Cheap spring getaways
Here are 15 spots where a fun weekend costs $100 or less.
© Beth Gauper
In spring, lilacs bloom along the Root River State Trail near Lanesboro, Minn.
Even in a dismal economy, there's no need to stay home.
If you're on a budget, you'll have to look beyond fancy resorts, spas and bistros.
Watch prairie chickens courting on the central Wisconsin sand plains or go up north to Ely for a guys getaway. Look for wildflowers from a cabin in northeast Iowa or bicycle the Munger Trail from a lodge in eastern Minnesota.
Each weekend costs $100 or less per person, based on double occupancy. Here are 15 great spring trips in 2012.
For inexpensive trips year-round, see Cheap
summer getaways, Cheap fall getaways
and Cheap winter getaways.
Spring break in the Ozarks
Late March and April often is warm and sunny in Missouri, where the YMCA Trout
Lodge offers spring-break rates at its 5,200-acre lake resort near Potosi, an hour and a half south of St. Louis.
From March to Memorial Day weekend, a family of two adults and two children ages 6-12, for example, can get a lodge room for $156-$168 per night, including three meals a day and use of the gym, archery range, trap-shooting range, trails, adventure activities and boats.
The camp offers such theme weeks as basketball for March Madness,
Spanish for Fiesta de la Familia and astronomy for Out of This World. There are also Mardi Gras, St. Patty's Day, Easter and
Mother's Day weekends.
It's a little extra to use the two zip lines, alpine swing and a 50-foot alpine climbing tower. Call 573-438-2154.
For more, see On the rocks in the Ozarks.
Prairie-chicken courtship in central Wisconsin
On the sand plains between Wisconsin Rapids and Stevens Point, prairie chickens conduct a goofy courtship, complete with booming and stomping, that draws bird watchers from around the region. Reserve a space in a blind during Prairie Chicken Festival April 13-15 and you'll get to see the whole thing.
For more, see Playing the field in
Wisconsin.
© Beth Gauper
The East Lake Trail hugs the lake in Iowa's Backbone State Park.
Cost of $25 includes blind space, a Dutch-oven breakfast, bird-banding and guided birding tours, 715-343-6215. Stay in Coloma at the Coloma Hotel, an 1876 inn where the most expensive room has a king bed, gas fireplace, cable, fridge and sofa and costs $55, including breakfast.
Bring a group and rent all eight rooms for $320.
A cabin in northeast Iowa
Iowa state parks have a wonderful variety of cabins, and they're a bargain, but they rent by the week in summer.
In spring, there's only a two-night minimum. One year, on Mother's Day weekend, we rented a $50 cabin with bath and kitchen in Backbone State Park, near Strawberry Point.
We hit the peak of wildflower season, hiking the trails around Backbone Lake; the park was named for knobs of rock that erupt
from the middle of the trail. It doesn't look like most people's idea of Iowa; twisted cedars grew out of fissures, and we
passed huge white pines and squeezed between house-sized piles of limestone.
Spring break in canoe country
Near the northern Minnesota town of Ely, YMCA Camp du Nord rents out its cabins to groups in fall, winter and spring and also offers programming on some weeks and weekends.
It offers Family Spring Break Weekend/Grandparents Weekend March 22-25, Women's Spring Retreat May 3-6 and Family Fishing Adventure May 11-13, with guided hikes and paddles, nature programs, campfires, saunas and arts and crafts.
There are 21 heated cabins, some with gas fireplaces, in three villages. Rates depend on size of cabin; 16 people sharing Thor's Cabin pay $68 apiece for the Mother's Day weekend, and seven people sharing Jack's Cabin pay $93. Reserve early to get your choice of cabins, 612-465-0568.
For more, see Dreaming of Ely.
Near Sandstone and the 75-mile Willard Munger State Trail, the Audubon Center of the
North Woods holds an annual pancake brunch and
maple syrup program March 24 where families can learn how to tap trees and turn sap into syrup, $15, $10 for
children 5-12.
Then they can spend the night in one of the environmental-learning center's lodges, $40 for a room that sleeps four adults or a family of eight.
