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A year of best places

Here's where you'll want to be each month of the calendar.

Wouldn't it be great to spend a year enjoying yourself in the 12 best possible places?

Broadcast journalist Charles Kuralt once gave himself that dream assignment: Spend one month apiece in your favorite places in the United States, "at just the right time of the year.''

He devoted July to Ely, the northern-Minnesota gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area.

I could spend all 12 months right here, in the Upper Midwest. Here are the places I'd pick. (For more ideas, see 100 best places and Best of summer.)

January/A  northwoods ski resort

There's nothing more beautiful than the north woods in winter, when the forest is a cathedral of snow, spruce and sky. Skiing at this time of year can be a religious experience; the solitude and the stark beauty of the winter landscape seem to induce contemplation and lofty thoughts.

Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are honeycombed with beautiful trails. I'd choose the ones around Maplelag, a one-of-a-kind ski resort in northwest Minnesota that is as beloved for its warmth and hospitality as for its well-groomed trails.

If I still had young children, though, I'd go to Afterglow in northeast Wisconsin, a family resort where guests get towed up a tubing hill by snowmobile and there's great snowshoeing, too.

For details, see Ski out the door.

February/Madison

Nowhere in the region is there so much to do within two blocks: Stay at the Madison Concourse Hotel. Eat at L'Etoile or Harvest, two of Madison's best restaurants. Visit the Wisconsin Historical Museum and the Veterans Museum. Take a free guided tour of the Capitol. Play in the snow during Winter Festival on President's Day weekend.

And that's just Capitol Square. Walk a block down State Street and you'll be at the Overture Center for the Arts, which has seven performing spaces and hosts international artists and Broadway shows as well as the local symphony, opera, theater and dance troupes. The weekend after President's Day, it hosts the Madison International Festival.

For a vibrant mix of shops and eateries, just keep walking down State Street. If you're bored in Madison, you're bored with life.

For more, see Madison for all ages and Shopping in Madison.

March/Gunflint Trail

When dirty slush clogs the rest of the region, the Gunflint Trail still has a sparkling layer of fresh snow. Ski on 200 kilometers of groomed trails, snowshoe, go on sleigh rides, try skijoring, howl for wolves or mush a dog team.

You can do it all during the Winter Tracks festival. For more, see The best days of winter.

The other great thing to do in early March is hike or snowshoe along the shore of Lake Superior to the ice caves on the Bayfield Peninsula, near Cornucopia, Wis. In the best years, the ice along the shore allows access for a month or more, from February to mid-March. In the worst years, it doesn't freeze at all.

For more, see Ice caves of the Apostles.

April/Missouri's Ozarks

This is what you do when you're dying for spring and all you get is slush: Travel to Missouri and catch spring there. By April Fool's Day, daffodils, hawthornes and forsythia are blooming, with redbud and dogwood close behind. 

The Ozarks are an outdoor playground, and still quiet this time of year; I'd head straight for the southern town of Eminence and spend my days visiting state parks and canoeing — or "floating,'' as it's called here —  on the wild streams of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

For more, see  On the rocks in the Ozarks and Floating Missouri.

May/Mississippi River Valley

In May, everything happens along the Mississippi River. Pelicans and warblers follow it north. Thickets of wildflowers bloom on its shaded hillsides and open goat prairies. Morel mushrooms pop up through old leaves.

It's a good time to visit Galena, Ill., the appealingly preserved 1850s boom town that groans under a crush of tourists in summer and fall. In Trempealeau, Wis., the Trempealeau Hotel puts on open-air reggae and blues festivals along the river.

And it's the best time to visit state parks and take in some magnificent views: Pikes Peak State Park near the northeast Iowa town of McGregor;  Perrot State Park in Trempealeau; Wyalusing State Park near Prairie du Chien, Wis.; and Great River Bluffs near Winona, Minn.

For more, see Chasing wildflowers, Hitting the trails in Trempealeau and Great River Road stories.

June/Lake Michigan

This is a great month to hit the big tourist spots, before the crowds arrive. Mackinac Island is most gorgeous in early June, when its lilacs and yellow moccasins are blooming.

From there, head down Lake Michigan to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a 35-mile-long stretch of beaches that's been called "America's hidden Riviera.'' For more, see Grand sand.

It's one of the best and also cheapest beach vacations, thanks to the many campsites, mini-cabins, camper cabins and lodges in Michigan state parks along the lake. For more, see Camping around Lake Michigan.

