Portsmouth Campground

We wanted to stick close to home because I had to work. We have never camped here before and thought to give it a shot. I drove through the campground earlier in the week and considered canceling the reservations. The road was full of potholes and most of the sites were meh at best. The outter sites are wooded and private. We had 3 sites in our group. 22,24 and 2 (ours). It was way better than expected. There seemed to be a fair amount of activity until midnight which was fine with us. The kids ran, biked and played until they dropped and we didn't worry about the noise or traffic. Give this campground a chance.

Cuyuna Country is intended for mountain bikers, but you don't need a mountain bike to enjoy the recreation area. There's a swimming beach, boat and canoe access (no rentals on-site), although not much hiking.

The campground is pretty bad, not gonna lie. Spaces are very close together with almost no privacy. Many of the spaces are just parking on grass, and I'd say the majority of the spaces are not at all level. There are 18 electric, and 15 non-electric sites.

Bottom line: if you're into mountain biking you will want to move here. Or, if you want to explore Crosby and Ironton, the campground is a good basecamp. Otherwise, move along to Crow Wing, Savanna Portage, or Father Hennepin State Parks.

Unboosted speed tests
AT&T: 3 bars LTE / 62ms ping / 5.88mbps down / 9.41mbps up
Verizon: 5 bars LTE / 61ms ping / 21mbps down / 12mbps up
T-Mobile: 3 bars LTE / 64ms ping / 20mbps down / 10mbps up

We were interested in riding the Cuyana State Recreation area bike trails, and found that there was a campground nearby! We decided to give it a try and were glad we did. The campground isn't amazing - the electric spots are all grouped in the middle with some back in dry sites around the edges. There are a few back in electric sites around the edges with some pretty decent shade as well.

The bathrooms and showers were pretty bad, and the garbage seemed to always be full, and there were some huge potholes on the dirt road in. However, the grass was well kept, and its not a busy place.

And... the mountain biking was amazing! Some seriously awesome trails for both intermediate and beginners. We rode a ton of them both with and without our kids - straight from the campground as also driving over to the Boot Camp loop. You can also easily access the paved bike path from the campground as well.

Verizon was stable enough to stream Netflix and we got some great work done in between rides. Used a Wilson booster and easily got a few bars of 4G.