5 Wonderful Ontario Parks for Your 2025 Camping Vacation
Picture yourself hanging in a hammock on a sunny summer day, catching up on easy reads. A steak sizzles over an open flame, and a gingham-covered picnic table is set with camping dishes and cutlery. You contemplate the Biscoff s’mores you’ll create after the sun sets over pink granite outcroppings. Is it too early to think about the summer camping season? Not really. You can start booking your favourite Ontario campsites now and beat the rush.
Ontario has the perfect mix of terrains to explore, from Bon Echo’s Mazinaw Rock, featuring over 260 Indigenous pictographs, to the white dunes of Pinery near Grand Bend. Over 100 parks across Ontario allow overnight use for car and backcountry camping, and some parks also have yurts, cabins or cottages for rent. Whether paddling past snapping turtles, biking to a camp store for ice cream or hiking along the Bruce Trail, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. If you’re looking for family fun this summer, read on for my five favourite Ontario parks, and what’s special about each one—including my camping memories.
Pinery Provincial Park Camping—Dynamic Dunes
Pinery Provincial Park in Grand Bend, Ontario, is known for its sunsets, ranked among the “Top 10 Best in the World” by National Geographic, and its 10 kilometres of beach hugging Lake Huron. It is also known for its rare Oak Savanna ecosystem, with seven species of Oak trees and wildflowers in hues of yellow and purple. At Pinery Provincial Park, bank swallows burrow in dunes and perform aerial acrobatics over Lake Huron. Each of the three main campgrounds has it’s own charm. Settle in close to the action near the Visitor Centre and beach, pop up a tent trailer close to the river, enjoy the quiet among old pines or rent a rustic cabin year-round. The Park has comfort stations, laundry facilities, a park store and rentals for activities like kayaking. With 21 square kilometres of rare forests and dunes, 10 walking trails and a 14-kilometre bike trail, there’s lots to keep campers busy.
Pinery Moment
My kids earned their meals by collecting kindling to keep our campfires going. This paid off later as we stayed cozy by the fire, roasting marshmallows.
Tip: Pinery Provincial Park has four accessible campsites and two accessible yurts. It also features barrier-free facilities like trails and canoe docks.
Algonquin Provincial Park Camping—Group of Seven Gorgeous
Ontario’s oldest and best-known Algonquin Provincial Park was established in 1893 as a wildlife sanctuary. Famed Group of Seven artist Tom Thomson captured pine trees bracing in the wind and multihued granite, preserving in paint the iconic landscapes of the Canadian wilderness. The world-class Algonquin Art Centre houses the works of the foremost Canadian landscape artists. In front of the Art Centre, learn about the life and art of Algonquin Park’s (and Canada’s) most famous painter on the Legacy Path. The Art Centre also offers painting classes.
Spot a scarlet tanager on one of 14 interpretive trails, explore some of the 1000 species of fungi and walk through Eastern Wolf habitats. Active adventurers can take to the trails on two wheels. Algonquin Park has drive-to and backcountry camping with different amenities including flush toilets, showers, electrical sites, privacy and beaches. You can also drive to yurts and cabins (cabins are also available in backcountry sites).
Algonquin Provincial Park Moments
It’s our first family canoe trip, and my teenage daughter is portaging an aluminum canoe 295 metres on her shoulders from Canoe Lake to Little Joe Lake. My husband Joe strong-armed the second canoe, while my 13-year-old and I schlepped a waterproof food drum, clothing and other essentials.
Tips: Rent your canoe-camping equipment and pre-packaged food from the Portage Store on Canoe Lake. Don’t spill the pancake mix all over the ground (like I did).
Bon Echo Provincial Park Camping—Preserved Pictographs
The land forming Bon Echo Provincial Park near Cloyne, Ontario, was owned by Flora MacDonald Denison, a Canadian activist, journalist, businesswoman and influential figure in the suffrage movement in Toronto. Denison left the land to her son Merril, who gifted it to the Government of Ontario in 1959.
