Cheap summer getaways
No money, no problem: Here are 30 great vacations that cost $100 or less.
© Beth Gauper
On Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, volunteer keepers help maintain Grand Traverse Light.
In summer, it’s not as hard as you’d think to take a trip for $100 or less.
Many of the great travel experiences in the Upper Midwest can’t be bought, anyway — paddling under a full moon, bicycling around a lake, living in a lighthouse.
For $100, you won't be riding the flumes at a Wisconsin Dells water park, but you can ride Elvis' favorite roller coaster
until you're dizzy. You won't be spending the day at Lollapalooza, but you can hear Leo Kottke for $16.
Here's this year's edition of Cheap Summer Getaways, with six new trips for families, history buffs, bicyclists, paddlers and
music fans.
Most give you a roof over your head; the trips that require camping also include guides, meals and/or fun things to do.
If you're really frugal, you can travel for almost nothing by staying in county parks and state forests and seeing the sights on a bike. To travel for free, join work trips on trails and in parks. As always, reserve as soon as possible.
And if you want to plan ahead, see Cheap fall getaways, Cheap winter getaways and Cheap spring getaways.
Paddle in the Michigan wilderness
From the northern Wisconsin town of Rhinelander, Nicolet College offers an Outdoor Adventure Series that includes lots of fun day trips and a few overnight trips, including a full-moon paddle and camp in the Upper Peninsula’s Sylvania Wilderness.
Cost of $85 ($105 with canoe rental) includes camping, dinner, breakfast and transportation from Rhinelander.
Travel by bike and stay for free
If your travels are fueled by your own muscles, you’re welcome to stay with hosts in the Warmshowers worldwide network.
It’s free, but even better, you’ll meet interesting people, most of them touring bicyclists themselves.
Couchsurfing is a similar social network, without the bicycling requirement. If you’re adventurous and flexible and you like to meet people, it’s a great way to travel on a budget.
Stay at a fur post
Even if you’re sleeping in an RV or high-tech tent, you can’t get any closer to 1815 than the campground of Fort William Historical Park in Thunder Bay, nine miles upstream from Lake Superior on the shores of the Kaministiquia River.
© Beth Gauper
Just outside Thunder Bay, Fort William Historical Park is a reconstructed fur post.
It's the continent's largest reconstructed fur post, with a legion of costumed living-history players enacting non-stop tableaux amid 42 buildings on 20 acres.
It's like staying on the grounds of a fur-trade Disneyland. Sites cost $25-$35.
Camp in a tipi
In Lowden State park in northern Illinois, near the town of Oregon, families can camp in a painted tipi during Oregon Trail Days, July 21-22. The tipis sleep three to four and rent for $79 per night, half-price Thursday and Sunday nights.
The entertainment is free. There's a Native American encampment with drumming and dancing, covered wagon rides, a horse
parade, a river float, vintage baseball and such cowboy arts as gun slinging and rope tricks.
Some state parks also rent tipis, including Upper Sioux State Park in western Minnesota, $30
per night, and Michigan's Baraga, Cheboygan,
Interlochen and Wilson state parks, $30.
Music and sweet corn in the coulees
Camping at a music festival is a time-honored way to have fun on a budget, although some of the bigger fests can get pretty rowdy.
That’s not a problem at Larryfest, sponsored by the Kickapoo Valley Acoustic Music Association on a maple-syrup farm in the gorgeous coulees of southwest Wisconsin, between Ontario and La Farge.
It’s Aug. 17-18, and cost of $65 ($75 after July 1) includes more than 20 performances, camping, sweet corn, firewood and shuttle bus. Food and soda, but no alcoholic beverages, are sold on the grounds.
For more about the area, see Valleys of Vernon County.Becoming an outdoor family
© Beth Gauper
Families do the high-ropes course at Eagle Bluff.
To combat the rise of nature-deficit disorder, many state DNRs and nature centers are sponsoring Becoming an Outdoor Family weekends, where families can try all kinds of fun things: archery, fishing, shooting, orienteering, hiking, rock climbing and geocaching.
In the scenic bluffs of southeast Minnesota, Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center near Lanesboro is offering a weekend June 9-10. Cost is $80 per person for groups of 3 or less, $300 for a family of four and $75 for each additional person, and includes meals and lodgings.
There's also a weekend at the Audubon Center of the North Woods in eastern Minnesota, near Sandstone. Cost is $85, $315 for a family of four.
