The Ice Age Trail runs through kettle lakes and kames, forested hills and prairie remnants the last glacier left in the southern Kettle Moraine. The trail threads the woods on foot, up a kame and down to the next small lake, then into prairie remnants that open the canopy for a stretch. A van night at Ottawa Lake is that ground before breakfast, in woods beside the water.
Hiking, biking, and horse trails cover the southern unit, so a weekend can stay inside the forest. The Ice Age Trail does the long walk, and the other trails stay in the same woods.
The southern unit's Ottawa Lake campground stays open all year, with limited plowed sites in winter. Reservations run same-day through 11 months ahead as of September 2026. Book the site first, then the van.
Some sites have electricity, and Pinewoods and Whitewater Lake in the same forest run mid-May through mid-October. If you need more sleeping space than a van bunk, look at RV rentals in Wisconsin.
The southern unit is on State Road 59 near Eagle, about 37 miles southwest of Milwaukee. North of the city, the Pike Lake Unit is a separate forest with its own lake and its own season.
Powder Hill, a glacial kame, looks down on a spring-fed kettle lake in the Pike Lake Unit. Sunrise campground runs early April through the third weekend of October on State Highway 60 between Hartford and Slinger, about 25 miles north of Milwaukee. Sites are reservable online, and unreserved ones go first-come first-served.
Kohler-Andrae State Park
The wind comes straight off Lake Michigan across an open beach, and the sand dunes pile up in front of the pines off County Highway V near Sheboygan. You come for that beach day and sleep in the family campground behind the dunes. The campground stays open all year.
Individual sites have no water or sewer. The park has a dump station and a freshwater fill, and allows one wheeled camping unit and two vehicles per site.
Milwaukee's own lakefront, and the Summerfest grounds on it, are parked days. There is no vehicle camping there.
Harrington Beach State Park
A flooded limestone quarry lake and a Lake Michigan bluff beach share the same park at Belgium. Swim the quarry, walk the bluff, and sleep in the family campground. Group and kayak sites are tent-only.
Showers and flush toilets run in the summer season only. The park has a dump station and a freshwater fill. Big Foot Beach at Lake Geneva has a state-park campground if the weekend turns inland.
Road America at Elkhart Lake
On a race weekend, motorhomes line up trackside at Road America in Elkhart Lake. You sleep in that row of rigs while the road course is running, and camping exists only while the track is running an event. A weekend event ticket, a camping wristband, and a campsite are three separate purchases as of September 2026, and the trackside motorhome zones are the ones to book.
Lock those three before you book the van. Race weekends fill the state-park campgrounds too, so a split weekend between the track and Ottawa Lake needs both booked early.
West of here, Madison is its own campervan base. If you are continuing south, Chicago is the next city to plan from.