Kelley's Island by the Numbers

A 4 day, 3 night stay on Kelley's Island.

The Numbers.

31.00 per night for the campsite, 93.00
8.00 for the reservation fee (OH uses a system similar to Ticketmaster for reservations) - by the way, the system sucks, IMHO.  Not worth 8 cents, much less 8 dollars.

Getting there:
One ferry line is available.  According to local lore, the current owner of the ferry (in Marblehead) to Kelley's Island bought the other ferry from Catawba to Kelley's, and then closed it.  And then tripled the prices to Kelley's Island, and starting charging for parking for the pedestrians and bicyclists. 

I have no idea if this is true.

However, it costs!  Ferry Rates rates

The schedule for rates are very deceptive.  First of all, it is listed for one way travel. So, double everything.

For Keith, Jennifer, Daisey, my car, and a trailer full of bikes, camping gear, boats - all the funhog stuff, was 108.00 dollars.  

Yep, 108.00 dollars!

Car - round trip, 30.00.
13 foot trailer, round trip, 40.00
2 adults, round trip, 38.00 (wait, they aren't included IN the car?  Nope.)
Dog - free!

Here was the real kicker - had our bikes been on a bike rack on the car, NOT in the trailer, it would have cost another 16.00 dollars to transport the bikes.  

Say we decided to save some bucks, and take just the bikes and camping gear.  94.00 dollars is what I come up with. 

Parking - 40.00 (10.00 per day), maybe double that since the trailer and car would take up 2 spaces.  
2 Adults - 38.00
2 bikes - 16.00 
bike trailers - not sure, I bet they would charge something!

Back to numbers - 

101.00 dollars for 4 days, 3 nights of camping
108.00 dollars to get there by ferry
40.00 dollars for gas (my car got about 28 mpg towing the trailer with 2 boats on top).
13.00 at the only store on the island for dinner/breakfast supplies for our extra day.
70.00 for the visit to Cheesehaven after we left the island (mostly my stuff!)

Was it worth it?  No.

The state park is nice, and if you get one of the very limited shoreside campsites, it would be uber-nice.  Reserve those 6-9 months in advance! We were restricted to the Pets Only section of the campground, a nice but very ordinary state park campground that happen to be within walking distance of Lake Erie.  We were also right next to the Group Campground, which hosted a group of semi-obnoxious Boy Scouts from Akron.  Also, the Pets only restroom had no showers, you had to go to one of the other campground areas for a shower.  A petty complaint, but still...

Biking Kelley's Island is nice - we rode bikes around the entire place on Saturday - Jennifer towing Daisy in the Chariot.  The roads are good, traffic is very light, and you ride along the lake almost the entire time.  But, not worth what it cost to get there, given there is perhaps 15 miles of road to ride.  

It is not a dog friendly place.  No one had a problem, but the state park has some pretty firm rules about dogs, and don't mess with them.  None of the restaurants on the waterfront wanted to deal with a dog on their patio.  We ate all our meals in the campground.

By the way, do not visit the place in the summer season, unless you are an extreme extrovert. 

The only reason I can think of to come back is the Poker Paddle.  kayak_poker_paddle

The Poker Paddle took place while we were there - had I been feeling better, I may have participated.  I ran into several COP boaters while I was there, including Walt Taylor and Curt & Debbie Goetz.   The weather was very good this year, and the paddlers were allowed to circumnavigate the island.  Over 100 paddlers participated this year!