Does Indiana Dunes National Park have electric hookups for RVs?

No. Dunewood Campground, the national park's campground, has no electric or water hookups at any of its 67 sites. Potable water is available from spigots around each loop, and there is an RV dump station, but nothing at the individual site. The 140-site campground with 50-amp electric belongs to Indiana Dunes State Park, which is a separate park run by Indiana DNR. The Park Service directs visitors who want full hookups to the state park.

Is the Indiana Dunes National Park campground open year-round?

No. Dunewood Campground is open April 1 through November 1 and closed the rest of the year. Indiana Dunes State Park's campground is the one that stays open year-round, which is where the year-round claim usually comes from. If you want to camp at the Dunes in winter, the state park is your only option.

How much does it cost to camp at Indiana Dunes National Park?

Dunewood Campground is $25 per night, with 50 percent off for Senior and Access pass holders. The Dunbar Group Site is $100 per night for up to 30 people. Those rates are separate from the park entrance fee, which is $25 per vehicle for seven days or $45 for an annual park pass. Reservations are made through recreation.gov up to six months in advance, not through the Indiana DNR system.

Camping at Indiana Dunes National Park: Your Complete Guide

Camping at Indiana Dunes National Park means Dunewood Campground, and Dunewood is a rustic campground. No electric hookups, no water hookups, 67 sites, and it closes for the winter. If you came here expecting a 50-amp pull-through, you are thinking of the state park next door, and you are not the first person to mix them up.

Here is what camping in the national park actually looks like.

Two Parks, One Shoreline

This trips up almost everybody, so it goes first.

Indiana Dunes National Park is federal, run by the National Park Service. It covers 16,268 acres with 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, and it was redesignated as the country's 61st national park in 2019 after being authorized as a National Lakeshore back in 1966.

Indiana Dunes State Park is run by Indiana DNR. It covers 2,182 acres, dates to 1925, and sits in Chesterton inside the national park's boundary.

They have separate fees, separate rules, and separate campgrounds. The Park Service is blunt about it: national park passes are not accepted at the state park, and the state park pass is not accepted at the national park. If a guide tells you the national park campground has 140 electric sites and is open year-round, that guide is describing the state park.

Dunewood Campground

Dunewood is in Beverly Shores, at Golf Wood Road and Dunewood Parkway. It has 67 sites. Sites 1 through 54 are conventional drive-in sites that take RVs or tents. Sites 55 through 67 are tent-only. Four sites (15, 30, 41 and 55) are wheelchair accessible.

There are no electric or water hookups at any site. Potable water comes from spigots placed through each loop. Every site has a picnic table and a fire ring. Each loop has restrooms and showers, and there is an RV dump station.

The season is April 1 through November 1. The campground is closed the rest of the year. This is the single most important thing to know, because the state park campground is open year-round, and that is where the year-round claim comes from.

The rate is $25 per night. Senior and Access pass holders get 50 percent off. Some sites have RV length limits, and those are listed per-site rather than as one park-wide number, so read the site description before you book a big rig.

Other rules worth knowing: eight people per site, a 14-day limit in any 30-day window, quiet hours from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and pets on a leash no longer than six feet.

A view from a wooded dune overlook at Indiana Dunes, with oak trees in fall color and the pale blue water of Lake Michigan on the horizon

Booking It

Reservations go through recreation.gov, not the Indiana DNR system. That is another state park mix-up worth flagging, because DNR will happily book you a site at a different park entirely.

The booking window opens six months ahead, and the next season's dates go live on November 15. Summer weekends and fall color weekends go fast.

The Other Two Options

Dunewood is not the only place to sleep in the park, but the list is short and it is closed-ended. The park's own compendium says overnight camping is allowed at exactly three places, and nowhere else. There is no backcountry camping.

Dunbar Group Site holds up to 30 people at $100 per night. It is tent only, no RVs or campers, and it is not vehicle accessible, so expect a steep walk up from the gate. Dunbar Beach is about two tenths of a mile away.

Central Avenue Walk-in Sites are five tent-only sites reached by a walk of anywhere from a tenth of a mile to about two thirds of a mile, uphill from the Central Beach lot. Each has a picnic table and fire pit. There is a vault toilet at the parking lot and no potable water, so carry your own.

What to Do From Camp

Lake View Beach is about a mile and a half north of the campground. The Beverly Shores South Shore Line station is a short walk away, which makes this one of the few campgrounds in the Midwest where you can leave the car parked and take a train into Chicago for the day.

The national park has around 50 miles of trails across 15 trail systems. The ones worth your morning:

Cowles Bog Trail is 4.7 miles, moderate to rugged, and a National Natural Landmark. Dune Succession Trail is a 0.9 mile climb through the West Beach complex that walks you through the whole story of how a dune becomes a forest. Great Marsh Trail is an easy 1.3 miles with an accessible observation deck. Tolleston Dunes and the Paul H. Douglas Trail at Miller Woods are both quieter picks.

Mount Baldy is the park's celebrity dune, which the Park Service calls the largest moving dune along Indiana's coast. It is roughly 120 to 126 feet, and the number genuinely changes because the dune is migrating inland. One catch: you cannot climb it on your own. The summit is only open on ranger-accompanied hikes. The beach trail at its base is open.

Note what is not on this list. Mount Tom, Trail 4, and the 3 Dune Challenge are all in the state park. Mount Tom's famous 192 feet is a state park number.

A wooden boardwalk and stair system climbing across an open sand dune at Indiana Dunes, with green wooded ridges rising behind it

Beaches and Fees

National park beaches include West Beach, Porter Beach, Kemil Beach, Lake View Beach, Dunbar Beach, Central Avenue Beach, Mount Baldy Beach, and the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk. Lifeguards are only at West Beach, from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.

The national park entrance fee is $25 per vehicle for seven days, $20 per motorcycle, or $15 per person on foot or bike. An annual park pass is $45, and the America the Beautiful pass is $80. You owe the fee if you stop to use a trail, a beach, or a picnic shelter, but not if you are only passing through on the road.

The state park charges separately: $7 for an in-state vehicle, $20 out-of-state.

Why It Is Worth It

The Dunes drew 2,629,497 visits in 2025, which is more than Bryce Canyon, Arches, or Everglades saw that year. It ranks 36th out of 398 National Park Service units. The reason is not just the beach. The park holds more than 1,400 species of ferns and flowering plants, including 28 native orchids, and it ranks eighth in the entire park system for plant diversity. That is remarkable for 16,268 acres sitting within sight of working steel mills.

Bring a real sleeping setup, bring your own power, and check the calendar before you drive up in November.

Related reading:

Want more of Indiana's outdoors? Subscribe to the Get Indiana newsletter.