kelleys island state park

Beach is beautiful. Campground and bathroom/showers are great for everyone. Island is absolutely beautiful. Can find a party if thats what you look for or can disappear and have a peaceful weekend.

The beach is a somewhat small area but was very beautiful with the light colored and soft sand. It is a peaceful place to go sit and read listening to the waves on the shore.

The state park has a very nice campground that is well maintained. My husband and I often go to the beach there just to relax and it's great as long as it isn't a holiday weekend. Gets a little crowded sometimes on holidays and if there are big events on the island. My only complaint is that they need to do a better job cleaning the public bathrooms at the beach. Past couple of times, I couldn't even go inside because they hadn't been cleaned and full of bugs. Hoping they start checking them more often.

My family and friends decided to visit Kelley's Island for the day. We rented golf carts and drove around the entire island. It is a beautiful island and the golf carts were a fun way to see everything. One road went right alongside the water. The views were beautiful, and some of the homes were gorgeous! We enjoyed riding through the state park. We stopped at the interior lake. We walked around the lake a little bit and found some really nice spots for pictures. We also stopped at the beach but didn't swim. I was pleasantly surprised by how soft the sand was. There were a lot of people having fun in the water. Since there's not much to do on the island, I don't know that I'll be back real soon. But we were all glad that we went and had a great time. I wish we would have had dinner at one of the restaurants overlooking the water, but some in the group wanted to get back to Sandusky. Maybe next time...

We use this primarily as a beach and boat launch. The beach is nice and sandy with bathrooms available. This place is pretty busy during the summer but we have always found a place to hang out. Lot's of families here. Water is gorgeous and there are many great spots for pictures here. Our cousin's stayed in the campground and had a beautiful view of the lake. New, clean shower rooms/bathrooms. We launch our jet ski here. Be aware that one of the launches is steeper than the other, so if you are pulling a yacht with a compact car, use the easier launch. They sit side by side. Just drive up the one way drive and back down it - one of the easier launches we have used. Be aware that this is nature........so there are naturally snakes in this area. I get a little anxious if I fall off of the jet ski near shore because there are lots of snakes, but they don't bother anyone and you often find them sunning themselves on the break wall. We have not noticed this next door at the campground, so no need to freak out about staying there, but I wish someone would have told me to be aware the first time we used the water. This is not unusual for the area at all. Enjoy the island - this is one of our favorite vacations and we go back each year.

Small, clean beach. Shallow water. Small kayak rental area. Right off the camping area and across the street from the glacial grooves. From the jetty you can see Put-in-Bay. Family friendly.

My wife and I recently returned from our first ever trip to Kelley's Island and our first stay at the Kelley's Island State Park campground. We are very experienced with state park camping and were expecting the worst and hoping for the best. What we got was one of the nicest state park campgrounds we've experienced. My review is primarily about the campground and the adjoining beach and fishing jetty.What we loved:- The location is perfect, right on the lake with a great view- Easily accessible from downtown: just about 1.5 miles straight up Division Street - Showers were nice with plenty of hot water, nice water pressure, an actual dial control (rather than push-button), and were relatively clean (for a state park). - Fishing off the rock jetty was superb. I caught several keeper Perch and White Bass on our last night -- enough for a great fish fry (the on-site fish cleaning station with running water was very handy)- The beach is surprisingly nice with actual powdery sand, not the pebbles that pass for sand at most state parks- Nice playground for kids- Level, nicely paved pads and fairly spacious sites, many with shadeConstructive criticism:- No golf carts allowed in the campground. This was by far our greatest complaint. We were forced to either bike to town (which was fun as long as you weren't dressed nice for dinner) or drive our SUV and hope we could find parking. We would greatly urge this park to adopt the same rule as South Bass Island. There, visitor golf carts are prohibited, but campers can register a golf cart as one of their two allowable vehicles per site. - Office hours are sporadic and not clearly posted. After four days at the campground, I still can't tell you when the office is actually open. There's also no real camp store, per se. The office sells ice and firewood, but again, good luck finding the office open when you need either. Luckily, the convenience store across the street sells just about anything you need (at a pretty good markup).- Not a lot of planned activities for kids (they had a movie one night, but that was basically it)- It's time to run electricity to the remaining sites. What has kept us from visiting in the past is the difficulty of getting a site with electricity. We camp in a pop-up, usually with kids, and electricity is a make-or-break for us in the heat of summer.A few tips:- If you need groceries, skip the convenience store across the street and head into town to the little grocery there. The prices are much better, and they have more selection- That same grocery store offers DVD rentals, which you may need for rainy days since Kelley's Island has almost no indoor activities to speak of- The best souvenirs can be found at the General Store, which also has a small hardware and camping supply section if you have an emergency- The Brandy Alexanders at the Village Pump are everything they're cracked up to be and more. Believe the hype. They're amazing after a hot bike ride around the island.- If you take the inter-island ferry to Put-in-bay for the day, have fun... it's actually an awesome day trip, even if you don't like to party. However, watch out for drunks if you take a late ferry back. We were on one of the last ferries of the night and had to deal with obnoxious twenty-somethings trying to pick fights and half a dozen drunk sorority girls vomiting overboard.

We drove through the park, went to the beach, drove through the campground and took the north shore loop trail. We will definitely be back to camp at this park. The beach is lovely, nice sand and place to set up in shade or sun. The campground overlooks the beach and the lake and the sites are shaded, open and lovely. There are flush toilets and showers in the campground. The trail we took was very easy, flat and took us to the north shore which had a number of places to sit on the rocks and contemplate. I wish we bought something to sit on and a picnic lunch.

