Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore · Michigan
Overview South Manitou Group Campground is a tent-only backcountry facility on South Manitou Island in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan. Campers must take a 1. 5-hour Manitou Island Transit Ferry trip or boat ride to reach it, and must backpack their gear into the campground from the dock.
Sites at South Manitou Group Campground are reserved through Recreation.gov. Sites here can be reserved in advance through the official system, and they are claimed fast — cancellations then trickle back all season, unannounced, at any hour of the day or night.
| Total sites | 6 |
|---|---|
| Site types | Group |
| Location | Empire, MI |
| Book through | Recreation.gov |
| Official listing | Recreation.gov |
Because sites are booked months ahead, a steady share of reservations get cancelled as trips fall through. Each cancellation instantly returns that site and those nights to the official calendar — first-come, first-served, no waitlist, no announcement. Refreshing the booking page yourself, every few minutes for weeks, works in theory. In practice, the people who get these sites are the ones who hear about the opening first.
itOpened scans the Recreation.gov calendar for South Manitou Group Campground around the clock. When a site matching your dates and your vehicle opens, you get a text with a direct link to it. You book it yourself, in your own account, at the normal price. We never book, hold, or resell — your fee pays for monitoring, and openings are first-come, so speed is the whole game.
| Platte River Campground | Cancellation alerts available |
|---|---|
| D.H. Day Campground | Cancellation alerts available |
| White Pine Backcountry Campground Permits | Cancellation alerts available |
| D.H. Day Group Campground | Cancellation alerts available |
Page data refreshed 2026-10-29. Site facts come from the official directory listing for South Manitou Group Campground; cancellation statistics come from our own scanning logs.