Paddling and biking the Baraboo River
The dams have been removed on the Baraboo River in south-central Wisconsin, so it’s open sesame for canoeists and kayakers. If you have your own boat and bicycle, save money by using the 22-mile 400 State Trail to create your own shuttle – just drop off your bikes at the take-out point, and ride the trail back to your car.
The 14 miles between La Valle and Reedsburg are particularly suited to a self-shuttle by bike. In La Valle, September Farms B&B is just off the trail and has rooms for just $69, if you’re willing to share a bathroom with another room.
For more, see Cycling in coulee
country.
Park and ride on the edge of Madison
If you’re unfamiliar with the one-way streets around Madison’s Capitol Square (and the towing rules), you can camp for cheap on the edge of town, surrounded by trees and flowers, and ride your bike into town.
The 17-mile Capital City State Trail runs through the new Capital Springs State Recreation Area, which has a campground with a nice new shower house.
© Beth Gauper
From campgrounds, bicyclists can ride all around Madison.
From there, you can ride west all the way to Dodgeville; the Military Ridge State Trail starts where the Capital City ends.
On the west side of town, near Governor Nelson State Park,
you can camp on the shores of Lake Mendota at the county-run Mendota Park. All of the sites are electric, and there's a shower
house and swimming area.
For more, see Summer in
Madison.
Mountain biking in the Kettle Moraine
The trails in Kettle Moraine State Forest-Southern Unit, just west of Milwaukee, often are called the best in Wisconsin.
Stay at the Eagle Home Hostel, on the edge of
the forest, and you can ride right onto them; the Emma Carlin mountain-biking trail is just a mile away. If you want to hike,
the house adjoins the Ice Age National Scenic Trail.
The 1890s brick farmhouse has three bedrooms with eight beds, $25 or $22 for members of Hostelling International. Guests can use the large living room, dining room and kitchen. To make a reservation, call manager Bill Livick at 262-495-8794, or 262-442-6360, eaglehostel@gmail.com.
There's also a hostel in Madison and one north of Milwaukee in Newburg. For more, see At home in a hostel.
Hike and bike from West Duluth
In Duluth, Canal Park gets all the tourist love, but there’s actually more to do in West Duluth – paddling the St. Louis River, bicycling the Willard Munger State Trail, walking and birding on the Western Waterfront Trail and hiking the Superior Hiking Trail.
You can avoid the high rates of Canal Park hotels by staying at the Willard Munger Inn, where guests get free shuttles to trailheads in Duluth, free use of canoes and bicycles and a free pass to the Lake Superior Zoo, across the street.
In peak summer, weekday rates start at $70 for two. To save even more, stay at the inn's Indian Point Campground.
The inn also is walking distance to the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad, for excursions along the St. Louis River.
For more, see Duluth's other
waterfront.
A yurt on Iowa's Clear Lake
Rent both yurts on the shores of Clear Lake in north-central Iowa, and you've got your own dock, shower house and oak-shaded
corner of McIntosh Woods State Park.
Each yurt has a full-size futon and bunk beds and costs $35, or $210 per week. It's connected by bike trail to Clear Lake, a laid-back beach town with a 1950s vibe and music every weekend. There's a
sand beach in the park and a lakeside supper club next door. It's camping, but just barely.
The bathhouse is disabled-accessible, as is one yurt. Guests can bring a boat or raft to use off the dock. Reserve up to a year in advance at Iowa state parks, 877-427-2757, which also rent many camper cabins and family cabins, $25-$100.
For more, see Yippee for yurts and Clear Lake tranquility.
Parties in Milwaukee
© Beth Gauper
On the edge of downtown Milwaukee, Marquette University opens its Straz Tower to tourists in summer.
Summer is one big party in Milwaukee, whose lakefront festival grounds host the huge Summerfest, which it calls the world's
largest music festival, and eight big festivals that celebrate Polish, Italian, German, Irish, Mexican and American Indian
heritages.
Ignore the expensive hotel rooms and bunk at Marquette University's Straz Tower, three blocks from the special bus that takes summer visitors to the lakefront Henry Maier Festival Park and right on the Wisconsin Avenue route that takes baseball fans to Miller Park on game days.
Or ride your bike; it's a college dorm, so you're free to take your bike up to your room in the elevator. Milwaukee is a great place to bicycle; see Bicycling along Lake Michigan.
You also can stay a mile farther along Wisconsin Avenue at the seven-story Mashuda Hall, a former hotel where the Beatles stayed after their Milwaukee gig in 1964. It's next to the Pabst Mansion.
The air-conditioned rooms, all with WiFi, are available from late May to mid-August, but only if a conference also has booked
rooms in one of the dorms. That's most days but usually doesn't include holiday weekends.
