Schulze Lake at Lebanon Hills in Eagan is a swim with woods at your back, then a lake loop and the same trees at night. It is the largest park in the Dakota County system, woods and water with hiking, paddling, and horseback trails around the lakes. Morning is another loop or another swim without packing up. Two loops in those trees hold the vans, a west loop for RVs and a quieter north loop that mixes tents and campers.
Reserve the pad before the van. Dakota County caps a camper on standard electric and nonelectric sites at 24 feet, and the whole rig has to fit the parking pad. A longer RV is the right rental if you need more length or a pull-through with full hookups. The campground runs early May through mid-October, and water is off once freezing is in the forecast in October.
The Lawrence unit of Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area, toward Jordan, is a trail day from here, because DNR's only listed overnight is an equestrian campground.
Lake Pepin, Frontenac, and the Cannon Valley Trail
On the 430-foot limestone bluff at Frontenac State Park in Red Wing, Lake Pepin is the Mississippi as a lake. In Yan Teopa, a natural rock arch, opens on the bluff top. Electric loops look out on the Mississippi River valley, and nonelectric sites catch a glimpse of the lake through the trees.
If you want that river view at night, Frontenac's loops are in the park. The night that matches the rail-trail is Lake Byllesby at Cannon Falls, another Dakota County campground, water and electric pads next to a paved lakeside connector onto the Cannon Valley Trail.
The Cannon Valley Trail is a 19.7-mile paved rail-trail from Cannon Falls through Welch toward Red Wing, on the old Chicago Great Western grade, dropping about 115 feet down the Cannon River valley. As of September 2026 the Red Wing end is closed for construction, so you ride out from Cannon Falls and turn around. Lake Byllesby runs the same early-May through mid-October season as Lebanon Hills.
The far shore of the lake is Wisconsin, a separate overnight if you keep going across the water.
Hidden Falls at Nerstrand Big Woods
A boardwalk over Prairie Creek leads to Hidden Falls, a 20-foot limestone drop in the woods near Northfield, halfway around a one-mile loop. Federally endangered Minnesota dwarf trout lily comes up along that boardwalk in spring. The park has an electric campground and a seasonal shower building, so the falls can be an overnight, with Rice Lake State Park at Owatonna as a prairie-lake extra night if you keep south.
Sakatah and the Minnesota River valley are a Mankato campervan trip.