Advice needed on Michigan and Upper Peninsula

Hit Sleeping Bear Dunes on way up. Lots of cool towns along Lake Michigan between there and Mackinaw City.

On the UP:

- Soo Locks
- Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point
- Tahquamenon Falls
- eat pasties

Munising to see shipwrecks. Houghton, Marquette for the downtown Escanaba is a nice port city.. If you like woods, mines, and lakes the UP is great. In Wisconsin try Door County, Minocqua, the Dells area and hit up New Glarus brewery. I visit Republic between Iron Mountain and Marquette. The summers are perfect but mosquitoes in the woods are vicious.

LINK at sault ste Marie, there are observation decks to watch the ships go through the locks. I think lake superior is like 18 feet higher than lake Huron. Anyway, the link shows ships approaching the locks. Click on the ship icon to find out about the ship.

Old auto plants are being torn down a lot lately (usually after being vacant for decades). Consider the Packard pland in Detroit, Studebaker in South Bend, The Russell in Detroit, if anything is left of Buick City in Flint, AMC/Nash headquarters on Plymouth Road in detroit (not sure if any is left).

I'd suggest a tour of Ford Rouge Assembly which is very alive and kicking, then the Henry Ford Museum. The Henry Ford is a mamoth building and grounds dedicated to anything industrial, it's not "the mustang museum".

I've never been to the Dossin museum but I hear its good. Across the state is a ice breaking ferry turned into a hotel called SS CIty of Milwaukee in Manistee. The entire Lake MIchigan coast (the west side) is very charming and has good beaches. The northern end of that coast is full of vacation and resort spots. Lelenau peninsula, Traverse City, Petoskey, etc...

There are scenic sites everywhere on the coast(s).

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I've never been to the Dossin museum but I hear its good. Across the state is a ice breaking ferry turned into a hotel called SS CIty of Milwaukee in Manistee. The entire Lake MIchigan coast (the west side) is very charming and has good beaches. The northern end of that coast is full of vacation and resort spots. Lelenau peninsula, Traverse City, Petoskey, etc...

There are scenic sites everywhere on the coast(s).

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Getting a Chubby Mary at the Cove in Leland and watching the boats (or salmon in season) is one of life's great treats!

Stick around for dinner at the Riverside Inn and you have a perfect day!

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Pictures Rocks National Lakeshore is worth a visit.

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This. It's the hidden gem of our country. The time I went, the boat had almost 100% Indians. I talked to many Michiganers after and almost none had ever gone.

Just know: the UP is NOT glamorous at all. The housing stock is old and shoddy. And there can be very limited services in a lot of the towns, Marquette being the exception.

Crossing the locks at Sault St. Marie into Canada is arguably worth it.

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Mackinac Island is perfect for a one-day visit — take the early ferry, bike the perimeter, hit Arch Rock, and enjoy the bluff views before grabbing lunch in town.

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Stayed 3 nights on Mackinac Island. One day is way too short. Went to sleeping Bear dunes, soo locks, shipwreck museum, Tahquamenon falls, picture rocks, Kitch-iti-Kipi Glass bottom boat. All well worth it.

Just returned last night from a trip through the UP and Michigan North.



Pictured Rocks and the UP is just an awesome area. There's literally nothing in the UP except on the coasts of the lakes. The whole area in between is just swampy forests. I think there was a Holiday Inn Express and maybe a Comfort Inn up near Pictured Rocks. Most of the cabins you'll find up there aren't going to be glamorous. We stayed in a yurt near Munising. There's tons of hikes you can do up there, and highly recommend a kayak tour.
As others said, eat some pasties, just make sure you get some gravy to go with it. There was a good bit of beef jerky and smoked fish to get up there as well, and i enjoyed both.

We didn't go to Mackinaw island, but spent a short minute in Mackinaw City. Nice little beach town to walk through with tons of shops and eats.


Here's the places we stopped at coming down from the UP.
Petosky - nice little town, great brewery
Charlevoix - fancy place for sure. had big yatchs everywhere.
Traverse city - Felt like their Destin area. Lots of condo's and what not covering the shore line, which is unlike most of the other towns up there. Still a nice town to stay in though.
Sutton's Bay and Lake Leelanau are very small. Not much there but maybe a place or two to eat at, but beautiful towns on the lake/river. Ton's of wineries around there.
Leland - highly recommend visiting this fishing town. nice little area down by the water full of shops and little whole in the wall places to eat. If you want to take a fishing charter, this is the place to do it.
Glen Arbor - lots of activities around here to do. kayaking in Crystal River, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Glen Lake, just an all around great area to spend a few days in.
Word of advice, if you do the Dune Trail at Sleeping Bear Dunes, bring water. It's a hell of a hike. We were not prepared for that.

Between Traverse City, Glen Arbor and Leland, there are wineries and farms to visit all over the place. This little area has so much to do. Everythign is about 30-40 minutes from each other. We stayed at a cabin on little Platte Lake. Kids loved it. Caught fish, cleaned them and cooked them over a fire. And it was so nice to be somewhere where people respected each other and others property. No need to lock doors, or worry about someone stealing your towel or anything else you left out on the porch, or dipshits stealing firewood or all the equipment in the fish cleaning area. They had row boats with little 7hp motors on them for anyone to use.

The more I get out across this great country and visit these great areas we have, the more I can't wait to get the hell out of BR. I don't think it's too much to ask to want to be around other civilized human beings who respect themselves, their property, others, other peoples property, and nature. you know what i didn't see at any point driving up there. a fricking refrigerator or washing machine or what not thrown off the side of the road into the woods.



TLDR, I highly recommend spending time in the UP and Michigan North area. It works great for couples, or for families with kids. Just an awesome summer area. Why anyone would go to Destin over a place like this is beyond me. and the weather was phenomenal. We had to buy sweatshirts up there. I sweated more unpacking the truck at 930pm last night in BR than i did in the 10 days i spent up there combined, and we did plenty of hiking and kayaking.

Mosquitos can be pretty bad, not going to lie, but just like down south they seem to come out at dusk and are really bad then, and then start to fade away as it gets darker.
Some of the hikes we went out during the day had them, but that's if you're in some deep woods with tons of shade, and even then they didn't bother us too much.
anywhere on the edge of the woods, or in the woods is going to be rough at dusk.
DO NOT WEAR BLACK OR DARK COLORED CLOTHING. I'm walking around with a light gray lsu quarter zip and a gray hat and my dark haired kid doesn't have a hat and is wearing a dark navy sweatshirt and he had swarms of them over his head. They were literally trying to get through his long arse hair on his head to bite his head. meanwhile I had hardly any of them around me.

The positive i would say is that when they are out at dusk, it's going to be in the 50's more than likely and you can comfortably wear pants and a sweatshirt, so they don't have that many places to bite you. I sat outside by a fire several nights in shorts and a light jacket and weren't bothered by them.


and sunset is around 10pm up there right now.