Places to visit in Wisconsin & Michigan on the Great Lakes

[.270Rem]

Thanks for the suggestions and input everyone. I've made a list of stops thanks to what you shared and my folks have a few in mind too. With any luck we will see some Fall colors a little early compared to Virginia and maybe catch the Northern lights.

Michigan is the only state East of the Mississippi I haven't visited and I can imagine I'll want to see more of it and the same goes for Wisconsin. Plans are to leave on the 16th and return on the 24th or 25th, so nine/ten days.

After not taking a vacation this Summer this will be a welcome getaway.

 

[schmalts]

I just got home from a week in Marquette area. It is a great jumping point for a lot to see there plus the salmon run is about to explode. You can have salmon fishing that will rival AK this time of the year all the way into October.

 

[BirdManMike]

Wisconsin has cheese. Its not as good as eurocheese - far from it - but its still cheese. Id look into that. Who doesnt like cheese?

 

[Hunter4Life78]

Being a Yooper, I'm obviously bias. As mentioned, you could spend your whole time here and not see everything. Some great ideas listed already include: Keweenaw Peninsula (Copper Harbor), abundant waterfalls - especially in the western part of the U.P., Kitchitikipi, Tahquamenon Falls, Soo Locks, Pictured Rocks & the Pictured rocks lakeshore (Log slide), Mackinac Island...the list goes on.
Enjoy!

Mackinac Island I miss the fudge!!! The boat museum is pretty interesting so was the first they are excavating is an interesting place as well. Lived in LP til I was 10 then we moved here.

 

[.270Rem]

We had a spectacular trip and made a bunch of stops that didn't disappoint. Your advice really helped and like many vacations I wish we had a few more days to hit the spots we missed.

Our stop in Milwaukee included a trip to the ballpark and we were a day early since Aaron Judge hit two homers in the Sunday game. The tailgating action when we parked was pretty epic. I have dealt with less smoke on wildfires. Wisconsin folks are pros in this pursuit of pregame fun.

That Sun we had lunch with a friend attending grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He seconded the advice I got here to explore Door County so we spent two nights in Sturgeon Bay. The Packers opened at home that night and the bar crowd at our hotel whooped it up. Saw a bunch of lighthouses, museums, parks, goats on the roof, and made it to a fish boil too (order the cherry pie when you get up that way). Our run of good weather started that Monday and stayed with us all week.

We stopped at Lambeau to pay homage and hit Cabela's down Lombardi Ave. I consider that entrapment to have those two establishments so close together for people like us. The Wisconsin bucks display in the back of the store was ridiculous. From there we headed on to the U.P. and made it to Munising that night. We should've stopped at the boat tour place right away and bought tickets since the sunset cruise sold out. So we found the next best thing to do and watched the sun go down from an NPS beach.

When Dad checked on the boat ride tickets, they told him the next two days were canceled due to the big winds forecasted. Good call on that as Lake Superior looked like the North Atlantic the next day. We made a number of stops on the National Lakeshore and they were phenomenal. Summer ended the day before for sure, but it was still cool to see the big waves crashing the beach and then drive to the next spot. Got to see the lone grouse of the trip before lunch in Grand Marais so I don't know what to say about the bird numbers for this Fall. Apple production seemed outstanding based on the trees we saw dropping along the backroads.

Some rain hit us that afternoon/evening on our way to The Soo. We crossed through the bear and moose capitals of Michigan and didn't see any of them. A side trip to see the Upper Falls at Tuhquamenon SP was the right call and we got back to the car after our hike and mandatory visit to the gift shop just as the rain started. We took a boat tour of the locks, learned a lot, and then had a late lunch at Antlers, which is definitely a place for the HT crowd. Then we made tracks for Southern Michigan.

Luckily we got a room at a Hampton Inn on the way to South Bend so we could see Notre Dame the next morning. We frequently had to hunt for rooms wherever we went as I didn't have reservations settled. Not Mom's preferred way to travel, but it didn't bother Dad any. The ND campus was impressive, clean, and you hardly even realized it was supposed to be full of students. Guess we caught it as kids were in class.

We made it to Pittsburgh that night to stay with one of my Mother's college classmates and had a big dinner with the family. I hadn't been there since the year the "We Are Family" Pirates won the World Series. The trees got bigger than I remember. Our ride back to Virginia was a good one and our good luck on the road continued thankfully.

My parents are 85 and 79 and they really enjoyed all that we saw and did. I don't doubt without your help I would've found such ideas on what to see. What we missed will have to wait for another trip and I never took the fishing rod out of the car to put it together. Oh well, more fish for everyone else to catch. No matter where we were we met friendly folks and would say the roads were much cleaner than what I see in VA or my folks see back in NY.

Thanks for steering me towards some wonderful spots in that countryside and I want to see more up that way. Preferably I'll get to fish or hike some, or have a couple shotguns with me to chase the grouse. The leaves were just starting to show color in the open areas and the swamps so I bet you will find them perfect right about now.

 

[Treeshark]

Sounds like a great trip, I’m glad to hear you had a good time

 

[.270Rem]

Great use of my time off and it felt great to take my folks on a trip after all they have done for me throughout my life. After hearing so many things about the Great Lakes, seeing them in person makes them even more impressive.