The best outdoor adventure campgrounds in Michigan put the adventure on the property, so you can paddle, swim, ride and hike without packing up the car every morning. In the Lower Peninsula, two GatherGrounds parks do that in different ways: Walnut Hills Family Campground in Durand sits on the Shiawassee River with a spring-fed swimming lake and a 14-piece floating water park, and The Oaks Campground in Munith has about 120 acres of trails next to Waterloo Recreation Area. Below is what adventure camping looks like at each, how to plan a river float, and where else in Michigan to find outdoor adventure locations worth the drive.
What makes a campground an adventure campground?
Any campsite can be a base camp. An adventure campsite is one where the activity starts at your site. When you compare fun campsites for an active family, look for:
- Water you can actually use: a river you can float, a lake you can swim, or both.
- Something to climb, jump or ride: a floating water park, mountain-bike or golf-cart trails, bikes on the campground loops.
- Gear on site: rentals or an outfitter, so you don’t need a trailer full of boats.
- Dark skies. A remote campground turns a clear night into its own activity.
Walnut Hills: a river, a lake and a floating water park in one campground
Walnut Hills has what our team calls a natural dual water feature: a spring-fed swimming lake and the Shiawassee River, side by side on 42 acres with 201 RV sites, 18 tent sites and two camping cabins. The campground started out in the 1960s as a canoe-float and swimming-hole business, and those two things are still the heart of it. It’s about an hour from Flint, Lansing and the north Detroit suburbs, so the adventure starts the same day you leave home. See our Flint-area camping page and Lansing-area page for directions.
Floating the Shiawassee River from your campsite
The river launch is at the front of the campground next to the store. Cheff’s Canoe Rental, an independent outfitter the Cheff family has run on this stretch of river for decades, works out of that launch from spring through October with canoes, kayaks and tubes, and a bus with a trailer to bring you and the boats back. You book online on their site or by phone, meet at the launch, and they provide the life jackets.
| Float | How it works | Time (canoe/kayak) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upriver put-in to Walnut Hills | Shuttle upstream, float back to the campground launch | About 4 hours | A full day on the water |
| Walnut Hills downstream | Launch at the campground, get picked up at a designated pull-out | About 2 hours | Most families |
| Tube float | Tubes move about half as fast, so there’s a dedicated tube pull-out on a local farm | About 2 hours in a tube | Teens and adults; a cooler floats along in its own tube |
| In-park float | Start at one end of the campground and drift to the other | 30 to 45 minutes | Young kids and short attention spans |
A campground employee’s rule of thumb: parents with small children usually pick a canoe so the kids ride with them; young adults go for tubes. Spring water runs faster and suits canoes and kayaks; June through early August is prime tubing. Late summer depends on rain, so check the river before a September trip. The Shiawassee River Water Trail Coalition has real-time depth and flow sensors along the river, and a 360-degree photo tour of the river is linked from our home page, so you can preview the stretch before you float it.
You can also bring your own canoe, kayak or tubes and launch from the campground ramp. Two of the drop-off and pull-out points are public, so you aren’t required to use the outfitter, and Cheff’s will give paddlers with their own boats a ride for a fee (they can’t haul private boats). The 88-mile Shiawassee was named a National Water Trail by the National Park Service in 2020, and volunteers keep this stretch cleared of downed trees. Paddlers who know both rivers tell us the Shiawassee runs deeper than the Rifle, which helps in a dry year, and it’s much closer to the Flint, Lansing and Detroit areas. For booking details see how to book a river float trip, and for tubing specifics see tubing at Walnut Hills.
The Wibit floating water park
The swimming lake is spring-fed, so the water stays clear and cool, with cold pockets you can feel where the spring comes up. On it floats a 14-piece Wibit water park, far bigger than the one-to-four-piece setups at most campgrounds. Pieces include an Action Tower XXL, two slides, balance ladders, monkey bars, a rock-climbing wall, a rope climbing hill, a trampoline and a launch piece that bounces you into the air before you splash down.
The practical details: it’s open Tuesday through Sunday, free for registered campers Tuesday through Thursday and a paid wristband Friday through Sunday. Riders must be 7 or older and wear the campground’s Wibit-designed life jackets (personal jackets aren’t allowed). Guests under 16 need a parent present. There is no lifeguard; a Wibit monitor checks wristbands and jacket fit and keeps an eye on everyone. Everyone signs a waiver and watches a short safety video at the store first. More on the Walnut Hills amenities page.
On land at Walnut Hills
- River nature trail: a short walking trail along the Shiawassee inside the park, good for a morning hike.
