Evenings in Brainerd lake country end on the Turtle Lake shoreline, the rig parked behind you and the kids still talking about the rides at Paul Bunyan Land. Up here the lakes string together into chains, Gull and the Whitefish among them, with family resorts along the shore that suit a week spent in one place. Days head out to beaches and bike trails and come back to the same lakeside camp.
A motorhome earns its keep on a week like this. The private resorts around Brainerd run hookups, so the fridge stays cold, the air conditioning carries a humid July afternoon, and nobody breaks camp to deal with the tanks.
Turtle Lake, Paul Bunyan Land and The Preserve
Camp Holiday is on Turtle Lake near Deerwood, and six of its 40 campsites are right on the lake, the pads to ask about before anything else. The resort mixes full-hookup sites with water-and-electric and seasonal ones, and a full-hookup pad is what lets a family stay put all week without a run to the dump.
Paul Bunyan Land Campground in Brainerd is beside the Paul Bunyan Land amusement park and its Pioneer Village, which settles the week's plans for anyone travelling with young kids. Every site there has water and electric at 20, 30 and 50 amp, with sewer at selected sites only, so ask for one of those when you reserve.
RV Resort Village at The Preserve in Pequot Lakes is the third resort that turns up when people plan this trip. Ask the resort directly about site length and hookups before you match a rig to it.
Picking one resort for the whole week beats splitting it. Moving midweek costs a morning of pulling in slides and stowing the awning, and one base reaches the rest of the lake country by day. The Paul Bunyan Trail is worth the bike rack, and Crow Wing State Park and the Cuyuna mountain bike trails make good days out from any of the three resorts.
St. Cloud Campground and RV Park, east of downtown
Closer to home, St. Cloud Campground and RV Park spreads wooded and open pads across the east side of town, and a golf cart leads you to your site when you arrive. There's a pool for the kids and a Rally Center for groups travelling together. It works as the first night before heading north, or as a base for a week of day trips around town.
For a rig, the draw is the 77 full-hookup sites with water, sewer and 30 or 50 amp in pull-through and back-in layouts, plus 30-amp water-and-electric sites. Mille Lacs Kathio, Lindbergh State Park at Little Falls and Ann Lake in Sand Dunes State Forest are all within a day's reach of this base, and a two-person trip that sleeps in those state parks suits the smaller rigs built for two.
Sibley State Park on Lake Andrew
Southwest of St. Cloud, Sibley State Park puts its Lakeview campground on Lake Andrew, the pick for a state park week on the water without an amusement park next door. Lock the site before the rig, and read the site's length on the reservation, because that number decides which motorhome comes along. For the North Shore, Itasca and the state's other rig trips, start from the Minnesota RV rentals page.