VAN-COMPARATOR Guide
Lake Superior by RV from Minneapolis: the North Shore Scenic Drive
Duluth, Gooseberry Falls, Split Rock Lighthouse, Grand Marais: the RV road trip along Lake Superior's north shore from Minneapolis — itinerary, moose, season and budget.
Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area — big enough to generate its own weather, with storms strong enough to sink 200-metre freighters. Its north shore, on the Minnesota side, has become one of the best RV road trips in the United States: two and a half hours' drive from Minneapolis is all it takes to reach a coastline of waterfalls, lighthouses and boreal forest, far from the crowds of the big Western parks.
Minneapolis to Duluth: the gateway to the lake
The I-35 links the Twin Cities to Duluth in about two and a half hours, with no mountain pass and no real elevation change — one of the easiest drives for a first taste of RVing in the United States. Duluth is worth half a day before heading north: Canal Park and the lifting span of the Aerial Lift Bridge, the Lakewalk along the harbour, and the ore boats — sometimes over 300 metres long — loading taconite in full view of visitors. It's also the last real town before several days of wilderness, so stock up on supplies here.
The North Shore Scenic Drive, waterfall after waterfall
North of Duluth, Highway 61 becomes the North Shore Scenic Drive: roughly 240 km of shoreline road to the Canadian border, dotted with half a dozen waterfall state parks. Gooseberry Falls, the most photographed, tumbles in several tiers a short walk from the parking lot. A little further on, the Split Rock Lighthouse, perched on a basalt cliff, remains the most reproduced image of Minnesota. Tettegouche holds the tallest waterfall entirely within the state, and Judge C. R. Magney State Park hides the mysterious Devil's Kettle, where half the river appears to vanish into the rock: flow measurements taken by Minnesota DNR hydrologists in 2016-2017 found nearly identical water volumes above and below the falls, concluding that the water resurfaces further downstream, most likely through an underground fault network. The route ends at Grand Marais, an artists' harbour town, then Grand Portage, a former fur-trade post and the ferry departure point for Isle Royale National Park.
Extending into the Boundary Waters
With a few extra days, cut inland to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness: over a million acres (roughly 440,000 hectares) of lakes and forest where no motors are allowed past the entry points — the RV stays in the parking lot, and the trip continues by canoe. A permit, free or paid depending on the season, is required to enter the area in season — book several weeks ahead through the US Forest Service.
Where to sleep along the way
Minnesota state park campgrounds, heavily booked along the North Shore, are reserved through the Minnesota DNR portal: Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock often sell out by spring for summer weekends. Superior National Forest campgrounds, wilder still, are partly reservable through recreation.gov. One thing to plan around: sleeping in a vehicle on Minneapolis streets is prohibited, so book a campground or RV park for the first and last night of the trip, before and after the loop around the lake.
Watch for moose, especially at night
North of Duluth, the "Moose Crossing" signs aren't decorative. A landmark study by biologist John Belant, conducted in northeastern Minnesota and published in 1995 in the journal Alces (Google Scholar page), logged moose collisions on the region's roads and railways: their frequency rises sharply from June through September, and 69% of collisions happen at night. Slow down at dusk and dawn on Highway 61 north of Duluth, where moose density is the highest in the state.
When to go
The RV season runs from mid-May to October: Minnesota winters are long and severe, with black ice on the roads from November through March. The warm summer is also mosquito season, the state's unofficial mascot — our guide to mosquitoes in a campervan covers how to deal with them without giving up the best spots. Fall colours peak in late September on the North Shore, a little later around the Twin Cities: a good window to dodge both the crowds and the cold.
What the science says about a road trip by the water
Spending time by a great lake isn't just about the scenery. An ecological study published in 2019 in PLOS ONE by Amber Pearson and colleagues (DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0221977) cross-referenced more than 30,000 hospitalisations for anxiety or mood disorders in Michigan against distance to the nearest Great Lake. The finding: proximity to a Great Lake is associated with a lower hospitalisation rate for these disorders, even after adjusting for socioeconomic factors — a modest but measurable protective effect, consistent with the wider "blue space" literature. One more reason to spend a week tracing the shore of the largest of the Great Lakes.
Budget and going further
Budget $150-350 a day for a Class C RV in summer, more on July-August weekends when local demand piles on top of outside tourism. A campervan or compact motorhome is the most practical choice for the narrow Gunflint Trail and the tight state park parking lots. For the basics of renting in the United States — licence, insurance, mileage — our guide to renting an RV in the USA rounds out this page, and our article on Alaska and Denali extends the theme of the great northern wilderness for those who want to go further.
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