Tranquil Timbers Camping Retreat

It's a simple park, not fancy. They have a pool and some tennis courts that don't seem to get much use. We were in a different area of the park than the last time. We had some electrical issues at first and they sent someone around to fix them for us, then we had no more issues. We had both 50A and 30A available on our site. The electrical issues resolved, it was a good stay. This electrical pole had breakers, which was a step up from the last time we stayed here. In 2021 when we were here we had no individual breakers at our site, they had to be switched by staff somewhere else. Quiet, bright stars, a little tight to our nextdoor neighbors who liked to party but some earplugs solved it.

There is really no sewer hookup available at this park. I think maybe a few (less than five) sites have sewer hookups and those are annual sites I believe. They told us last time that the rock under the ground really limits the ability to run sewer lines. We find that to be true for a lot of parks in the state of Wisconsin. They do have a honey wagon service you can have come and empty your tanks for I think $10 per dump while you are there, on certain days. That's what it was a few years ago. We had them come and do that twice on a 2 weeks stay and that worked out well.

The park is older and there's some deferred maintenance. But the location in door county and adjacent to sturgeon bay makes it a gem in our book. Some things could use a coat of paint and a thorough cleaning, but as part of our TT membership it's quite a good deal to be so well located in Sturgeon Bay and accessible to other locations in Door County as well.

We will be back again. We love Door County and have family in Sturgeon Bay, so we will definitely be back.

Tmobile home internet had great service - more than 100 down and 3-10 up. We had issues with starlink from the trees around our site. We could've moved the dish to a better spot on our site with less obstructions, but with tmhi working, we didn't have a reason to mess with it.

Worst experience in almost 7 years of full time rving. I booked a 50A FHU site 2 months in advance through RPI for $15/night. When I arrived they told me sorry we don't have any FHU or 50A available. Long story short they had none and would have none available for my stay. They admitted it was their mistake. I decided to leave. They proceeded to tell me they had to charge me the full retail rate now. I still left and also cancelled my RPI membership.
The place was old and run down while I passed thru the park on my way out.
HORRIBLE HORRIBLE experience. Needless to say I would never return.

Aug '22 - We purchased a yearly base Thousand Trails Membership, since it was cheaper to do that than stay here without for 2 weeks. We enjoyed our stay here - they have a nice pool, small but adequate laundry facility, the sites were decent-sized and we felt we had space (we were closer to several seasonals that were not there during our stay).

Make sure to walk around this park - there's some good views of the bay and a trail where you can get into Potawatomi state park. Cell service was not great, but they have FANTASTIC wifi for a reasonable weekly rate (I *think* it was $15?).

We put together a video during our stay that has some views of the sites. https://youtu.be/YvcZ6JzVJ5U

Simple campground. Not fancy. Don't have high expectations and you'll be pleased.

Older electrical systems with 30A plugs without a breaker on the panel itself, which could be challenging if we needed to use 2 AC units or an AC plus microwave or AC plus electric side of water heater coming on. Luckily it's cool enough here that we don't have the AC issue right now. No sewer hookups on our site but they have a honey wagon service, for $15 each pump out. Water and 30a at our site, not sure if other sites have 50a.

Sites are grass/gravel in heavily wooded areas with curvy pretty roads. The pool is simple, not fancy either but there is one. There are horseshoes, volleyball, mini golf, soccer, a playground and a basketball/tennis court. The laundry room itself is tiny, with two tiny washers and two tiny dryers that are often full and waiting for the dryers to slowly dry so that the wet clothes can be moved. Inefficient and slow cycles. Went into town and found a maytag laundromat that got all clothes (probably 6 of those tiny machines) done in about an hour. Some Thousand Trails parks have good laundry facilities. This is not one of them. Coins only.

The sites are not spaced very far apart but also not the tightest sites I have seen. Average to small.

Internet: Verizon was roaming here on (I think) US Cellular and data was struggling enough I could not get a consistent signal to test. This is why we have multiple carriers. AT&T got 30 down and 1.5 up. Sprint/Calyx 4G cheapy hotspot modem got 5 down and 2 up. Tmobile/Sprint/Calyx5G hotspot with Cat 23 modem that we just started using was at 15/8 when on a 4G signal at first (see below for a 5G test also from our site later), rolling over to Tmobile because Sprint was not great out here on its own. Tmobile on a Cat20 router/modem combo was 30/6. The modem matters because the higher category modems can pull signals that are more distant.

The only one we could not get a reliable signal from to consider it at least functional was our Verizon and Visible setups, when used for hotspot use. Phones on vzw worked decently but I often found them using the wifi from one of our hotspots if we hit a dead spot or dead moment on the VZW network. At our site we are directly next to a wifi antenna for the park. In theory their paid wifi should work very well at this spot. We have not left yet and may test it out, will update if we do.

Edited to Add: I decided to repeat the test of the 5G modem that is from Calyx Institute (a nonprofit we belong to that gives members a hotspot with unlimited data as part of the membership). It kept flipping from 4G to 5G depending on which side of the camper (driver or passenger side) I put it on. So I wanted to see if it mattered or changed the speed to be on a 5G signal with just a few feet of difference from the 4G signal -- and it does! The account runs on Sprint which roams to Tmobile a lot since the merger. While hardwire tethered to my laptop, the 5G Cat23 modem pulled 55-112 down and pushed 10-18.5 up on several speed tests when connected to a 5G cellular connection from our site. Looks like Tmobile has 5G in Sturgeon Bay and sometimes the 5G hotspot was able to grab that signal with two bars and give us very good results. Everything BUT Verizon seems to do decently well out here.

Door County is the reason you come here. The campground is decent but not nice enough on its own to come here but the location and the extremely friendly staff and seasonal guests who were incredibly welcoming make this park a gem. You can get into the back of the state park from the campground, which is very nice. There are lots of wooded trails and the loops are very wooded. Ours is probably the least wooded, some of the areas are deeply wooded to the point of not being able to see the sites around. You are extremely close to town. Three maybe four turns and 5-10 minutes and you are in Sturgeon Bay, near the water and the downtown areas. The location is wonderful and the people are just amazing.

There's a farmer's market June - October on Saturdays and lots of beautiful water and trails to explore. There's a lovely downtown area and it is picturesque, almost like a quaint New England fishing village. I would stay here again because for us it is free and the location is just perfect.

We are Thousand Trails members and have the Trails Collection add-on, so we stayed for free here.

I’m giving them a 4 mainly because the electric is not GFI protected at the post, no breaker on the post and no 20AMP. I’m a 50AMP service rig but I do 30AMP all the time because I know I can use 20AMP for accessories for outside if needed. So no pretty lights for the wife this trip, campfire and propane cooking only. And without a breaker to reset the post on-site I was conserving power draws, thankfully it was cool enough to turn off the AC in the morning for personal and kitchen appliances. Note I did pop the breaker on the post when I first set up and had to call the office to have it reset at the main panel.
All the staff were friendly and full of information about the area.
No sewer hookup on the site but they have a dump station and a honey wagon service ( not sure there is a fee) we conserved water enough with 4 adults so we didn’t need to dump till we pulled out.
Bathrooms are in good shape and in walking distance.
Large park with a lot of season sites in use. Kind of neat to walk around and see all of the different types of RVs and site decor.
Potawatomi State Park is accessible thru a trail from the park or the dead end road at the entrance to the resort. Lots of hiking and bike riding available.
And don’t forget you are in Door County!!! Full of places to go and things to see. Not enough days in the week to cover it all so you will not be bored.