At Straz, a room for one is $46, and for two, $64. A triple is $75, and a quad is $80. At Mashuda, a single is $43 and a
double $60. Triples are $75. At both dorms, add $10 per room for microwave, refrigerator and cable TV. Call 414-288-7208 to
reserve.
Many other colleges have dorms that are open to the public in summer. For more, see Cheap stays.
For more on festivals, see Party in
Milwaukee.
A great amusement park in Green Bay
Want to take the kids to an amusement park, but don't want to pay $40 for a pass to Six Flags?
Spend a day at the wonderfully old-fashioned Bay Beach Amusement Park in Green Bay,
where $40 will buy you 160 rides on the giant slide, 80 rides on a Tilt-A-Whirl or Ferris wheel or 40 rides on the brand-new
Zippin Pippin roller coaster, a replica of Elvis' favorite ride in Memphis.
© Beth Gauper
At Bay Beach Amusement Park in Green Bay, rides cost 25 cents or 50 cents.
The leafy, 45-acre park on the shores of Lake Michigan has been owned by the city since 1920 and has 17 mechanical rides, pony rides and a playground, picnic area and dance hall. Ride tickets are 25 cents each.
Green Bay still has many inexpensive mom-and-pop motels and other accommodations. In adjoining DePere, the Apple Creek Campground rents yurts and sleeping cabins for $72 per family.
You'll probably want to visit the Packer Hall of Fame and tour Lambeau Field, too. For more, see Packer country.
Living in a lighthouse
Many lighthouses on the Great Lakes give free housing to volunteer keepers in return for help with tours and light
maintenance.
At Pottawatomie Light on Wisconsin's Rock Island, Au Sable Light in Michigan's Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan
and Devils islands in the Apostles and Big Sable Light near Ludington, Mich., volunteers stay at former keepers’
quarters. Others stay in former state-park manager houses or in cabins.
For more, see Living in a lighthouse.
A cheap stay in Chicago
Chicago is so much fun in summer that everyone wants to be there — bad news for people on a budget. But you can beat high hotel rates by staying at the Hostelling International Family Hostel in the South Loop at Congress and Wabash, two blocks from Grant Park, which hosts free festivals and concerts all summer.
It's quite posh, with pancake happy hours, an Internet room, WiFi and a carpeted great room with foosball, ping-pong and a
pool table. There's a kitchen where guests can cook for themselves.
In 2009, 2007 and 2006, it was voted Best Large Hostel Worldwide by travelers on Hostelworld.com. Beds cost $29-$38 per
person, including a breakfast buffet of bagels, muffins, cereal, fruit and juice. Call 312-360-0300.
Volunteers takes guests on forays around town, to festivals and blues clubs. And speaking of volunteers, the official city Greeters will show you around city for free.
For more tips, see Cheap Chicago.
Snorkeling on the Namekagon
© Beth Gauper
On the crystal-clear Namekagon River in western Wisconsin, it's free to stay at national-park campsites.
This pristine river in northwest Wisconsin is on the St. Croix National Scenic
Riverway, part of the national park system, and its waters are spring-fed and as clear as glass.
Bring snorkel gear, if you have it. When I paddled and snorkeled there, I found a $20 bill snagged on a branch. It would have
paid for my trip expenses, if I'd had any: Camping is free and first-come, first-served.
Try the quiet section between Trego and the St. Croix River. If you need an outfitter, contact Pardun's Canoe Rental and Shuttle Service in Danbury.
Paddling or tubing the Root River
In Minnesota's bluff country, Lanesboro is the hub of the popular Root River State Trail.
It's got lots of B&Bs, but tourists on a budget can camp in Sylvan Park, right in the middle of everything. There are showers in the Community Center, and on Saturday mornings, there's a farmers market where you can buy Amish pastries for breakfast. Camping is first-come, first-served, $10 for tent sites, and $25 for campers.
Rent a tube from Root River Outfitters for $8 if you want to walk back along the bicycle trail or $12 if you want a longer trip with return by shuttle. Bicycling is free. Stay on a Sunday night and you can see a live broadcast of "Over the Back Fence'' for $5.
For more, see Languid in Lanesboro.
A dorm in Duluth
As summer heats up, the price of hotel rooms rockets in this port city, cooled by the breezes of Lake Superior and frequented by crowds of tourists.
Get a break on those rates at the College of St. Scholastica, where dorm rooms in summer rent for $57 nightly, $378 weekly. Call 218-529-5777.