We camped there and found the sites to be fairly level but really narrow so hard to back in to. All the sites are paved. Only 20 Amp electrical service, no water hookups, no internet access from our site (#10). Lots of Kids who enjoy the beach and riding their bikes and scooters around the campground. Quiet at night, with no highways or railroads nearby. Across the street is Uncle Dik's store which has a great selection of everything the camper needs including Homemade Piroghies (sometimes).

When my kids and I arrived road weary and water logged from the torrential rain we endured to get to the island, we made a beeline for the State Park so we could check in and get settled. We rented a camping "Get-A-Way". I searched the internet for photos of the Getaways, but kept only finding Yurts, so I was anxious to see what my 5 kids and I got ourselves into. Well, when we tried to check in, we found out the information we got on the State Park website was WRONG and we couldn't check in for about 3 more HOURS. The woman checking us in told us she should be able to get things ready for us in 2 hours, so we went off to eat. Upon returning, we finished our check in and went to our shed with a canvas top "Get-A-Way". Okay, it wasn't quite what I expected, but it was okay. That was, until I rolled up the windows to let some air in. On the outside of our building was about 40 earwigs clustered under that shade! They were all over the outside of our Getaway! I brushed them away with a broom, blaming the heavy rain and ushered my kids and I to the beach. After a long day at the beach, and a cookout outside, we decided to head into our tiny Getaway, play a game and go to sleep. THAT'S when we noticed there were quite a few of these scary earwig bugs inside the cabin. Okay, we're not camping novices. I went into Mom mode, squished about 10 of them and distracted the kids. Then....there were more. A LOT more. This time, I squished AND sprayed bug spray all over the walls. Now my kids are a bit freaked out. I calm them down, turn the LED lantern down and tell them to go to sleep. Only, sleep didn't come. Why? Because those earwigs were EVERYWHERE! In our sleeping bags, crawling along the walls, on the surfaces of everything...they were everywhere and once that lantern went out, they REALLY came out. One crawled across my son's glasses and I had them in my hair!! My four boys got the HELL outta that "cabin" and bolted for our car. I started taking everything out...shaking everything out, checking for the bugs, bagging anything that wasn't closed up (luckily, I always keep everything in sealed bag when we're camping). It was a NIGHTMARE!!!! It is now 11:00PM and I have 4 boys sitting inside my dilapidated 92' Camry while I pack everything into the trunk of the car and around them in the back and passenger seats. So, here we are. It's now 11:30pm, the sky is putting on quite a display of lightning and now what?! I go drive up to the camp office. Closed. I call the State Park phone number. Closed. I drive into town. I figure the bars will be open and someone will be able to tell me where we can go for the night. Nope. CLOSED. I drove around the entire island TWICE, just hoping to see a light on somewhere. Not a single one. I ended up at the police station around 12:30am and all the officer on duty could do, is recommend two places to try. Both, CLOSED. I ended up driving back to the campground, parking my car right in front of the camp office and told my four kids they'd have to try to sleep sitting up in the car until the office opened in the morning if we couldn't go back to the "cabin". Four kids ages 5-14 and myself and all our stuff in that '92 Camry. It was NOT a good night. Not at all. The only GOOD thing about it was the sunset in the morning. That was glorious. The next morning, we checked out of the campground and eventually got all our money refunded, but we ended up having to cut our trip short by a day, because we now had nowhere to spend the night. We were very disappointed.However, the bathrooms (which were way on the other side of the campground) were nice. They were clean. The park was clean and not loud. The beach was excellent. I just wish we could have enjoyed it. The Camp Getaway really was just awful. The person I talked to on the phone said that there must have been a nest under the "cabin" and they "thought" they had taken care of it. Guess not.

Good to visit for swimming and sun. Water does not get deep for quite a while so good for kids. Beach area well maintained.

We arrived on the Sunday night after the 4th July, so most folks had left. We took our van over on the car ferry, somewhat surprised that roundtrip costs $20/person and $32 for the van -- a whopping $112 fare!! The campground was quiet and only a bit more than half full, other guests were friendly; no cell phone reception. We were able to get reservations for one of the campsites on the lakeshore, a very short walk from the (pleasant and clean) shower house and the swimming beach. Stunning view! Very fun to have a fire and watch the sun set (though we were facing north, it was still beautiful). Mosquitoes were hardly noticeable, just a few at dusk. It rained hard one day, and we found out that the lakeshore sites get the runoff from the road; it rained so hard that there was a steady inch-deep river running under our tent for a few hours. Good thing our tent floor was relatively water-resistant, but we and our gear did get wet. We had fun hiking, swimming, seeing glacial grooves. And on the second straight day of rain, we drove out to the docks on the south side of the island to have a good (dry) dinner and watch a World Cup game, as a reward to our two teens who had really taken all the rain in good humor. Would love to camp here again and do some canoeing and kayaking.

This is a clean, easily accessed beach with public restrooms. A very nice state campground abuts it. Beach goers will have to bring their own food and drink, though, as there are no concessions.

If you'd like to get away from it all and have one of those do little, chill on the beach kind of vacations, this campground is ideal. Mostly all families, the beach is lovely, and the town is quaint. Some things to consider:- This is a very popular place so book early (6 months out for Holiday weekends)- There is little to no phone reception at the campground (in town only) and no Wifi- It is a mile to town if you plan to bike (young children may find this difficult)- There are only a few showers on the grounds but the facilities are clean and well kept.- Mayfly season is sometime in June (not May typically) and they don't bite.- The Ferry leaves from Marblehead and is $19 or so a person round trip (+RV or car fees). It comes every 20 minutes on weekends. Parking available for $10. Not sure if it's overnight.- There is a beach where you can take your dog.

The Kelleys Island State Park is a great location and next to several preserves on the island as well as adjacent to the Glacial Grooves. Whether camping or just visiting for the day, there is always something worth seeing or doing at this state park. Great for off-season walks as well.