
The sites are very close together and awkwardly shaped. The sites in the center all face the common playground/bathroom. There is some road noise but it quiets down at night. There is no good river access and none of the sites have river views. Also no place to really walk or exercise dogs. They say they have free WiFi but it rarely works and cell service is spotty.

We stayed here while we were checking out the UP. The park is quiet and next to the river where you can rent kayaks or canoes. Not much as far as restaurants or grocery stores nearby, but it is a wonderful place to stay. Clean showers and laundry room. We only had water and electric, but full hooks were available. Nice area for those driving big class A RVs. Poor cell coverage and parks WiFi was not good.

The campground (CG) was easy to find and get into. Check-in at the office was a breeze and we proceeded to back-in site 28 with FHUs. This CG only had 30 AMP and we did not experience any power issues using 30 AMP on our 50 AMP fifth wheel. Back-in was not a problem as the road is wide and we were also able to pull straight into an empty site and back straight in, however, if the CG is full it could be challenging. Center sites were pull through (wagon train circle) while outer sites backed in.  Sites shared electric so you have to ensure you have a long enough cord, but that shouldn’t be a problem in most cases as the sites were very close together. There were brand new owners who brought on seasoned camp hosts as the CG was well run and maintained. Restrooms/shower and laundry were open. The laundry has 1 washer and 1 dryer. We got 1 bar on Verizon and AT&T so we used our WeBoost for Verizon and our roof mounted ToGo for AT&T internet. We did not use the CG WiFi but heard it was OK. We got a few OTA channels and put out our satellite for additional channels. We used this campground as a stage to adventure out to local attractions during our seven day stay. There was no dedicated dog area but we drove less than five minutes to the Seney National Wildlife Refuge where you can walk for hours. The CG in general, restrooms/shower house and laundry were very clean. The CG also has direct access to the Manistique River. You can rent kayaks, canoes, and tubes and they will pick you up at the access points. There were local convenience stores but if you want to get to large grocery or Walmart stores you would have to drive over an hour to Sault Ste. Marie. The owner and campground hosts were super friendly and can help or suggest attractions, nearest gas and convenience stores.

We choose this campground because it was central to all the sites to see. The new owners are very nice and accommodating. The host were friendly and helpful. Just before we left they were able to get a WiFi booster in that got us WiFi by using our booster. Pretty much standard WiFi for a campground. The Verizon service was 1-2 bars without the weboost. It is a weak signal so with the weboost you still had to be right at the indoor antenna for 4 bars. But my wife was able to work and do goteam meetings. The electric is 20 or 30 amp. Didn’t need the 50 because we never ran A/C. There are some pull through sites but also back in and pull in. Big rugs will fit. There are only a few FHU most are electric and water there is a dump station. The sites are grass but firm. I did use some boards under my levelers so they would not push in. If we go back to the UP we definitely will stay there again. I did put a drone video of the campground on their Facebook page. There is some road noise during the day but not bad. There is also a SMALL market in walking distance that has pretty much everything.

This campground is located on the site of a Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps site.

It has a variety of campsites, some with full-hookups, others with 30 amp and water.

It's a relatively small campground that seems to be popular with organized groups.

The major downside is poor cellular internet service. Like many areas of Michigan, the Verizon and AT&T coverage maps are not accurate. I could only maintain an LTE connection to the tower (located in Seney to the north) with the use of an external antenna or booster. Even so, the performance was just OK at around 3Mbps download.

The local town of Germfask has an good restaurant call the Jolly in that we enjoyed.

This park is only 10 minutes off of highway 2 on the UP (upper peninsula)...so if you are traveling over the top of Michigan...this works really well. We were traveling from WI to St. Ignace. They are a Full-time Family campground partner, so our rate reflects what we paid, we did not have to pay the extra per person charge for the 3 kids. This is a small rustic, old-school family campground and it is right on the river. We pulled in late in the evening and rented tubes in the morning and had the most wonderful time. You can use your own tubes...we only had one, so we rented 3 more and my husband and the kids hopped in the river at the campground, I drove down the road and picked them up 45 minutes later. It was the perfect activity before we hopped back on the road (tube rentals are $10 each). Showers were nice and hot after being in the river. We would definitely do this again! We also had a convenient W/E pull-up site (basically parallel parking in a half-moon shape that was convenient).