The college is in the hills above downtown, west of Chester Park and right off Skyline Parkway, which is a destination in
itself.
For more, see Duluth's Skyline Parkway and other Duluth stories.
Camping and a lakeside concert in Wisconsin
© Beth Gauper
In the northwest Wisconsin village of Solon Springs, camp and see a concert in the same place.
If you're paddling on the Bois Brule River in northwest Wisconsin, there's more to do just to the south on the shores of Upper St. Croix Lake, headwaters of the St. Croix River.
In Solon Springs, the Lucius Woods Performing Arts Center offers Music in the Park on
Saturday evenings at its massive log bandshell.
It's on the lake in Lucius Woods County Park, which has 24 wooded sites, a nice sand beach, a playground and a modern bathhouse. Camping costs $13-$14 and is first-come, first-served. 715-378-2219.
The music season runs from late June to mid-August and includes folk, blues, big-band, bluegrass, Dixieland jazz, Celtic and
'50s music. Tickets are $14, $16 at the gate; $7-$8 for students.
Brats and beer are sold on site. There's also a Dairy Queen, grocery store and restaurant a block from the park.
The North Country National Scenic Trail runs through the park, and on the north end of Upper St. Croix Lake, a historic
two-mile portage trail connects it to the start of the Bois Brule.
For more, see Summer nights in Solon Springs and Paddling the Bois Brule.
Seeing the sights on a bike
An organized bicycle tour is the best and cheapest way to see the countryside and make a lot of friends along the way.
One of them is the Michigander, sponsored by the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance in July. It starts with a two-day loop tour and costs $95, including breakfast and dinner. 517-485-6022.
In Minnesota, you can ride and camp for a whole week on the MS Society's TRAM for a registration fee of $50 (you also have to raise at least $300 in pledges). It's the last full week in July.
In Iowa, ride all seven days of RAGBRAI for $140, camping or staying in hosts' homes;
it's also the last week of July.
For details and more rides, see Sightseeing by bike and Tours on two wheels.
Cabins in Iowa state and county parks
© Beth Gauper
Eight family cabins built by the Civilian Conservation Corps sit on the bluff above Backbone Lake.
In hilly northeast Iowa, a family of four can spend a week in a cabin at Backbone State Park for $300. The lovely sand beach on Backbone Lake is nearby, there's great hiking, and the cabins, built in the 1930s by the CCC, have bathrooms and kitchens.
Other parks rent cabins, too; in Palisades-Kepler State Park near Cedar Rapids, four cabins with bathrooms, $50, have their own blufftop corner of the park.
In summer, they rent only by the week; the rest of the year, the minimum is two days.
Many county parks have cabins, too. For more, see A cabin in Iowa.
BWCA from a bunkhouse
Two resorts on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area allow guests to stay for $16-$20 per person in bunkhouses while taking day trips into the wilderness or just relaxing on a lake.
At the end of the Gunflint Trail, Tuscarora Lodge on Round Lake rents nine bunkhouses in the woods, each sleeping four to nine people, that share a shower house. Cost is $16 per person, including towels, and an all-you-can-eat French toast breakfast is $7. Each bunkhouse is rented to only one party at a time, 800-544-3843.
Twenty-two miles east of Ely, Kawishiwi Lodge and Outfitters is
on Lake One, an entry point into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The resort has two bunkhouses, each with full
kitchen and bath and one with screened porch, where beds go for $25 per person, with a $100 minimum.
One bunkhouse sleeps nine and one sleeps eight, and each is rented to only one party at a time. 218-365-5487.
For more, see Minnesota's Boundary Waters and Adventure on the Gunflint Trail.
A Wisconsin beach cabin
© Beth Gauper
The rustic cabins at Point Beach each have a boardwalk to Lake Michigan.
Do you have a really large family and hardly any money but would like a nice beach vacation? Here's the place for you.
Just north of Two Rivers, Wis., Point Beach State
Forest rents two rustic cabins, each with a boardwalk to white-sand beach on Lake Michigan. They're in their own part of
the park, south of the lighthouse and main beach, so they're very quiet.
Guests should bring bicycles and ride the beautiful Rawley Point Trail through the park to the lighthouse and south to Two Rivers, where they can connect to the paved Mariners Trail, which follows the Lake Michigan shoreline to Manitowoc.
For more, see Two trails from Two
Rivers.
One cabin sleeps 14 in bunks and the other sleeps 16, but they're all in one room, so beware of snorers. Each has a fire pit
and latrine, and they share a covered pavilion for eating and a water pump. There's no electricity, so campers should bring
lanterns. Shower houses are in the main part of the park. Cost is $60.
