Question for the good citizens of Michigan (Michiganders??)---RE: Mackinac Island

Parent Cafe
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You got lots of great advice. Also no to May, if you go in June time your visit for the lilac festival. But if it were me and your timing is flexible, visit in September. I love September, the weather is great and most of the crowds are gone.

No matter when you visit, don’t forget jeans and a sweatshirt, the island and northern Michigan can get chilly. I made that mistake years ago never again.

I have a suggestion, rather than flying into Detroit, fly into Traverse City. The ride from Detroit to Mackinac is pretty boring. If you fly into TC, you can explore Sleeping Bear Dunes (one of the most beautiful places). Drive along Lake Michigan, the scenery is so pretty. Explore Charlevoix and Petoskey. Make the drive up to Harbor Springs. I do like Greenfield Village and you could stop in Frakenmuth for chicken dinner, but if it were me, I would explore Northern Michigan and save Detroit for another visit.

I would take the ferry from St. Ignace. As a first time visitor, go across the bridge!

I am no expert on the island, my H is not a fan. He’s being ridiculous but it’s his line in the sand. So I’ve only been a couple of times. When I’ve gone, we’ve always rented bikes and biked around the island, I think it’s 6 miles. If you don’t stay at the Grand, you have to pay to visit. So we ride bikes, have lunch at the Pink Pony, buy fudge.

If you have other questions about Northern Michigan, I’ll be glad to try and answer.

One other thing about the weather, we have good ice coverage on the Great Lakes this year. That means spring will be cool. Last year we had little ice coverage so the spring was warmer but I don’t expect that this year.

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Even flying into Grand Rapids and driving west and up the lakeside is better than driving from Detroit in my opinion. I would ditto taking in all that northern Michigan has to offer before heading to the island. From Grand Rapids you could easily head alittle way south and see the car museum.

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I think @deb922 is spot-on – if it were my trip, I’d fly into Traverse City and spend some time in the Leelanau Penninsula/Sleeping Bear Dunes/Petoskey/Harbor Springs area. The scenery is beautiful, there are great restaurants and wineries in the area, and did I mention – the scenery is beautiful?!

I am a huge fan of Greenfield Village, too (have an annual membership) but to me, the northern Lower Peninsula is the best.

I’ve stayed on Mackinac Island several times but I stay away from the fudge stores and the souvenir shops. There are several historical sites on the Island, including the fort (did you know that one of the first battles of the War of 1812 occurred on Mackinac Island?) I also like to hike and ride bikes.

If you do go, stay on the island. It’s a whole new atmosphere there when all the tourists leave on that last ferry: peaceful, quaint, quiet. I’ve never stayed at the Grand Hotel, but there are several charming hotels and inns downtown near the water. I’ve had good luck at the Iroquois Hotel.

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Another +1 to Deb’s post. However if you do decide to go the Detroit route, another vote for the DIA and the Detroit food scene which is really getting hot!

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It will take you the same amount of time, with transfers, whether you fly into Detroit, Grand Rapids, or Traverse City. GR and TC don’t have a lot of direct flights, except to nearby regional hubs.

Henry Ford is definitely worth seeing. You can see most of it in a full day, but the best times to go are during the special events like motor muster (father’s day weekend) or civil war days. Motor muster brings in thousands of old cars, trucks, and military vehicles from manufacturers all over the world. The big difference is that you will see cars that ordinary people used like VW microbuses and Comets, in addition to the fancy models that you usually see at car shows. They even have pickups and delivery vehicles.

In Greenfield village, you can ride on the 1890’s carousel and take a ride in a Model T. Make sure to eat at one of the middle eastern restaurants in Dearborn, and don’t forget to load up at the bakeries (yum!)

The most beautiful route is up or down the west coast of the state along lake Michigan. I-75 is pretty boring south of West Branch, mostly fields, but it is only about 3.5-4 hours to Mackinac Island. You can stop at Hartwick pines near Grayling, one of the last stands of virgin pine forest in the state (it will take a 60-90 min). I’d check hotel pricing, sometimes they run early season specials. If you stay in St. Ignace you can at least say you went to the UP and crossed the bridge. Staying overnight on the island is a bit overrated, ferries run pretty late. It might be worth it if there isn’t much of a price differential. The later ferries on some of the lines sometimes run under the bridge, interesting to see.

