248 State Park Road P.O Box 326, Harrisville, MI 48740
Harrisville State Park
62 reviews
Getting there
Car recommended
Places to stay are graded on a 0-100 scale. The higher the grade, the easier it is for travellers to find restaurants and things to do within walking distance.
So far, the cleanest state park I've been to. Thank you to the DNR staff in keeping the grounds and bathrooms clean. Also, watched them pull trash out of firepits, after lazy campers left their messes behind. Awesome park!
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Date of stay: June 2021Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We recently camped at Harrisville State Park from 7/29 - 8/1/06 at site #38. Nice site that is somewhat secluded. The site is appx. 50' wide by appx. 22' deep. Sloops toward a small creek that runs along the back of the site. The area on the site where one would pitch a tent or park a small trailer is level with a grass surface. Shaded by the many trees on site. We camped with a two room tent(with awning) and had lots of room. There is a pit toilet next to the site, but it was locked up the whole time we camped. Hop across the creek and through a small trail you will come to a ball field that is about 50 yards from the beach. Nice sandy beach with a few rocks. If you swim at the day use area of the beach, there are far less rocks and many sand bars in Lake Huron, great for children! Bathrooms have flush toilets and showers, but they are quite old. I'm sure they will be updated, as they have done with many other State Parks in Michigan. Also, there is a great little ice cream shop across from the entrance to the State Park. Many campers walked over to here for a HUGE cone!
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This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We just returned from a 5 day stay over the fourth of july holiday at Harrisville State Park and it was a terrific campground that we will definitely return to. The park had lots of mature trees and most of the sites still had nice grassy areas, The park also has a wonderful paved walking/biking trail that runs the length of the park. The bathrooms need to be renovated similar to other Michigan parks that have more shower stalls including one that is handicap / family accessible. That being said though the bathrooms were kept clean and there were two showers per restroom. I found the the bathhouse on the north side of the campground has two different shower heads. One was brutally harsh and you could not take a small child in there but the other stall was fine. We stayed on sites 127 & 129 which were fine. 127 was better because it had more grass and less dirt (some sites may be prone to flooding during intense rain). I would also warn that sites 133 & 135 have huge unsightly electrical boxes on them. This park also had quite a few beach front sites that were really nice. There are also several cabins for rent that looked really appealing. There is playground equipment available on the beach but it is easily as old as the park. The beach areas are well kept but there are parts in the water that can be rocky so water shoes might be handy. The campground host was very pleasant and had tons of activities for kids. The park is located within 30 mins of Alpena and Tawas so great location. Lots of good restaurants (Flour Garden for breakfast or lunch) and a great ice cream stand (Country Cone) just outside the park entrance that had a large variety and gave huge portions. I would highly recommend this park and the real perk is that it offers nearly the same amenities as the west Michigan campgrounds with much smaller crowds. True gem on the east side.
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Date of stay: July 2011
Value
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Service
Trip type: Travelled with family
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Come on vacation leave on probation that's there saying you've been warned. Stay out of the bars the locals will not welcome you. They will coming to the park and harass you wanting you to check IDs.....
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Date of stay: October 2015Trip type: Travelled with friends
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Harrisville State Park has a very nice public beach area with plenty of picnic tables and grills. There are clean bathrooms, though no place to really change into a swimsuit, like at Tawas Point. Highly recommend the public beach portion though, it is very nice. Now, for the campground. The campground itself really is nice. It is very wooded, beachfront sites, fire wood vending machine, modern bathrooms, nice paved trails. The campground itself we did not have much an issue with, it really was quite nice. It was our site location. We were on site 85, which is right next to a foot path to the bathroom. This was a HUGE mistake picking this site. I could not believe the amount of inconsiderate people who walked through our site. I do not mean walked on the path next to our site, I mean WALKED ACROSS OUR SITE!! I also could not believe parents were letting their children CONSTANTLY go back and forth on this path on their bikes spinning out and doing donuts in the gravel. The path is there for people to have easy access to the bathroom.... not to "play" on. I would think grown adults would have the decency to tell their kids to quit screwing around on it, AND on our site, but they didn't. The kids doing this were right on the site across from us, so yes their parents were around. Though I guess I should not have expected anything since their parents kept walking across our site as well. Do yourself a HUGE favor and DO NOT pick a site RIGHT on a foot path. You WILL regret it! This alone ruined our trip. It also did not help that loud mouth drunks came in the second night and were right behind us. I thought camping was a family activity to get you out of the city and into a quiet campground, evidently everyone does not feel this way. I understand these things were not the fault of the campground itself, however the "campground host" often drove around on their little moped and could/should be looking for people like this.... ESPECIALLY at night when people are trying to sleep!! Now, aside from all of that bad stuff I will cover some other things. The bathrooms were fairly clean, but two showers really doesn't seem like enough. There are two in the men's room and two in the ladies. The bathrooms at the Tawas campground were much cleaner and nicer and had more showers. I was up by 6:30am though so claiming a shower wasn't a problem for me. They offer a vending machine that dispenses bundles of wood. The price is $6.00 per bundle and it accepts credit cards...very cool! Also, there is a company that drives through offering wood for $25. These were large bundles... around 1/4 cord or so. The beach accessible from the campground was nice and clean, but very rocky in some spots. All in all this is a pretty nice campground. We will probably return, but it will be on a beachfront site, DEFINITELY not on a foot path. I like Tawas Point Campground a little better, however they have very few beachfront sites and the ones they do have are on the bay side. So if you're looking for a nice beachfront site Harrisville is probably the best bet. It looks like you definitely need to get your reservation in very early to get one though.
