We're Camping the Fair!

It’s that time again… The Minnesota State Fair! We did something a little different this year - we camped AT the Fair for the first two days!

Tucked away in the northeast corner of the Fairgrounds is a 250-spot campground. It’s easy to miss, but it surrounds the base of the big State Fair water tower - in fact the campground office, restrooms, showers and laundromat are IN the water tower base! It’s something I’ve had on our bucket list since we first got our camper back in 2020. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it since even before we had a camper!

Getting a spot in the campground is not easy - there’s a lottery that takes place online on a morning in late May. They get so many submissions that they point out in the instructions that submissiones are timed to the thousandth of a second! They also require to-the-inch measurements of your camper because it’s one giant jigsaw puzzle to maximize the space, and they need to maintain the bare minimum of 7 feet between campers to meet health department regulations.

We prepared for the lottery this year with all of the exact measurements of our camper, and I was able to fill out the request form in 1 minute, 45 seconds! Then the long wait began until we were notified in mid-July that we had received a spot for Wed-Fri nights at the start of the Fair!

We arrived Wednesday night to set up camp. It was really fun entering into what felt like a secret part of the Fair (the entrance is off of Snelling on Hoyt, north of the iconic Snelling Ave. Fairground entrance.) The campground gate attendant checked our credentials and then led us to our spot. Excitement levels were high as we drove slowly through the campground and past the water tower to our spot. Here’s our beloved Lance camper in the shadow of the water tower!

For its size and crowdedness, the campground was surprisingly chill. It’s fairly open but there are some nice trees for shade and we could hear the sounds of crickets to give it a bit more of an actual campground feel. And yet, we were a stone’s throw away from the back of the Eco Building!

Unlike most campgrounds, there isn’t a whole lot going on at the campsites. There were a few people sitting outside their campers, but for the most part, people were either working the Fair, in which case they were on the grounds prepping, or they were getting to bed early to hit the Fair first thing. We settled in for the evening and got to bed early, so that we would be prepared early as well.

The next morning we were full of anticipation and excitement. With the Fairgrounds mere steps away, there was no worrying about traffic or parking or shuttle busses - we just rolled out of bed and walked out the door!

A cool part of staying in the campground is that you have your own private entrance and security line. This is tucked away just behind Giggles!

Two minutes from camper to inside the Fair!

So, how did camping at the Fair compare to a normal visit? The camper made for an awesome home base because it allowed us to do multiple sessions per day. I’d do a morning coffee and breakfast run, then we’d head out as a family for a morning session. The days we were there were super hot, so we retreated to the camper mid-day for a few hours to cool off and recharge for our evening session. Without the camper, we would have had to call it a day and head home, so even though we were only there two days it felt like we were able to cover a lot more of the Fair each day. In fact, I walked 25,000 steps each day - that’s 11-12 miles a day!

Are there any downsides to camping at the Fair? Well, it does make for long days of Fairgoing, which can get very tiring, so I’m not sure if I could keep up this pace for more than a couple of days. And the NE location means there are some longer walks to the animal barns and West End area relative to the transit hub or Como parking. I don’t mind the extra exercise, but Katie and Henry figured out that the Sky Glider was a great way to reduce the walking, as the northern station is very close to the campground.

Perhaps the most fun part of it was the surprise we got the first evening at bedtime. Just as Henry was nodding off to sleep, we heard some big booms outside - the evening fireworks! We’re usually never there for them because they happen pretty late (around 10pm) after the grandstand show, and because of our long daylight evenings up here in Minnesota, Henry has acutally never seen fireworks live until now! So it was super fun that we could watch them right from the campground - here’s the view of the fireworks from in the camper!

I think we’ll try to get a spot again in the future and we learned a lot from our first camping experience for next time. It certainly was a new way to experience the Fair, and we had a ton of fun with it!