Weather in April and May varies a lot; it is Michigan so you get frequent temperature changes and rain. There is no good or bad time to go, you can rarely predict the weather more than a day or two in advance.

I echo, @scout59 , Leelanau county is just awesome for a holiday, especially if you like to hike. The water will be too cold in the spring to swim though . It was recently rated the most beautiful place in America.

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I’m not from Michigan but my H is, and his family owned a house in Petoskey for 60+ years, so I’ve spent many weeks there. We’ve done many day trips to Mackinac, spent time in Leelanau, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Harbor Springs, Charlevoix, et al.

On the way up to Mackinac, this place is well worth a visit if you are a history buff at all:

http://www.mackinacparks.com/parks-and-attractions/colonial-michilimackinac/

Leelanau is lovely, and Sleeping Bear is pretty amazing. I haven’t found Charlevoix particularly interesting, but the old part of Petoskey (Gaslight District, I’d park and walk around) is charming, as is Harbor Springs. While in Petoskey, visit American Spoon Foods and pick up some of their outstanding products, particularly the tart cherry things.

Right next to Petoskey, on the road to Harbor Springs/Mackinac, is this charming place:

http://www.bayviewassociation.org/

H’s family house was right next to Bay View–and had in fact formerly been a part of it–so we would always walk there. If you wanted to spend a night in the area before moving on to Mackinac, I’d look into the Bay View Inn.

For dining I would very highly recommend The Rowe Inn in Ellsworth. One of the original farm-to-table, New American Cuisine places, and always wonderful. It is in the middle of nowhere, but worth the trek IME.

Gwen Frostic’s studio in Benzonia is worth visiting if you are in the area, which you could be if driving to or from Leelanau from Detroit. We went there in 1989, she died in 2001. The cards they are showing on their website right now are not to my taste, but they have many lovely things with her nature-inspired block prints. In fact, the studio is a nature preserve.

Greenfield Village is great, but, as some wag once wrote, Henry Ford popularized the automobile, which destroyed rural small town America, then bought up all of the remnants and moved them to Greenfield. :smiley:

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If you stop for lunch in St Ignace or Mackinaw City, have the whitefish.

Last time I drove across the bridge, there was a very large spider scurrying around inside our car. It was… exciting. :frowning:

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From Wisconsin here. We did a day trip to the island- staying at a much cheaper hotel in a nearby city (decades ago when adult son was a kid) where we left stuff in the car. The Michigan shoreline has been getting Wisconsin sand for thousands of years (winds from the west)- hence the dunes. So much to do in northern lower Michigan. Fresh cherry pies- couldn’t tell you which road even a week later.

Given the weather in those states in May wait until at least June. Trees that far north finally are fully leafed out by the end of May, although climate change may be affecting that. One year I kept track. Water temps will finally warm up in August- those are big lakes (“great”).

I miss the upper Midwest so much during hot Tampa summers… But early May is much too soon.

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I agree that flying into Grand Rapids or Traverse City won’t save you any time. You can get a non-stop to Detroit from almost anywhere, and from there it’s about a 4 and 1/2 hour drive to Mackinaw City. It will probably take you longer to fly into GR or TC, and probably cost more, too.

Sleeping Bear and the Leelanau peninsula are must-sees. Traverse City is a bit overhyped in my book, and I’d especially avoid it during the Cherry Festival (June 30-July 7) when it will be totally overrun with tourists—but perhaps that’s just me, as many people obviously find the event appealing. The Lake Michigan shore towns north of TC are quite charming.

Another place I’d recommend as you make your way north is Hartwick Pines State Park near Grayling, which has one of the last remaining stands of old growth White Pines in the state. These majestic trees, some measuring over 150 feet in height and 200 to 300 years in age, once blanketed the state, but most were clearcut in the latter half of the 19th century to build Chicago. Before the automobile, lumber was Michigan’s principal industry, and the park features some quite interesting displays on Michigan’s lumberjack-era history, as well as hiking trails through the magnificent pines.

