Tom and I picked the perfect place to stay when we picked Holland State Park.  We stayed in state parks most of the time we were in Michigan and loved all of them.  Michigan has 106 state parks and most of them involve water in one way or another.  Holland State Park was the furthest we stayed from a lakefront, but it was less than a mile down the road.

Finding campsites at the Michigan State Parks was easy.  They have an clear website that shows all the available sites and describes them.  Most also have pictures.  Tom and I passed on one campsite that said it was very wet when it rained.  I could reserve and pay for the campsite we wanted online.  Once I set up an account, it remembered my information, which made it easy to reserve at more than one park.  Most of the campsites have electric but no water or sewer.  That was fine with us.  We filled up our fresh water tank when we entered the park and used it while we were there.  The tank held plenty of water for us most places.  When we are using the tank, Tom usually takes his shower in the park bathhouse so that I can take mine in the RV.  He is very considerate.

Michigan has a requirement called the Recreation Passport in order to use the state parks.  Residents of Michigan can buy the passport when they renew their license plates.  If they do that, the passport only costs them $12.  As non-residents, Tom and I bought one online for $35 and received it before we started our trip.  The Recreation Passport has to be prominently displayed in the passenger side windshield or you have to buy a day pass at each state park.  Every time we registered at a park, they asked if we had it and we were glad to say we did.

Tom and I picked Holland State Park because it was close to the beach and close to the Holland bike trails.  It turned out to be the perfect place for us to stay to enjoy both of those things.  The park has two campgrounds.  We stayed at the Lake Macatawa campground which had two large camping areas with about 200 sites.  Our site backed up on the woods at the edge of the park on the Lake Michigan side.  We like to be on the edge of a campground when we can because it is usually quieter.  Our site was shady and quiet.  The other campground is at Ottawa Beach and is basically a parking lot surrounded by sand dunes.  The sites were extremely close together without any shade.  We were very pleased with our selection.

We weren’t at the campsite much, but when we were I enjoyed sitting outside and people watching.  The campground was close to full every night we were there, even though school had already started.  There were lots of families with preschool children.  I enjoyed watching the kids and the adults ride their bikes around the campground loops.  We had beautiful weather while we were there.  No rain and temperatures in the 70’s during the day.

Holland State Park was the perfect place for us to stay while we were in Holland, Michigan.  The setting was beautiful.  We had a great campsite and could walk or ride every place we wanted to go.