Since we left in May, we’ve been following the wind and the music and making up our itinerary as we go along. We’ve stayed at an interesting mix of campgrounds, friends’ and family driveways and alternative ‘boondocking’ sites. That worked just fine until we hit MI in July… Kids are out of school, campgrounds in MI are awesome and popular, and State Parks are sold out until well after Labor Day on weekends. We arrived in NW MI and found zero camping options, yet plenty of places we wanted to visit over the weekend. What are a couple of Destinators to do?
As a side note, MI requires a recreation ‘passport’ for each vehicle entering a State Park. It’s either $9 per day or $31 a year. Our decision was no brainer since we intended to spend more than 4 nights in MI State Parks. The passport also gains us access to day use areas, marinas (with shores on 4 Great Lakes, there are many) and other State sponsored tourist sites.
So, over the weekend, we planned activities – hiking dunes, biking peninsulas, visiting historical sites. Then, we found State facilities with parking for our RV during the day convenient to our activities. We established a base camp at these sites, enjoyed totally outrageous activities, then moved to WalMart for the night. (For those of you who don’t know, WalMart is famous for allowing free overnight RV parking in their parking lots, unless prohibited by town ordinances.) Most are actually OK places to stay – quiet and safe with other boondockers (and convenient shopping) nearby.
It really, really worked! The real test will be next weekend when we try to avoid the weekend crowds near Mackinaw Island. Stay tuned…
