South Haven, MI

This was our last stop in Michigan and it was a pretty good way to wrap up our trip in the state. We stayed at the Van Buren State Park, which was quite a bit larger than Orchard Beach (over 200 sites). Even though we had made reservations back in February, this campground was already so booked that the only way we could stay for the next four days was to book one campsite the first two nights and then another campsite the last two nights. Thankfully, they were right across the road from one another so we didn’t have to move too much. We encountered some pretty uneven ground at that first spot, and it took Tom about five tries to get it just right (which he finally did), but we needed a major assist from the chocks below the tires on the right side of the rig. As he was maneuvering the RV into place, it had quite a bit of a lean to it and Owen kept exclaiming “it’s going to tip over! it’s going to tip over!” That would’ve been something to write about. We recommend avoiding site 110.

We were excited to have visitors that first evening! Tom’s childhood friend, Chad Milne and his wife Donna, drove over from the Madison area to spend the evening with us, which was about a five-hour trek for them. We had a great evening catching up, enjoying an amazing steak dinner on the Blackstone and sitting around the bonfire. Once again, great weather and no bugs. The next morning, we all went out for a hike and had the opportunity to climb the sand dunes in this location. Hot and sunny (and steep), these were more challenging than Sleeping Bear. They led down to the state park beach, another solid spot for swimming, wave jumping, and body surfing.

Tom had a few calls that morning, so Owen and I headed into South Haven, the central part of town. There’s a cute downtown area that also leads down to the Marina and the main public beach. What a great part of town - gorgeous views, boats coming in and out of the marina, the lighthouse on the end of the pier - everyone was out enjoying the weather and the summer vibe. The thoughts of “I could live here” crossed my mind, but I’m sure the idea of it is likely akin to living in Door County in the summertime. Heavy tourism season for sure. 

During our time here, I went to the Saturday morning Farmer’s Market and found most of our groceries for the week. While we’ve definitely had to seek out places like Aldi and Walmart for a few essentials, we are trying to shop locally as much as possible. Owen discovered that South Haven is the “Blueberry Capital of the World” and this is not hard to dispute given the number of markets dedicated to fresh fruits. Now I’m trying to find a couple recipes to use up all these blueberries we have before they go bad!

We had a pretty chill week here - Owen and Tom spent a lot of time rolling around in the big waves in Lake Michigan, we did a number of hikes on the sand dunes and in the surrounding trails and also biked into town one afternoon on the paved bike path that took us directly from the campground into downtown South Haven (4.5 miles one way). The plan was to get ice cream but instead of getting melting ice cream there was a meltdown and we decided it was best to try another day…

The excitement for that campground happened on our last evening there. A massive tour bus camping vehicle came into the area close to where we were camping and promptly got stuck - the soil around here is really sandy, and a hazard for extremely heavy and long rigs, that need room to maneuver. Along with the rangers, the camp hosts, and plenty of onlookers, we watched as the driver tried to free his wheels from the ground but to no avail. They eventually had to call a tow-truck, which must have come in the middle of the night as it was already getting dark when this was happening and they were gone in the morning. Felt really bad for them, and also grateful this did not happen to us in our first spot - it could’ve!

We were treated to a gorgeous sunset on the beach on our final evening, thankful for all we’ve seen and experienced in Michigan. We had no idea how much we would love it and are pretty certain we’ll be back sooner than later.