Trip Hints
Favorites for spring
Roadside Distraction
Here's a contest for everyone who loves the odd and offbeat.
Traveling with a pet
Got a dog? More and more places invite families to sit and stay.
Best of summer
The season is short, so have as much fun as you can.
Free for all
At festivals and attractions across the region, fun doesn't cost a thing.
Art al fresco
When warm weather arrives, art fairs start to pop up everywhere.
Best brew fests
Quaff to your heart's content at these tasting parties.
Summer in Stillwater
This historic Minnesota river town is a favorite weekend getaway.
Still fighting the Civil War
At historic sites, battle reenactments turn history into flesh and blood.
Camping in the Twin Cities
For many, a lake vacation is a hop, skip and jump from home.
Following the tall ships
On Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, tourists flock to historic schooners.
FastPlans/Walking Lake Geneva
In the southeast corner of Wisconsin, Lake Geneva has been welcoming wealthy Chicagoans for 150 years. They came, they built fabulous mansions, and now the rest of us get to gawk at them from a footpath that hugs all 20 miles of shoreline.
When to go: Now, when it's still fairly quiet. July and August are crowded, especially on weekends.
What to do: Walk around Geneva Lake; if you want to walk only the eight miles from Lake Geneva, an excursion boat will pick you up in Williams Bay. Shop downtown. Rent a kayak or stand-up paddleboard. Go on a narrated lake tour. Swim at the municipal beach or rent a motorboat.
Details: For more, see Gawking in Lake Geneva.
Past fast plans: Escape to Stillwater, Art in Mineral Point, Horicon Marsh birds, Boat-watching in Duluth, Door County spring
This weekend
Eat fruits of the forest, tour painted ladies.
It's a big weekend for festivals, with lots of nature fests and art fairs in addition to Syttende Mai celebrations.
Morel Mushroom Festival in Muscoda, Wis. In this Wisconsin River town, there will be fried morels, music, Saturday fireworks and a parade at 2 p.m. Sunday. May 19–20.
DubuqueFest in Dubuque, Iowa. This downtown arts festival includes dance, music, storytelling, children's activities and an Old House Enthusiast's Old Home Tour. May 18–20.
Afton May Fair in Afton, Minn. There's music, art, kids' activities and a pie-baking contest in this village along the St. Croix River.
For more festivals, see our Events Calendar.
True brew in the Twin Cities
Craft breweries are popping up all over, offering tours and tap rooms.
It used to be that rebellious young men started garage bands. Now, they're starting garage breweries.
Miller and Bud may rule the beer world, but craft brewers are its rock stars. At first, they made their own, getting supplies from St. Paul's Northern Brewer (“Good beer is your right'').
Then, they started real breweries with names like Surly (“the anger fueled by the inability to find good beers'') and Flat Earth (“Join the movement against the reign of watered-down domestics'').
Celebrating roots
No matter where you're from, there's a festival for you.
In general, I like my heritage. It involves Vikings and trolls and populist politics. At festivals, tow-headed children dance around in cute outfits.
But the food . . . not so much. When it comes to herring and lutefisk, I'd rather be Polish. Plump pierogi with sour cream and sauteed onions — now, there's an ethnic food I can love.
Luckily, it's easy to piggyback on other cultures in the Upper Midwest. Yes, many of us came from Germany, Ireland and Norway.
But we also came from Greece, Ghana, Switzerland, Iceland, Scotland, Ukraine — and there are festivals honoring those cultures and those of the Dakota, Ojibwe, Cree and Ho-Chunk, who already were here.
Trying out the Border Route
On eight great day hikes, get a taste of this 65-mile trail through Minnesota's canoe country.
In Minnesota canoe country, hikers get serious bragging rights by backpacking the Border Route Trail.
This 65-mile trail roughly parallels the Ontario border, mostly through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The volunteers who maintain it can't use mechanized tools there, and signs aren't allowed. So navigation isn't easy, and hikers frequently have to dodge blown-down trees.
They don't have to dodge other people, though. Backpacker magazine praises the trail's solitude and suggests, "Hike where others paddle.''
30 great campsites
These spots have what campers want — location, location, location.
There's nothing like finding the perfect campsite.
I look for them wherever I go, and when I was at Northern Highland-American Legion State Forest, one of the most popular campgrounds in Wisconsin, I found it: Campsite 435.
It's framed but not enclosed by trees, has a lovely view of Crystal Lake and is on the edge of its sand beach. It's near the shower house and not too close to latrines, easy to reach but not heavily trafficked and off a paved bicycle trail to nearby towns.
A family from Rhinelander had reserved it for an August weekend, less than two weeks before they arrived.
“This is our first family camping trip,'' said Cora Eckrich. “We got here and I thought, 'Really? This is awesome.' Now I think we're going to be spoiled – is it ever going to be as good as this one?''
Celebrating Syttende Mai
On a special day in May, Norwegian-Americans wave the red, white and blue.
It's a wonder that we love the Norwegians so much, considering the food they brought from the old country.
Lutefisk, or dried cod soaked in lye? Rømmegrøt, a butter-soaked cream pudding that should be called heart-attack-in-a-cup?
We forgive Norwegians because they have a sense of humor about everything, including their food (“O Lutefisk, how fragrant your aroma. O Lutefisk, you put me in a coma. You smell so strong, you look like glue, you taste yust like an overshoe.")
Cheap summer getaways
No money, no problem: Here are 35 great vacations that cost $115 or less.
In summer, it’s not as hard as you’d think to take a trip for $115 or less.
Many of the great travel experiences in the Upper Midwest can’t be bought, anyway — bicycling amid old-growth white pines, paddling in the sloughs of the Mississippi, volunteering in a lighthouse.
On this budget, you won't be staying in the Wisconsin Dells, but a family of four can stay and play in a Twin Cities campground/water park for $75 a day. You won't be paddling in the Apostle Islands, but you can spend a weekend on Iowa's Wapsipinicon River for $7.
Here's our 2012 edition of Cheap Summer Getaways, with five new trips for outdoors women, river paddlers and cabin campers.
Summer in Minocqua
In Wisconsin's north woods, vacationers flock to this Island City.
In northeast Wisconsin, Minocqua is all things to all tourists.
It's been a boating destination for more than a century because it's on a chain of lakes and nearly surrounded by Lake Minocqua. In fact, it's Nature's Original Water Park, and the town has the trademark to prove it.
But summer is short, and these days, tourists like to keep busy. That's why you'll also find water-ski shows, lumberjack shows, boat tours, wildlife parks, bicycle trails, city-style shopping, golf and, in the middle of downtown, mini-golf.
So much to do, so many places to go — and yet the biggest crowds are always outside the fudge shop.
Planning a paddle trip
If you'd like to hit the waterways this summer, you'll find lots of encouragement.
There's never been a better time to hit the water.
Towns up and down the Mississippi River are offering canoeing trips during Summer of Paddling 2012, most of them with free use of boats and gear.
Boat demos are starting, two guides to paddling in Wisconsin have been reissued and water trails are being developed, some right in cities.
Outdoors and paddle clubs are happy to show the ropes to new members. Outdoors stores offer free classes on trip planning.
Here are some of the best ways to get your feet wet this summer.
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© Beth Gauper, 2007 - 2012 all rights reserved