A key feature of the park, Mazinaw Rock, a 100-metre-high cliff over Mazinaw Lake, is sacred to Indigenous peoples. 263 reddish-coloured pictographs sit just above the waterline. The endangered peregrine falcon, the fastest bird in the world, typically nests here, performing high-speed dives and catching prey mid-air.
Bon Echo offers car camping in two campgrounds accommodating tents or tent trailers. Water taps, comfort stations and laundry facilities are close by, as are swimming and boating areas and the Visitor Centre. For a semi-wilderness experience free of electrical hookups, you can camp in the Hardwood Hill Campground using tents or tent-trailers. Toilets are nearby and there is one comfort station to service the campground.
Bon Echo Provincial Park Moments
During our stay at Bon Echo Provincial Park, we paddled past pictographs, learned the history of the Bon Echo Inn and watched five-lined skinks skittering over rocks.
Tips: Bring snacks on hikes. Check out Greystones Gift Shoppe and Café for ice cream.
Grundy Lake Camping—Turtle Encounters
Grundy Lake Provincial Park is located 85 kilometres south of Sudbury, Ontario. The 36.4 square kilometre park is a part of the Canadian Shield, with rocky outcroppings, sparkling lakes and ample forests. Motorized boats are not allowed in the park, making canoeing an exercise in silent contemplation.
Grundy Lake Provincial Park has two natural features that make swimming fun. The algae-coated Slippery Rock, near Red Maple Beach, is perfect for easing into the water. For some great cardio, the tiny island off Grundy Lake Beach is swimmable in under 30 minutes. At Grundy Lake, you can book car camping in one of nine campgrounds. Close by you’ll find water taps, toilets, comfort stations and laundry facilities. You can also explore a backcountry spot. Swimming and boating areas and the Visitor Centre are located only a short distance from the main beach. There are radio and pet free options. Rustic cabins are also available.
Grundy Lake Provincial Park Moments
Grundy Lake Provincial Park is a great place to see yellow-throated Blanding’s turtles crossing roads in June, searching for nesting sites. I met a volunteer holding a safe perimeter for a turtle to lay her eggs. The turtle tested a few places for her progeny, scooping up the earth with her hind feet. She gave up after 20 minutes and meandered into the brush.
Tips: Take a canoe onto Grundy Lake to see massive turtles.
Superior Provincial Park Camping—Chasing Waterfalls
Lake Superior Provincial Park covers about 1,550 square kilometres along the shores of Lake Superior between Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa, Ontario. The park’s towering cliffs and beaches offer stunning views of the world’s largest freshwater lake. A trail descending to Agawa Rock, 135 kilometres north of Sault Ste. Marie takes you to 35 red ochre pictographs etched into a 15-story-high granite cliff.
You can drive to over 90 waterfalls along the Lake Superior Circle Tour. Sand River Falls, accessible by foot using the Pinguisibi Trail, cascades over exposed bedrock, leading to tiered waterfalls and rapids.
Lake Superior offers car and backcountry camping. The Agawa Bay campground is on Lake Superior. The Rabbit Blanket Lake The campground is close to Hwy 17. There are 60 sites, 20 of which are electrical. Facilities include comfort stations with flush toilets, showers and laundry. The outdoor amphitheatre and Visitor Centre are nearby. There are also 163 backcountry campsites.
Superior Lake Provincial Park Moments
The campsite in Agawa Bay Campground was steps from Lake Superior. Each morning, I sipped coffee in a camp chair as the mid-summer sun lifted over the lake.
Tips: Pick a campsite close to the water. One of the two campgrounds, Agawa Bay, is accessible. It features barrier-free campsites, comfort stations with flush toilets and showers and a visitor center with accessible facilities.
In Ontario, you’ll find a variety of campgrounds. There are larger parks with guided walks and fishing lessons, and smaller parks where you’ll see the day slip by from your perch among the pine trees. Your perfect park is out there. Once you find it, you’ll make your own camping memories.
