Our Story: The Oaks Campground and Its First Year

The land

The first thing people notice is the drive. The Oaks isn’t far from the highway, but the last few miles run through so much forest, with so few houses, that it feels like you’ve driven into the middle of nowhere. Then you arrive among old-growth trees and quiet.

The next thing is the space. A typical campground site is about 33 by 60 feet. At The Oaks, the smallest sites are about 35 by 65 and the largest are up to 55 by 120. A campground’s layout and site sizes are almost impossible to change once it’s built, so roomy sites are a lasting gift of this land. Sites 46–61, in the quiet older section, are the biggest of all, with no neighbors behind them.

120 acres of trails

About 120 acres of The Oaks are trails, mostly forest with some grassland, in several loops. Our team has visited hundreds of campgrounds and hasn’t seen another with a trail system like it. One loop heads toward the wetlands along the Haehnle Bird Sanctuary, where sandhill cranes are a common sight. Others run for miles through the woods, where deer seem to know there’s no hunting at the campground. Hikers, dog walkers, mountain bikers, horseback day riders and electric golf carts share the trails.

Good neighbors: Waterloo and Haehnle

The Oaks sits less than five minutes from Waterloo State Recreation Area, with its trails for riders and cyclists, and about nine minutes from the public boat launch on Portage Lake, an all-sports lake for fishing and skiing. Seasonal guests can store a boat at the campground for free. The campground also shares a border with the Haehnle Bird Sanctuary, so wildlife spills over onto our land. The sanctuary’s public viewing area, with benches, bleachers and history boards, is a short drive out the front of the park, and in fall it’s where you’ll see the cranes by the thousands.

Year one: a beach and the Aquaglide

A family campground needs a place to cool off on a hot Michigan afternoon, and The Oaks had a natural one: a swim lake fed by an artesian spring. In spring 2026 we brought in hundreds of tons of new sand to build a beach that runs out into the water, so you step onto sand, not mud, and we began managing weeds on a regular schedule. Our contractors at Michigan Excavation Specialists did a wonderful job.

Out on the lake, we added the Aquaglide floating water park. Many weekends, hundreds of guests used it, and we expect it to keep growing as word gets out. Campground lounge chairs line the beach, and there’s a picnic lawn on the east side of the lake for cooler lunches.

The swim lake spills into a warmer fishing lake, whose outlet joins the Portage River watershed. Guests sent us photos this year of fish nearly as tall as the kids who caught them.

The Kangaroo Jumper, the store and a full calendar

In October 2026, we added a Kangaroo Jumper next to the store and pavilion, near the main playground, basketball court, sand volleyball and ball field. Because it’s a one-time cost rather than a yearly one, it’s free for campers. During our Halloween weekend, hundreds of kids, and a few adults, were on it.

The camp store at the front of the park now carries forgotten essentials, RV supplies, bait and worms, tie-dye shirts and hand-scooped ice cream. And every year the events calendar grows: big holiday weekends with a fishing contest, bike and golf cart parades and DJ Dave at the pavilion, food trucks on scheduled weekends, and a Halloween weekend that moves to the last weekend of September going forward. In 2026 we built a haunted pavilion; a haunted trail around the fishing pond is next.

What’s coming

We call The Oaks “premium in progress.” It already has many of the things families expect from a modern campground, and it will improve every year while staying true to its nature-first character. Here’s what’s ahead:

• 2027: the license-plate gate goes live, so you’re checked in before you arrive and drive straight to your site.
• Planned: a new dock on the fishing lake (already purchased) and resurfacing much of the campground roads with crushed asphalt, which keeps a campground feel without the dust or the mud.

See what’s here today on the amenities page, read about bird watching at The Oaks, choose a site with our campsite guide, check plan your stay, and book your site.