Rock Island State Park

Made our first day trip to Rock Island. As we were late in the season we opted to stay in a cottage on Washington Island and just go to Rock Island for the day instead of camping there. This was a parents only trip (no kids), so if you have kids you may want to allow for a little more time. That in mind, we spent four hours on the island. We hiked the complete loop (5+ miles) around the island at a leisurely pace, stopping here and there for a snack and to enjoy the scenery. We did not stop to tour the lighthouse as we had done that before. If you want to do the loop and the lighthouse tour you will want to allow for more than four hours. Check the ferry schedule the day before your trip and plan accordingly. In the spring and fall the ferry runs much less frequently.

This was our third year and fourth visit to Rock Island State Park. I can’t say enough about how much we love this park. It’s easily one of my favorite places to camp in the United States.
A few recommendations:
1. Don’t come for just 1 – 2 nights. It’s a massive pain to get to this island. For me, that’s part of the appeal. But if you only want to camp for a night or two, the effort of getting there would be a major negative.
2. Come prepared for a variety of weather. Bring your rain gear. Think about taking a knit cap even in summer. Not kidding: the winds were bad enough on our recent trip that I was glad I had a knit cap along during the worst of it.
3. Make your campsite reservation way in advance so you can get a lakefront site.
4. Take a screen room for eating in during August. The black flies can be vicious, although they weren’t bad this year.
5. Tour the light house. Ask lots of questions. The docents are the best.
6. Hike the nature trail. It’s really informative and fun, but easy to miss.
7. Firewood is $ 6 a bundle as of 2014, available from 4:30 — 5:30pm daily. Well worth the cost. Nice dry wood, great for campfires.
8. If you’re in a west facing site, drag your chairs down to the rocky beach for some spectacular Lake Michigan sunsets.
9. Show some patience and kindness toward the staff. They’re a hard working crew and some great people if you get to know them.
10. Buy the book Thordarson and Rock Island by Richard Purinton if you want to know more about the boat house and Thordarson’s vision for the island. You can get signed copies at some Washington Island shops and can sometimes meet the author on the Karfi ferry, where he is sometimes a crew member.
11. Relax. Enjoy. Take deep breaths. Enjoy the experience. Oh, and if you have an AT&T iPhone, don’t count on it working on Rock Island (the best part, IMHO).

Wisconsin is so good at hiking and camping. The camp sites here are spacious and well distributed so you don’t feel crowded by other families. They have mountains of firewood for sale (bring cash!) and wagons you can borrow to get it back to your site.
There’s about a five mile loop around the island that’s gorgeous, and an old lighthouse on the northwest corner. I hope we can get back up here soon!

I am seriously disappointed in everything that I experienced during my trip to this place.
First off– the staff working the ferry’s are nice but are not informative AT ALL. My boyfriend and I planned a one night trip here knowing that the drive would be long and we would need to take two different modes of transportation to arrive at our destination. But we were blind-​sided when it came to ferry times going from Washington Island to Rock Island itself. When we bought the tickets (which were $ 75 with a car, round trip). We arrived to purchase our tickets around 3, just missing a ferry, but many more were coming after that so we waited. We got to Washington Island and drove for about 20 minutes only to hear that we missed the last ferry to Rock Island.
I’m sorry-​how? Why didn’t the staff that sold us the round trip tickets let us know that we need to make the last ferry at 4 pm or else we were stuck on Washington Island? I have absolutely no clue, and for that I am honestly disappointed.
The only reason that I am giving this place 2 stars is because we did stay and we were able to make it to the island just for the day and it was very pretty, the camp sites vary from super private to group camp sites.
–SO PLEASE — if you’re going on a day during the week make that 4pm ferry or you’ll have to stick it out on Washington Island!

Rock Island. Let’s have some real talk.
As far as the campsites go, they are alright. I’d say unless you are going hardcore into the wilderness ie hauling gear, putting up bear bags. So for casual camping what you want is open ground, flat & grassy, picnic tables and available firewood. Here the sites are not huge but they’re fine, sadly thought it seems the woods have been really picked over for firewood. This kind of forces you to have to buy firewood there and haul it back, not a big deal, but just FYI.
Walking around the island is a fun little day trip. You can stop by the lighthouse and let the lovely ladies tour you around the tower. Don’t forget to take off your shoes! And you can pass by a couple of cool spooky mini-​cemetery plots on the trek. The coastal areas for dipping a pinkie toe in the water are okay. Though lots of dead fish wherever we went around the island and the in the water areas tend to be really rocky so that pinkie toe will be getting stubbed.
The island is pretty quiet and it’s nice to roam and take photos.
But now time it’s time for that there Real Talk – for all that’s actually on the island and for all the effort, mileage and dollars getting there it’s probably not worth it. Sure it’s pretty and it’s remote but it takes the time navigation of TWO ferry timetables, which are inconveniently not close to each other, as well as fares to the tune of $ 32 dollars a person basically to arrive at what essentially is a standard state park with a handful of camp sites and little else besides the lighthouse and some walking trails as incentives. There’s just not enough unique draw to merit going thru all the hurdles of getting this far off-​shore. I’d advocate for simply spending a weekend just on Washington Island with mayyybe a day trip to Rock Island. Or if you’re just keen on going hiking, pitching a tent and making some pudgie-​pies just find a central and inland government preserve.

