Tawas Point State Park: The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful
Despite the plentiful selection of state parks and campgrounds to visit in Michigan, it's always a bit surprising that we keep coming back to the same ones. I think there is a variety of reasons this is the case. Some parks are just about impossible to get into, so we don't even try. Others are closer in proximity to where we live, so depending on the weekend that makes a difference. Finally, some are just pretty awesome parks.
If you jump over to the Worldmappin site, you will find this isn't the first post I have written about Tawas Point State Park.
@mrsbozz and I actually have a bit of a love/hate relationship with this park. As you will see from the photos, the setting is absolutely beautiful. It sits just East of the town of Tawas and juts out into Lake Huron. It has some of the nicest beaches on the shores of Lake Huron and the natural harbor inside the point brings boaters from all over the country.
Unfortunately, due to the popularity of the area, it brings a lot of people to the park and that is one of our biggest issues with this campground. While large, the sites are quite close together with very little privacy. Many folks don't follow the rules that have been put in place for everyone's safety and enjoyment, and it just gets a bit loud and crazy at times.
I've seen several accidents happen in this park and on our most recent trip, we had an old couple in a motorhome playing EDM music at an extremely loud volume well into the late hours of the night.
Despite all of that, we continue to find ourselves back at this park at least once every other year. The friends that we camp with frequently really love this park and there is a lot of stuff for the kids to do. It's also fairly close to home and you don't need to take any interstates to get to it which can be nice with busy weekend traffic. We were supposed to bring our nephew on this trip again, but the medical issues @diamonddave was having caused us to change our plans last minute.
Our friends cancelled their site for the weekend and since they weren't coming with their young son, we decided not to bring our nephew. Even we weren't sure we were going to come on this trip in case we needed to go sit with diamonddave's wife in the hospital.
We have visited this park in the fall when there are generally less people out and about in the campgrounds, but the problem is given it's location out on the point, you often get some pretty intense winds in the fall. I remember one year we camped here and it was so cold and windy the whole weekend we couldn't even sit out around the fire.
Tawas offers a wide variety of places to visit as you will see in my upcoming posts. There is a little pizza place in town called G's that is one of our favorites. They have the most amazing breadsticks!
One of the highlights of the park is the day use area. It has a vast stretch of beach along the shores of Lake Huron along with the cool lighthouse you see above, a picnic area, playground, camp store, and lots of trails to walk along.
Given the winds that I mentioned earlier, this park is very popular with kite surfers and people flying traditional kites as well. In fact, at one point they had a small kite shop down by the lighthouse where you could purchase them to fly. I am not sure if that is still the case.
Again, given the location of this park out on a point, it also makes it very easy to catch both amazing sunrises and sunsets. @mrsbozz and I have walked along the path to the day use area many times and I always have to stop at the same point to get some photos of the sun coming up over Lake Huron.
We tried to relax as much as possible on this recent trip, but there were a few things that had us on edge. Most specifically our friend who was in the hospital. We were expecting to have to pack up at any moment and rush home to be with him. It really wasn't looking good.
We also had some neighbors behind our site who decided to go to the beach all day and leave food and other items out at their campsite. I was trying to take a nap, but I had to take a few photos. I'm not sure if you can see it too well, but in the photo above there are at least a dozen birds, two squirrels, and a chipmunk foraging through the boxes and bags of food they left sitting out.
We also had this large willow tree on our site that loomed right over our travel trailer. I grew up around willow trees like this, so I know how fragile they can be when storms come through. Luckily, we had pretty nice weather over the weekend, but if a strong enough storm had come through, our trailer likely would have been demolished and us along with it!
The trip certainly wasn't all bad though. I made these smashed cinnamon rolls on the Blackstone griddle and they were awesome!
We also had a fairly large site despite our neighbors being so close to us. I don't think I would pick this campsite again mainly because of the tree, but size-wise it is one of the better ones in the park.
It has become popular with some campers to bring these new laser lights with them. They basically just point the light up into a tree if there is one close and it makes all of the flashing points of light that you see in the photo above.
It's kind of a cool effect if you ever get the chance to see it. It's also not as intrusive as you might think. The lights just kind of dance on the leaves as they blow in the wind and as I said, it gives off a really cool effect.
There is usually at least one person at most campgrounds that has something like this set up.
Tawas Point State Park is definitely a must visit if you ever find yourself on the East side of Michigan. It's a short drive from town out to the park, but the views and the surroundings are absolutely amazing!
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
It looks very pretty! Unfortunately everywhere where it's fun, you won't be the only one, your neighbors were unexperienced with camping life maybe, the animals didn't mind at all 😂
Yeah, the critters got quite a nice meal out of it. You are right, all the good places usually get quite packed. My hope is that eventually we will be able to start to do some midweek fall trips when the parks aren't quite as busy. Perhaps when we are retired!
Hello, I am very concerned about people who do not follow the rules for living together in shared spaces (a park, a neighborhood, etc.). Here in Cuba I particularly have a battle of my own against those who smoke and invade the air I breathe. People simply don't realize, or disregard the importance of respecting other people's space. This Tawas Point State Park certainly looks very cozy, greetings from Havana.
It's definitely pretty close in this place. Anytime someone puts plastic on their fire or smokes weed it proliferates through the campground. Despite that, it is still a really nice place to visit. Those folks are the exception more than the norm.
I like the beach photos with the sun... all four of them!