I also second the recommendation to visit Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City as well as Fort Mackinac on the island, The area’s history is quite rich. Indigenous people have lived here for thousands of years (and many still do), and the Straits of Mackinac and the island itself became a strategic military outpost for the French and later British empires in North America, commanding access to the Upper Great Lakes. The Mackinac region was also an important fur trading center. The history is recounted at the forts. St. Ignace, founded in 1671 as a Jesuit mission (hence the name), is the second-oldest European-founded city in the state, after Sault Ste. Marie (1668), and third oldest in the entire Midwest after Green Bay (1634). In that vein, it’s also worth visiting the small but interesting Museum of Ojibwa Culture in St. Ignace, built on the site of the original mission.

You likely won’t have time to explore much of the Upper Peninsula (“UP”), but don’t overlook it entirely. The drive along Lake Michigan west of St. Ignace is quite beautiful and will give you at least a brief taste of the UP’s pristine vastness. Or take a drive about an hour north of St. Ignace to Tahquamenon Falls, one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi, made famous by Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha as the place where Hiawatha built his canoe. Michigan has about 200 named waterfalls, all but one of them in the UP, and many quite gorgeous.

Tahquamenon Falls is just outside the town of Paradise, which doesn’t quite live up to its billing, but if you like you could drive straight from Hell (a small community northwest of Ann Arbor) all the way up to Paradise and back again, and have something to tell the folks back home. (Hell is, of course, located in that part of the state occupied, as the Yoopers say, by “trolls,” the people who live “below the bridge”).

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Oops! I apparently used what on CC has become a naughty word, but I used it in its original sense, as in the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

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Northern Michigan is becoming quite the foodie destination. @Consolation, I’ve never been to the Rowe Inn, I thought they had closed, one day we might take a trip there. But really, there are so many great farm to table places here.

It’s funny 2 people have have mentioned Hartwick Pines, I’ve been there and was just there last week. It’s fine, not that exciting to me. But plenty of you like it, maybe I’ll have to appreciate it more.

Well @MADad, did you think you would get so much information about Northern Michigan? And only the tip of the iceberg has been mentioned, there is so much more.

I’m surprised no one has mentioned the tunnel of trees and Legs Inn in Cross Village?

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Just to give an idea of what the weather is like in the spring. I never plant my annuals until after Memorial Day. With very little exception, I don’t get out my summer clothes before June 1. I live in the TC area and our lilacs bloom mid May, on Mackinac Island the lilac festival doesn’t start until June 8, our lilacs are gone by then.

One year, I went to the island the week before the lilac festival and that year, the lilacs were not blooming yet, they were almost blooming but not quite.

May is really low season here. June used to be slower but darn it, people are figuring out how great Michigan is and now even June is much more crowded. High season is July and August.

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Average daily high temperature in St. Ignace is 60 in May, 70 in June, 76 in July, 75 in August, and 67 in September, but late June is likely to be warmer than early June. To be clear, though, it can get cold anytime. I’ve seen snow in the UP every month of the year, though it’s certainly rare in the summer months. Chilly weather, on the other hand, is not uncommon, though certainly not the norm in July and August.

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So when is peak time for cherries? That seems like a good time to visit MI.

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I’m just thrilled to hear a CC’er wanting to vacation in Michigan! On every “where should we go” CC thread I’m always trying to push the mitten as a prime vacation spot!!

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Cherries usually around July 4th but can be a week or so earlier or later tbd spring weather. We have a couple trees…

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https://www.cherryfestival.org
Cherries are available all summer. Not that big a deal on the island. Fudge however …

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You should prepare to rock out with Bob Seger (Night Moves) and the Romantics. Yes, you must watch that Christopher Reeve movie. Curious if the native Michiganders recommend the chicken dinner in Frankenmuth.

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@ChoatieMom what an amazing wedding that must have been. We should go up north together and get pasties. And go to the Leggs Inn. I also have a soft spot for the Cross in the Woods.

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I grew up in Michigan and live just over the border now. I did the Frankenmuth dinner once and it wasn’t all that memorable to me! Nor would the town and all the Christmas focus be a draw for me.

Many people are sure to do the Frankenmuth things…just not me!