Great state park which is a small island off of Washington Island (which is off of the tip of the peninsula of Door County.) You can camp on the island, although no vehicles of any sort are allowed so you have to take a small ferry to the island and hike with all your equipment and you must bring back your own garbage. The ferry drops you off at the beautiful boat house, and it’s as picturesque as it comes. A short hike takes you to a wonderful beach on the east side of the island. To hike all around the island it’s really not much more than a few miles. If you are going you will want to check the ferry times to schedule either your day trip or camping trip accordingly. Really gives you a nice feeling of seclusion and beauty at this park.

I camped here a couple weeks ago and had a fantastic experience even though the weather was uncooperative. First off, you must take a ferry from Door County to get to Washington Island, and then leave your car and take a little boat out to Rock Island. There are only a limited # of ferries in a day, so plan accordingly!
The boat rides are fun but for two people and a car (which we needed to take to Washington Island to drive across and catch the ferry to Rock Island) it cost us 70 dollars in fees to get there. Didn’t anticipate this so it was a bit of a shock.
The Island is quaint and charming. We stayed at a backpacking site on the far side… about a 1.4 mile hike from where the boat drops you. This was fine except if you want to start a fire… the wood shack is near the boat launch. They have wheelbarrows that you can use to haul the wood to your site, but beware, this is not as good of an idea as it seems. The path is not well maintained! Wearing backpack and pulling unwieldy (and full of wood and therefore heavy as all get out) wheel barrow through rugged mountain path for more than a mile = 40 minutes of misery. But, we sure did enjoy those fires!
The park has 10 miles of trails; the weather sucked so when we got to the lighthouse to look around the lighthouse docents invites us in for a tour/​coffee/​spot by the fire. We ended up chatting for an hour or more, it was an unexpected surprise!
It was a much different experience than most of my camping experiences; because the island is so small, and because you’re all marooned there together, you get to know the other campers and the hosts/​docents much better. There is a great boathouse and shelter to hang out in during inclement weather; they have fireplaces and are stocked with books and games.
All in all, a great place to camp! It’s quiet, beautiful, and unique… just make sure you budget your ferry money carefully!

Winning.

Beautiful. What more can I say? I have been here twice already while I was visiting Washington Island. It’s just a short 10 minute ferry ride off of Washington Island that brings you to a remote island that seems like it is miles away.
So the backstory of Rock Island is that a wealthy inventor used to own the island. Chester H. Thordarson wanted to create a vacation island for his employees and their familes on the island. He had come up with the models of this huge lodge that would rest on the shore of the island, and it would have been a fully filled resort. However, upon his death, his family sold over the property to the state of Wi.
The island, since being open to the public is a great place to come and spend a relaxing day, or camp (which I have yet to do. but really want to) and be, literally away from other people. The views of Lake Michigan are breathtaking.
If you are ever in Door County, make the trip, it is worth it.

amazing. remote. quiet. unspoiled. in other words, don’t go and ruin it for me.

First off here’s a problem with Unilocal in my limited experience: Addresses may be wrong and the location on the map can be off.
This is even more of a problem when you have a place like Rock Island State Park which IS an island only accessible for most by ferry from Washington Island. Perhaps the address shown on Unilocal and on the map is for the park’s administrative office.
Getting to Rock Island State Park is part of the fun. You have to take a large ferry by car, motorcycle, bike or foot from the northern tip of Door County to Washington Island. You arrive on Washington Island at the southern port. Then you have to travel to the Jackson Harbor on the northeast part of the island. Then you take a small ferry (no bikes or cars) to Rock Island.
What a great place for backpackers (according to the ones we talked to) and light house lovers. The ranger is a fun, cool guy. Some rich early settler built a cool boat house and some other buildings on the island.
The boat house, modeled after a Viking or Icelandic building is really fun to check out.
Volunteers have remodeled and staff the light house-​fascinating, fun tour.
I can’t find my notes on the place; I hope to do so and add to this review.