Pelican Lake Campground

The Great Outdoors

The Northwoods are Wisconsin’s premier outdoor recreation region, with vast forests and innumerable lakes to enjoy - Pelican Lake is just one of them, but it’s also one of the area’s best. The 3,500-acre lake is easily accessed from several public boat launches, and there’s an abundant stock of bass, pike, walleye, and musky to fish for. Kayak and canoe rentals are available in Rhinelander if you need to pick up a boat. There are also several sandy beaches along its shore where you can lounge or go for a swim.If you’re searching for a place to picnic while exploring Rhinelander, you can’t do much better than Almon County Park. There are lots of grassy areas to spread out a blanket, read a good book, and chow down on some delicious dishes from a nearby restaurant or grocery store. Two trails run through the park, both of them around a mile in length, and an easy stroll. Buck Lake, on the park’s north side, is the perfect place to cool off on a hot summer day.Go a bit farther north, into the state’s lake district, and you can hike through some of the region’s famed cranberry bogs. While not as well-known as New England’s, Wisconsin is actually the leading producer of cranberries. A tour of the bogs will show the hard work that goes into growing these sweet morsels. Afterward, you can enjoy some treats containing them, like sausages, cookies, and bread, back at the gift shop.

Exploring the City

As the only town in the area with a significant population, Rhinelander will be your best bet for attractions while camping with an RV in the Northwoods. It’s also the only town near Pelican Lake where you’ll find any kind of variety for restaurants and nightlife. Rhinelander's dining scene ranges from low-cost diners to high-end steakhouses, but one thing is for sure, this is meat-and-potatoes country. Also, since this is the Upper Midwest, you can’t leave Rhinelander without trying the pasties. A favorite of Cornish miners who immigrated to the region in droves during the 19th century, the simple meat, potatoes, and gravy-filled pasty is a great picnic food or trail snack.If you’re looking for things to do during your motorhome camping trip, Pioneer Park is one of the most popular attractions in Rhinelander, drawing loads of families throughout the summer tourist season. The park complex contains a one-room schoolhouse, a rail depot, a large model train set, a logging museum, and a museum dedicated to the Civilian Conservation Corps. Together they tell the story of how Rhinelander was founded (it experienced rapid population growth after the arrival of the railroad), and how it has sustained itself through logging, paper production, and outdoor recreation.If you need some crazy roadside attractions when you camp in an RV near Rhinelander, there’s the famed Wisconsin Hodag. The pint-sized dinosaur-like critter serves as the town mascot, and a massive fiberglass statue of it sits in front of the town’s chamber of commerce building. Getting a selfie with the hodag is a must for anyone visiting Rhinelander. The hodag also lends its name to the Hodag Country Festival, a three-day music festival that’s the largest concert in the Northwoods region, drawing in big-name country artists and tens of thousands of spectators.Football fans visiting Rhineland might also enjoy a trip to the grave of John Heisman, of Heisman Trophy fame. It’s not much to see, just a barely noticeable headstone inside a nondescript cemetery, but if you love college football, it’s definitely worth seeing.