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Date of stay: August 2013
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Location
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Trip type: Travelled with family
Room Tip:Â Do NOT reserve a site next to a footpath!!!!! You WILL regret it!!!!!!!!
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
This is very nice state park. The beach is sandy, the water beautiful. We're here with two other couples. Each of us has a wooded site, which offers a bit of privacy. We were here two years ago. Since then they've built a new bathroom/shower house. It's a nice facility, but too small for a park this size. There are 10 showers in all and 6 or so include a toilet as well, not bad. But the actual bathroom area has 3 stalls! Since I only used the women's room, not sure what the menfolk have. This is a long, fairly narrow park and we're near an end so it's a bit of a hike. That's ok during the day, but not at night. There are a few vault toilets, but they are padlocked. Perhaps they shouldn't have torn down the old facilities. The moral of the story is: Don't wait until the last minute! I would've given a higher rating if it weren't for the bathroom situation!
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Date of stay: August 2015Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Thge reason I'm giving it 4 stars is because some of the other campers around us stayed up late & were loud at night. We loved this park. It has an excellent dog beach area and it's for people who love dogs. Not much to do in town. I believe they roll the sidewalks up at 2 pm. The only thing open was a gas station & a bar. We would visit this park again but we'll get a different site. We were at site 113 and the was shaped kind of odd. Wide but narrow. It was like 2 sites long and a half site wide. The camper was on one side of the site & the fire pit was at the other side of the site.
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Date of stay: July 2015
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
This is a beautiful park in a beautiful forest which is sadly wall to wall full size RVs, even the few "rustic" sites they have are so close together you may as well be sharing a tent. My husband and I were tent camping in nearyby Glennie and thought we'd check it out for their cabins. We are looking for a place to stay for weekend cross country sking this winter. The two cabins they have would be perfect for that kind of thing. They are heated/cooled. No toilets/showers. But if your just going up for a night it would be fine. For summer camping...not a chance in hell would I go there. That's sad because they have the best piece of land around and they ruined it.
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Date of stay: September 2013Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
we arrived in the fall after school had started . The park was less than 1/4 full. Great walks through the trails and along the beach.
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Date of stay: October 2011
Value
Location
Cleanliness
Service
Sleep Quality
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
We stay in Harrisville every summer but never made it into the park. We finally stopped by and it is really a great park. The beach is beautiful and the bathrooms are very nice. There is also a birding trail right before the check-in building that was amazing.
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Date of stay: June 2018
Rooms
Location
Service
Trip type: Travelled as a couple
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
The sites all have electric. To my knowledge there are no water hookups. However, there are water spigots throughout the park and a place to fill your RV with water when you come in.
Livonia, Michigan, United States39 contributions18 helpful votes
As far as what to bring (sorry didn't see that part at first), your typical camping gear. We actually travel with another couple that has all the "stuff", so we just bring out tent, sleeping items, chairs and food. Each site as a picnic table and a nice fire ring. You can get wood there. It's 6 dollars Afro a small bundle. We got ours just outside the park. Someone was a selling by there home. 3 large bundles for $10. If you can, go that route. Many people had bikes. The beach is nice, so bring items to hang out there. The town is just a short walk. There's not a lot to do there. We walked to the harbor, went into a couple stores, then the guys hung out at a sports bar while we got ice cream and went to the Moose Store, which is right on US 23. We broke camp on a Sunday, so we went back to the Sport's bar for breakfast so we wouldn't have to deal with the cooking mess. You might want to bring some cards or other games. We just usually talked around the fire. I hope this helps and that you have fun!
They tore down the two bathrooms and showers a few years back and replaced it with one big one on the beach. A very poor move. It is a very long walk from many campsites. The mens has only two stools and two urinals for a 200+ unit park that is always full on the weekends. There are toilets in some shower rooms but the lines for the showers make that bathroom choice unrealistic. There are some pit toilets but they have been locked for years, no manpower to clean them I was told. Whoever thought this "improvement" was a good idea has clearly never camped.
There is one out house next to the Cabin. It has a new LED motion light for use at night. The day use side, where the cabin is, has a few older bathrooms with real toilets and running water, but no showers. My wife liked that. They are just across the parking lot.
The campground side of the park has many new large, beautiful bathrooms/showers. They are a short bike ride or an ok walk from the cabin.
There are more places to choose from in the Harrisville area.
ALSO KNOWN AS
harrisville state park hotel harrisville
LOCATION
United StatesMichiganHarrisville
NUMBER OF ROOMS
200
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