During Electric Forest you sleep in the hardwoods at Double JJ Ranch, stages among the trees and lights strung through the canopy. Late June is loud and crowded, and you walk between stages and sites at night. The rest of the year the same ranch is an Old West town, a golf course, and an indoor water park visible from the Back Forty RV loop.
Camping on the grounds takes a festival pass from Electric Forest, one pass per vehicle. Lock that pass before you book the van. Any vehicle 16 feet or longer needs an RV pass, including trailer-hitch rigs, and as of September 2026 camping and RV passes were sold out. If you need more sleeping space than a campervan, RV rentals in Rothbury are the size-up.
Late June is high season at Silver Lake and Charles Mears too. The festival and those loops compete for the same vans and the same sites.
Off festival dates, Back Forty is the first night in Rothbury itself. You park on the RV loop, full hookup or water-and-electric on 20 to 50 amp service. Double JJ takes those reservations by phone only. The dune trip is next, at Silver Lake.
Silver Lake Sand Dunes
Dune buggies and ATVs crest the open sand at Silver Lake State Park in Mears, Lake Michigan behind them and Little Sable Point Lighthouse off the pedestrian dunes. Michigan's DNR calls the 450-acre scramble the only motorized sand dune riding east of the Mississippi. A rented campervan does not drive the dunes.
You sleep in the park's 200-site modern campground, including sites on inland Silver Lake, and either trailer a separate ORV or take a guided ride. Mac Wood's Dune Rides runs 40-minute tours mid-May through October in a dedicated section of the park. The ORV area itself is open early April through late October, with shorter hours outside summer.
Charles Mears State Park at Pentwater
You camp in beach sand at Charles Mears State Park, concrete pads in the east and west loops, with swim buoys and a fishing pier between you and Lake Michigan. The park is 50 acres, so the loops, the beach, and Pentwater's village green are the same short walk.
Muskegon State Park and P.J. Hoffmaster State Park sit farther down the shore. Those parks belong on the Muskegon campervan page.
Hart-Montague Trail
You ride the Hart-Montague Trail through hardwoods and orchards, a 22-mile paved rail-trail from Hart to Montague that also runs through Mears, Shelby, and Rothbury. Trailheads sit off US-31 at both ends. It is day-use, so you sleep at Double JJ or at Silver Lake State Park and roll out from there.
Farther north, the Upper Peninsula and the Straits are a different trip, mapped on the Michigan campervan hub.