!LOL, smashed cinnamon rolls. Nice! Are those pre-made rolls?
Wow, the laser lights are so cool! I look it up. I learn something new today!!!
I've been to Michigan twice when I was younger, @bozz. I've never been back there.
Thanks for sharing your experience in Tawas Point State Park.
!BBH
!PIZZA
lolztoken.com
but then I turned myself around.
Credit: theabsolute
@bozz, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of silversaver888
(3/10)
Farm LOLZ tokens when you Delegate Hive or Hive Tokens.
Click to delegate: 10 - 20 - 50 - 100 HP
Yeah, it's a really beautiful beach on this side of the state. I'd probably say Tawas is the closest thing to Traverse City we have on the east side of the state. Yeah, we had one of those tubes that was going to go bad, so we decided to try them this way.
That looks like the kind of getaway that I would really enjoy. I spent a bit of time doing ourdoorsy stuff in Michigan and all the places I went focused quite a lot on cycling. I can't tell for sure but this place looks like have have some dedicated paths for exactly that.
This is the first time I am seeing your truck in the pics. That thing is a beast bro!
Oh yeah, this park has a bike path that goes all the way back into town. It's probably a mile or two to get to the downtown area, but it is very bike-able. They have actually been working for a while on a full bike path that basically runs all the way up the coast of Lake Huron.
Michigan does a really good job with the nature bike paths. I lived in 3 different places there on assignment with the government and one I was really concerned about was Battle Creek because it looked, no offense, like a washed up has-been industrial dump. It kind of was exactly that actually. There were still tons of mountain biking paths all over the place though and this made my assignment there a lot more manageable.
View more
I just got new wheels on her this past summer. I think they ended up looking really good!
Overall it looks like a nice place. I wonder if the fishing is any good there? Those cinnamon rolls looked really good. I imagine they would go well with some coffee.
I hope @diamonddave is doing better.
He is home now and while he still has a long road ahead of him, we really thought he wasn't going to make it this far, so each day is a blessing. It's a pretty cool park. If you go to this site https://midnrreservations.com/ they used an overhead view of the park for the banner. There are a few small rivers that run into Lake Huron back in town and I have heard the fishing there is pretty good. I was going to take the boys one day if they had come with us.
That is good news that he is finally home. Glad to hear it.
Congratulations, your post has been added to WorldMapPin! 🎉
Did you know you have your own profile map?
And every post has their own map too!
Want to have your post on the map too?
It's a pretty place, just too bad neighbors can be so close. And at a campground who plays loud music into the night? People are there to relax,.. Maybe they were doing meth or something...
Glad the tress weren't an issue since no storms rolled through. Beautiful place to enjoy the weekend! I hope @diamonddave is doing better!
Thanks, he has a long road ahead, but better than the alternative! I don't know what their problem was. I think they were trying to be "cool". There is a good chance we will continue camping here well into the future despite my misgivings. If you can get one of the outside loop sites, it isn't quite so bad.
It is a beautiful place, ideal to de-stress and have a nice time with the family. It is a shame that there are always idiotic people who do not respect, who believe that the only thing that matters is what they do, but do not realize that sometimes some of their actions bother the other people around them.
Yeah, it is sad when that happens. We have been places before where people just randomly walk through your site like you aren't even there. It's pretty disrespectful. It's only gotten worse the past few years too.
I would soooo passive aggressive that they would be thinking twice why they are living at all... They don't have this right, I mean the right of disturbing others.
It's actually not a huge deal until around 10:00 PM when quiet hours are supposed to start. The park rangers eventually came around and reminded them it was time to shut if off or turn it down.
I would have fun while doing it 😂 But yeah, you got a point. It is just a way of stress relief for me.
Huron huh? Nice. Haven't been there in ages, good to see the trail is still maintained a bit.
We just live a bit away from Huron so we visit there quite a bit. Plus the Lake Michigan side of the state fills up really fast. People don't know what they are missing!
I love to read that your #worldmappin history supports your track record of visiting these places, because it is an excellent tool for those of us who like to travel and learn about real experiences of others visiting the same places over time.
How terrible we people can be sometimes, not having a minimum of respect or consideration for the folks we have to share these spaces with. It's a shame that there is always some selfishness and disinterest close to one, despite trying to be careful with others.
On the other hand, surfers and kites seem to me an excellent panorama to relax and witness it from the shore with the sunset.
I hope all goes well with the hospital.
Oh and I loved the lighthouse photo!
Thanks , I appreciate it. To be fair, our friends and us have been asked to quiet down as well a time or two. Usually because we are laughing too loud, not because of our music. This weekend my wife and I are camping alone again, so it should be pretty chill.
Looks like a really nice place. Shame the sites are small and close together, though, and that some people don't follow the rules. That has always been my biggest complaint about camping in these kinds of places. Back when I was in university I found a place that didn't allow campers, and that seemed to have a good result, with no one loud or annoying. I wonder if places like that still exist these days.
It's hard to say. There are more rustic campgrounds that have a bit more space and you can't get some of the bigger rigs back there. Only problem is there is no power so people run generators during the day. My biggest pet peeve is people walking through my site.
Hiya, @lauramica here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Travel Digest #2316.
Your post has been manually curated by the @worldmappin team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
What a beautiful place.
$PIZZA slices delivered:
@silversaver888(2/15) tipped @bozz
@bozz! @silversaver888 likes your content! so I just sent 1 BBH to your account on behalf of @silversaver888. (2/20)