© Beth Gauper
Two male prairie chickens try to impress a hen on the booming grounds.
Guests can make a weekend out of other programs, too. The lodges also can be rented by groups who want to ride the Munger Trail or go birding around the 535-acre campus, 320-245-2648.
Cabin getaway in the Twin Cities
At the Baker Park Reserve Near-Wilderness Settlement in the western
Minneapolis suburb of Maple Plain, groups of up to eight family or friends can rent one of eight rustic log cabins, $115 per
night.
The cabins have wood stoves, and firewood and cooking/eating utensils are provided. All eight cabins and a nearby log lodge with modern restrooms and an institutional kitchen can be rented together, but individual groups can rent a cabin during weekends that include naturalist programs.
Reserve at 763-559-6700. For more, see Camping near the Twin Cities.
Treasure hunt in southeast Minnesota
May is a fantastic time to explore the bluffs on southeast Minnesota. Spring ephemerals bloom all month, and morel mushrooms pop out around Mother's Day.
Whitewater State Park, along with the state
wildlife area surrounding it, is considered the best morel-hunting grounds in Minnesota; stay at its heated camper cabin,
$50. It's also known for carpets of marsh marigolds, false rue anemone and hepatica.
In May, it offers a wildflower and morel walk that's very popular and books up quickly. Call 507-932-3007.
Carley State Park, just west of Whitewater, is known
for its masses of Virginia bluebells, and it celebrates Bluebell
Festival the first Saturday of May with pioneer games, wildflower walks and trout fishing for kids. Eat inexpensively in
nearby Plainview, which celebrates with a pancake supper and barbecue contest.
Beaver Creek Valley State Park, just west
of Caledonia, is known for lots of trout lilies and has a heated camper cabin, $50. The cabins sleep up to five people;
reserve up to a year in advance online or at 866-857-2757. Reservation fee is
$8.50.
Theater weekend in Lanesboro
In this southeast Minnesota bicycling hub, Commonweal Theatre opens its 2012
season April 6 with Henrik Ibsen's "Pillars of Society.''
Tickets are $30; stay across the street at Cottage House Inn, $60 on weekends through April, and bicycle the paved, 42-mile Root River State Trail for free.
This part of bluff country also is great for fly-fishing, and several companies give tours of Amish farms. See Amish country and Lodgings in Lanesboro.
Farther down the trail, Old Barn Resort opens in April and has a three-season heated pool, 18-hole golf course and canoe and kayak rentals.
© Beth Gauper
Festival-goers enjoy Blues Bash at the Trempealeau Hotel on the Mississippi.
Its hostel has three rooms with up to 16 bunks, $23-$25 per person, and one with two beds, $44-$50 for one or two.
Tent sites are $24-$28 for two people and camper sites are $32-$40, $3-$5 each additional person.
Birding at Crex Meadows
This wildlife preserve in western Wisconsin, in Grantsburg near the St. Croix River, is holding two-hour morning spring birding tours April 28 and May 5 and 12.
There's also a spring ephemeral wildflower walk May 12, and May 19-20 is Wildlife Experience Weekend.
In spring, the arrival of migratory birds means the preserve is hopping every day. The best time to spot them is at dawn, so it’s most convenient — and cheap — to stay in Crex Meadows' two bunkhouses, $10 per person, or cabins, $15.
There's also good hiking along the St. Croix on the Sandrock Cliffs
Trail.
Maifest in Iowa's Amana Colonies
There's always something going on in the Amanas, a group of once-communal
villages southwest of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Maifest festivities
include the Taste of the Amanas food fair, Maypole dancing, German music and a parade May 5-6.
© Beth Gauper
Dancers circle the maypole during Maifest in Amana.
The Guest House Motel in Amana is in the middle of everything and rents rooms with one bed for $59, two beds for $65; call 877-331-0828.
Or, stay in one of four family cabins, $50, at beautiful Palisades-Kepler State Park, just east of Cedar Rapids. They can be reserved up to a year in advance, online or at 877-427-2757. Admission to all Iowa state parks is free.
