A free overnight casino stay in Petoskey, Traverse City State Park with fishing & a great restaurant, then fun morning sunrises and seaplanes at Interlochen State Park – what more could you ask for!

Traverse City

WHERE WE STAYED🛻⛺:

Odawa Casino (Petoskey, MI)

This was a free overnight stay at a local casino. We tried this since we were waiting to get into Traverse City State Park. There was RV parking which was more than sufficient for the night. There was a lot of lighting in the area which was great for security. Blackout blinds do help. Area was quiet and as a bonus, the casino security regularly drove around the parking lot.

The day we were there there was a semi truck as well as two other campers. The Casino itself was ok, but we don’t frequent casinos to have a good comparison. The nicer restaurant was closed the day we visited and the cafe had adequate food.

Close to other shopping needs (Meijer, Walmart, etc.) Would stay if we needed a short stop again.

Traverse City State Park

We stayed at this park for 4 nights and in general it was pretty good. The biggest plus of this park is the location. There’s a bridge that you can use to get to the Beach right on the bay. There’s a trail to walk or bike into downtown. There’s even a shuttle that goes into downtown (check at the main entrance to see the schedule).

The park itself seemed well-maintained. The bathrooms were kept up. There wasn’t any laundry facilities but you can get that in town (though we opted to wait until we were in Interlochen to do that).

On the not great side: During the day there is a lot of air traffic – commercial airlines, sight seeing planes, and US Coast Guard low-flying helicopters. And… if you chose your site poorly, you may be up against the main road into town which is quite busy. Check your site’s relation to that road! With all that noise, it does get much quieter at night. Honestly, it didn’t bother us – we have a white noise generator that tends to make all that go away. But that may not be your case (for reference, we have stayed near semi trucks overnight and most places didn’t bother us).

The other not so great thing is this park has an older layout which means you may have to do battle with low-lying trees and unlevel sites (even beyond what is said online). Do what you can to check out the site before booking.

WHERE WE PLAYED:🐟🛶🚴‍♀️🥾

Mission Point Lighthouse

When we made it into Traverse City, it was pretty rainy and gloomy but we still decided to head out to see Mission Point Lighthouse. What a pretty area!

Clinch Park Boat Ramp

We took our boat out twice while we were in Traverse Bay. We did have to pay to park in the area, which also included use of the boat ramp. You can pay using an app on your phone which was convenient and allowed us to use a credit card. The boat launch itself was reasonable we thought. We didn’t have any problems getting out with our 20′ deep V boat. Great area to do some deeper fishing but still protected. Saw some beautiful sailboats and enjoyed our time while we were out.

East Traverse Bay Boat Launch

When we drover up the peninsula, we wanted to check out a few boat launches on the way. We chose to pass this one up mainly due to the concern of getting stuck in the sand. But it would be a beautiful stop to see a larger portion of East Traverse Bay. The day we went, it was a bit rainy and windy!

WHERE WE ATE: 🍽️🥩🍹🍺🍽️

7 Monks Taproom, Traverse City

I fell in love with this place.  The variety of different beer on tap.  The small but VERY well-done menu.  Even watching the bartenders take dozens of overs and work around each other in kind of a weird choreographed dance.  Oh, did I say they bartenders have a personality?! And even give you good advice on food orders?  Seriously, what more could you ask for!

The only downside is trying to figure out where to park our behemoth of a truck.  But it’s doable!  Another downside is that they have a whiskey room which we couldn’t try.  Next time (with an Uber driver)!

Interlochen

WHERE WE STAYED🛻⛺:

Interlochen State Park

This was a good-size state park that was nestled between two small but quite deep lakes – Green Lake and Duck Lake. The park is divided into a North and South portion. When we visited, the South portion was closed (possibly due to it being early October). While walking around, it looked like the North portion had a lot more flat campsite options. Also, the North side had several lake-view sites would would have been pretty sweet.

If you do stay here, similar to the Traverse City State Park, there are trees you’ll have to manage on the main roads as well as in the campsites, but nothing unmanageable. And we were greeted with an extra splash of fall color when we were there – bonus!

Since we were only there for a few nights, we only left the park to take our boat out fishing. And there’s a boat ramp right next to the North campground.

It was a beautiful but small-ish lake to fish. It made it so much prettier with the rolling fog and fall colors (which you can see better in the video).

However, my favorite thing here was that we were able to enjoy seaplanes taking off from the lake – how fun to watch!

Other Links

• 🛻⛺🛠 Truck Camper GEAR
• 🛻⛺🛠⬆️Truck Camper UPGRADES

Our Camping Locations

If you’re interested in seeing all of the places we’ve stayed, I’m keeping a (mostly) updated list on Google Maps by Month. Enjoy!