They can be reserved 11 months in advance, 800-372-3607. The park is at 920-794-7480.
Wisconsin cabins for the physically disabled
If you're physically disabled, Wisconsin charges just $30 per night for cabins in nine state parks. Of course, they’re very
popular.
Modern cabins are in Buckhorn, High Cliff, Mirror Lake, Kohler-Andrae and Potawatomi state parks and at Ottawa Lake in the Southern Unit of Kettle Moraine State Forest and in Richard Bong Recreation Area.
Rustic cabins are at Copper Falls and Blue Mounds state parks. Reservations can be made up to a year in advance and are taken by individual parks; for information, call 608-266-2181.
Camping on Lake Superior
I found Saxon Harbor County Park on Lake Superior while seeking out nearby Superior Falls, on the Montreal River between Wisconsin and Michigan. It has everything anyone wants in summer — a sand beach for swimming, showers, a protected bay for kayaking and a bar that serves burgers and pizza on days when it’s too hot to cook.
Sites are first-come, first-served — weekends fill fast — and cost $15 with electricity. Harbor Lights bar gives out information, 715-893-2242, or call Iron County, 715-561-2697.
For more, see 25 great campsites.
Stay on the beach in Michigan
© David Kenyon/DNR
In Michigan's J.W. Wells State Park, near the Wisconsin border on Lake Michigan, a rustic cabin rents for $50.
Camp in the 18 Michigan state parks that line the sandy shores of Lake Michigan between Mackinaw City and the Indiana border and you'll have a better location than you would at the fanciest resorts. Sites can be reserved six months in advance.
Or rent an $80 camper cabin that sleeps six or a $45 mini-cabin that sleeps four; there are 13 at Petoskey, Leelanau, Traverse City, Orchard Beach, Ludington, Muskegon and Warren Dunes state parks. Reserve up to a year in advance.
For details, see Camping around Lake Michigan and Michigan's great lake cabins.
Hiking and paddling with a club
Traveling with an outdoors club is one of the best deals you can get. You need to be a member to go on overnight trips, but you don’t need to live in the town where the club is based; you can meet the group at the destination.
One club known for its penny-pinching ways is the Minnesota Rovers Outdoors Club, based in the Twin Cities. It offers camping trips to Minnesota’s North Shore for as little as $10; you bring your own food, but you can borrow gear from the club.
It also offers beginner’s trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness for around $85-$100.
For more about traveling with outdoors clubs, see Join the club.
Stay on a boat in Dubuque
In Dubuque, Iowa, you can stay on the Mississippi River and in a museum at the same time.
During the day, the 1934 steam-powered dredge boat William M. Black is part of the National Mississippi River Museum, but at night, it's a guesthouse with 55 bunks.
Cost is $50 per bunk; bring three friends and pay $37.50 apiece to rent two state rooms or $43.75 apiece to rent the Itasca State Room, which has a private bathroom. Rates include admission to the museum and breakfast in its Depot Cafe. It's open April through October. 800-226-3369, Ext. 213.
For more, see Destination Dubuque.
Walking around Geneva Lake
© Beth Gauper
In the tony Lake Geneva area, stay cheap at Big Foot Beach State Park.
In the tony Lake Geneva area of southeast Wisconsin, you can't put a roof over your head for less than $100. But you can have
one of the best locations if you camp at Big Foot Beach
State Park.
It's right on Geneva Lake in Fontana, with a quarter-mile sand beach. The campground has showers; 38 sites can be reserved
and 37 are first-come, first-served, 262-248-2528.
You can swim, but the thing to do is walk around the lake on a unusual footpath that goes right through the front yards of the big mansions. It's 20 miles, but you also can walk to the town of Lake Geneva and get a ride back to Fontana on a Lake Geneva Cruise Line boat.
For more, see Gawking in Lake Geneva.
Cabin camping in a Minneapolis suburb
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 is provided. All eight cabins and a nearby log lodge with modern restrooms and an institutional kitchen can be rented, but individual groups can rent a cabin during eight weekends that include naturalist programs.
In 2012, a Family Camp program June 1-3, and a Grandparents and Grandkids program Aug. 22-24, include canoeing, archery, scavenger hunts and arts and crafts. Cost of $189-$225 per cabin for two nights includes one breakfast. Reserve at 763-694-7724.
For more, see Camping near the Twin Cities.
For more about camper cabins and yurts in state parks, see A roof in the woods.
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