A couple of weeks ago I was scheduled to shoot a wedding in Petoskey, MI This is such a lovely little corner of Michigan, and our summer has been so busy so far that I really wanted to bring the boys with me for the weekend so I didn’t have to be away from them all day Saturday and Sunday. We started searching (late) for Airbnb’s and cottages, but there was not much available. This is pretty normal for this area, it’s always busy, but I procrastinated so it was my own doing!

We decided to search for a campground and came across the Petoskey KOA. We’ve never stayed at a KOA before. I’m not sure why, other than we generally lean towards state parks or privately owned non-chain campgrounds. We decided to give it a shot. When booking online the full hook-up pull thru sites were listed as “prime location” sites so we decided to go with these.

We were given a site right up front near the entrance, across from the main building, pool, and playground. This was definitely convenient for ease of our children getting to the playground and back without getting lost in a new campground.

There were just two downsides to this site- there were no trees at all- the sites were very close and open. This is pretty typical of the pull thru full hook-up sites though. The second was that as we were right across from the entrance, we heard the gate open and close every time someone pulled into the campground. We’ve been to campgrounds where gates don’t make any noise but this one was particularly loud for some reason. Other than this, it was a great place to park the trailer for a short stay.

While I was away shooting the wedding on Saturday, the boys had a great time hanging out playing at the campground, enjoying the playground and pool. The amenities here are really nice- it’s one of the cleaner and more updated campgrounds we’ve been to. The playground and equipment seems relatively new. One of the things my boys loved most was the “gaga pit”. Gaga is a relatively new thing to me, but it’s a game the boys learned last year at summer camp. Apparently it’s now popular enough for it to be at a campground. They had a lot of fun playing. It’s basically dodge ball in a small enclosed pit.

While the KOA’s are a little pricey, there are a lot of extra’s here that we don’t find at other campgrounds often. There was a nice cafe outside of the main building, which also offered Pizza delivery to your site. The campground also offers wood and ice delivery. Trash is picked up daily from your site at a certain time so you don’t have to take it anywhere. All of these were really great conveniences. This is definitely considered “resort style” camping.

There were also a lot of daily activities going on at this campground including tie-die shirts, candy bar bingo, a movie playing on Friday night at a host campsite, etc. The campground is really geared towards families which is nice.

Next time, I would likely chose a water/electric hook up site, as there are more private sites with trees that we really liked more than the full hook up pull through site we were on.Β Overall, we had a nice stay here and if we found ourselves in the Petoskey area again, would consider staying again.