- The Reed Road trailhead: around the corner from the campground is a tract of public land, donated to the City of Durand by a farmer years ago, that runs through woods to the river. Seasonal campers with golf carts know it; most visitors don’t.
- Bikes and golf carts: the campground roads make easy riding loops for kids, and golf carts rent at the store by the day (multi-day rentals cost less per day). Adults can ride pedal-assist e-bikes. Our parks are set up for bikes, e-bikes and golf carts rather than ATVs or side-by-sides, and carts park at dark, which keeps the roads calm for kids and walkers in the evening.
- The entertainment zone: the Kangaroo Jumper, gaga ball pit, new playground, ball field, basketball and sand volleyball, all near Pavilion 2 where weekend bands, DJs and karaoke happen.
- Stargazing: the campground is remote enough that stars and meteor showers show up from any site, and Walnut Hills has a fleet of telescopes and a stargazing event on the calendar. See camping under the stars.
The Oaks: 120 acres of trails next to the largest state park in the Lower Peninsula
If your idea of adventure camping is trails rather than water, our sister park is the better fit. The Oaks covers 155 acres, about 120 of them trails through forest and grassland in several loops, which our team believes is unlike anything else at a southern Michigan campground. You can hike them, ride mountain bikes on narrow single-track the golf carts don’t use, or explore by rented golf cart. Guests may bring their own horses for day riding (there are many stables near Waterloo), and dogs can run off leash on the back trails and in the dog run. One loop runs toward the wetlands that border Haehnle Sanctuary, where sandhill cranes are common; others wind through woods where deer are easy to spot because there’s no hunting on the property.
Next door, Waterloo Recreation Area covers more than 20,000 acres with 11 inland lakes and about 20 miles of horseback trails, and Portage Lake’s public boat launch is a 9-minute drive for fishing or skiing. Back at camp there’s a sand beach on a spring-fed swim lake with an Aquaglide floating water park, a fishing lake with a dock, and a free Kangaroo Jumper. The Oaks has water-and-electric sites (50 amp on short-term sites) but no full hookups, so big-rig campers who want sewer at the site should pick Walnut Hills. Read more in Michigan campgrounds with hiking trails and campgrounds with mountain biking.
Where are the best outdoor adventure locations in Michigan?
Michigan’s public land is the other half of adventure camping, and a private campground near it gives you both. A few that pair well with our parks:
- Waterloo Recreation Area (next to The Oaks): the Lower Peninsula’s largest state park, with lakes, hiking and equestrian trails and the Eddy Discovery Center. See our Waterloo camping guide.
- Sleepy Hollow State Park near Laingsburg, between Durand and Lansing: 2,678 acres around Lake Ovid, with about 16 miles of hiking and biking trails and 12 miles of horse trails.
- The Rifle River in northern Michigan: a classic Michigan paddling and tubing river with river-focused campgrounds, about an hour and a half farther from the metro areas than the Shiawassee. See our Rifle River camping guide.
- Haehnle Sanctuary (bordering The Oaks): a short drive to a public viewing area with bleachers, with thousands of sandhill cranes in the fall. There’s no trail or golf-cart access from the campground; drive around the corner.
Planning a summer camping trip around outdoor activities
Our team’s advice for a Walnut Hills trip is to stay at least three nights, arriving Wednesday or Thursday. A typical plan: a free-Wibit weekday at the lake, a Friday river float, and Saturday for the beach, the daytime events and the evening at Pavilion 2, with a food truck handling dinner. Food trucks are there every weekend from Memorial Day through the end of September, usually Saturday, often Friday dinner and Sunday breakfast.
Pricing is dynamic: a base rate with a premium on holiday weekends and waterfront or full-hookup sites, and discounts on slower dates. The weekend after Memorial Day, the weekends around Labor Day, May before Memorial Day and October are the value windows, with the same river and lake. RV sites start around the high $40s a night and vary by date and site; see the rates page. Quiet hours run 11 PM to 8 AM at both parks and kids and bikes are back at the site by dusk, so everyone is rested for the next day on the water. The season is May 1 to October 20.
Frequently asked questions
Are adventure campsites good for young kids?
Yes, with the right pieces. At Walnut Hills the Wibit is for ages 7 and up, but the beach, the in-park float, the Kangaroo Jumper and the playground work for younger children, and canoes let small kids ride with a parent on the river.
Do I need my own gear for adventure camping?
No. Cheff’s rents canoes, kayaks and tubes at the Walnut Hills launch and supplies life jackets; golf carts rent at both parks; the Wibit provides its jackets. Bring bikes if you have them.
Which park is better for outdoors camping with hiking and biking?
The Oaks, for its 120 acres of trails and Waterloo next door. Walnut Hills is the pick for river floats, the swimming lake and the floating water park.