For more, see Truly Amana and Eating in the Amana Colonies.
Sprucing up the Gunflint
In far northeast Minnesota, be a do-gooder while enjoying a spring weekend in the north woods.
The annual Gunflint GreenUp tree-planting festival is May 4-6, and $45 buys you not only the right to release pine seedlings into the wild but also guided nature walks and talks, a picnic with live music, a box lunch, a thank-you dinner and a dance.
Local resorts offers discounted lodgings during the work festival.
The Gunflint Lodge also offers its own Spring Chores Weekend April 26-29. Guests put in about five hours of work, then get the rest of the weekend free. Cost for two nights is $108 per person, including Saturday dinner buffet, in the best available cabin, so reserve early.
Work day in Wisconsin
In northwest Wisconsin, the non-profit Hunt-Hill Audubon Sanctuary near Rice Lake holds a
Spring Helping Hands work day on May 5.
Lodgings in dorm rooms is available Friday and Saturday night, and Saturday breakfast and lunch are provided.
The sanctuary includes two lakes and trails through bogs, meadows and old-growth forest.
Backpack in Iowa's Yellow River State Forest
Backpacking always is cheap. But if you first need to learn the basics, go on the Beginner's Backpacking Trip May 18-20 with Crawdaddy Outdoors outfitters and store in Waverly, Iowa.
You'll hike in the beautiful Driftless Area, in the state's northeast corner near Waukon. Hint: It's not flat. Cost is $85.
Listen to reggae and blues on the Mississippi
In the Wisconsin town of Trempealeau, the 1871 Trempealeau Hotel still includes eight of the original "working-man'' rooms, $40-$49. They don't have private baths, but most have river views.
© Beth Gauper
At the Audubon Center of the North Woods, guests can stay at the Crosby Lodge.
Guests are right in the middle of the fun during the hotel's annual Reggae Fest, May 19, and Blues Bash, June 2. Watch river traffic while drinking beer, eating the hotel's renowned walnut burgers and listening to well-known musicians; tickets are $15.
The hotel also is a good base for hiking up to Brady's Bluff in adjacent Perrot State Park, paddling the 4½-mile Long Lake Canoe
Trail through the river sloughs and bicycling on the 24-mile Great River State Trail, which slices through town.
For more, see Hitting the trails in Trempealeau.
Ride the Badger State Trail in southern Wisconsin
The new Badger State Trail slices south through cheese country from the Madison area to Illinois, where it meets the
Jane Addams Trail.
Together, these crushed-limestone trails have 46 miles; from the Madison suburb of Fitchburg, the Badger heads 33 miles south to the Illinois border; from there, the Addams heads 13 miles south to Freeport.
Stay in Monroe, Wis., at the Super 8, two blocks from the trail (and Brennan's Farm
Market, a great spot to pick up picnic supplies). Rooms are $70 on weekends, including breakfast, $63 with an AAA card,
608-325-1500.
On one day, ride 20 miles to Freeport; on the next, ride 26 miles to Paoli, or branch off onto the Sugar River State Trail and ride to New Glarus. Trail pass is $4 daily.
For more, see A slice of cheese country.
A sampler of outdoors sports
Every spring, the Minnesota Rovers Outdoors Club puts on an Outdoors Extravaganza to introduce prospective members to the club.
It's always held in mid-May in a state park not far from the Twin Cities.
Cost of $15 includes camping, Saturday supper, Sunday breakfast and guided hikes, paddling trips, rock-climbing and bicycling.
For planning travel on a nickel, the Rovers and other outdoors clubs are unparalleled.
To find out about outdoors clubs, which offer many great trips for $100 or less, see Join the club.
More ideas
Minnesota rents several modern guest houses that are very affordable for groups. For more, see Lodgings in Minnesota state parks.
To find out about other inexpensive places for groups to stay, see Cabins for a crowd.
Sign up for our free weekly newsletter
Get our weekly stories, tips and updates delivered a day early — directly to your Inbox. Wondering what you'll get? Take a look at our newsletter archive.