Keep going to Ludington, where the S.S. Badger car ferry crosses to Ludington, or to Muskegon, where the Lake Express High-Speed Ferry crosses to Milwaukee. For more, see Navigating Lake Michigan.

In Milwaukee, catch a Brewers game in Miller Park or one of the big festivals on the lakefront: In June, there's the Lakefront Festival of the Arts, Polish Fest and Summerfest. See Party in Milwaukee and Polish for a day.

July/A northwoods lake resort

There's nothing more sweet and more fleeting than a July day on a northwoods lake, from coffee on the dock in early morning to the midnight rush from sauna to lake, for a float under the shimmering canopy of stars and northern lights.

Any lake will do. Fishermen like big lakes, such as Minnesota's Leech or Winnibigoshish or Wisconsin's flowages. Paddlers head for the Boundary Waters. Families prefer smaller lakes with resorts that have sandy beaches. 

Charles Kuralt, of course, chose a lake near Ely: "Anyone who has known the deep woods and the blue lakes, for a week or a season, puts himself to sleep ever afterward with memories of Ely,'' he wrote. For more, see Dreaming of Ely.

For help choosing, see A week at the lake. For Minnesota resorts, see One in 1,000. For BWCAW tips, see Minnesota's Boundary Waters.

August/Lake Superior

The Circle Tour of Lake Superior is, in my opinion, the best vacation, and August is the best time to take it. The water on the southern shore is warm enough to swim in, the black flies are gone and, if you wait till the last half of the month, the crowds will be gone, too.

In early August, the blueberries are ripe on the Keweenaw Peninsula, and you'll likely see bears when you're out picking. You can swim from the lovely beach at Madeline Island's Big Bay State Park or even from your kayak as you explore the Apostles or the islands off Rossport in Ontario.

You'll see your fill of lighthouses, waterfalls and ore boats, and you may even see a moose. For more, see Circling Superior. For a nine-day itinerary, see Lake Superior's greatest hits. For planning tips, see Planning a Circle Tour.

September/Door County

This is the month to visit places that are packed during peak months, such as the Wisconsin Dells, Minnesota's North Shore and, especially, Door County.

Door County is the favorite hangout of Chicagoans, but there's a  lull in the action between summer vacation and fall color. Hotel prices even drop, though warmth lingers on the peninsula, wrapped by the waters of Lake Michigan.

Take the opportunity to paddle or hike in the Mink River Estuary, bicycle on county road or in Peninsula State Park and camp on Rock Island State Park. For more, see Outdoors in Door County.

October/Driftless Area

In October, there's a mad rush to see fall color in such reliable spots as Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in the U.P. and Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin. For more, see Fall color stories.

Later in the month, though, the best color is in hardwood forests farther south. In the third weekend, Devil's Lake State Park near Baraboo, Wis., glows orange and gold, and Whitewater State Park in southeast Minnesota  has a palette of russet and ocher into the fourth weekend.

These craggy bluffs and valleys are part of the Driftless Area, a swath of southwest Wisconsin, southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa that the last four glaciers missed as they scraped across the landscape.

The result is a charming hodgepodge of ridges, bluffs and valleys perhaps best known for its bicycle trails: in Minnesota, the Root River State Trail through Lanesboro, and in Wisconsin, the Elroy-Sparta State Trail and the three other trails in a 101-mile system.

For more on southeast Minnesota in fall, see Bluff-country byways.

For more on southwest Wisconsin, see Valleys of Vernon County.

For more on northeast Iowa, see Illustrious in Iowa.

Artists also have taken up residence along the winding roads of bluff country, and in fall they host studio tours that combine shopping with scenic drives. The one in northeast Iowa is the second weekend, and the big one in southwest Wisconsin is the third weekend.

For more, see Autumn in the studios.

November/Minnesota's North Shore

Big, bad Lake Superior is most authentic in November: moody and dramatic, even violent.

Many people come hoping to catch a big storm, like the one that caught the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975; its sinking is commemorated every Nov. 10 at Split Rock Lighthouse.

But if that fails, hiking is wonderful. The bugs and leaf peepers are long gone, the absence of leaves opens new vistas and mud has hardened on trails. Better still, hotel rates drop by up to half.

For more, see Hiking the North Shore, Quiet time on the North Shore and Gales of November.

December/Chicago

This is a city that really rocks during the holidays, especially since it brought in a traditional Christkindlmarket, an open-air Christmas market like those in Germany. It's open every day in Daley Plaza, filling its visitors with Glühwein and good will.

There's more shopping on the Magnificent Mile, ice-skating in Millennium Park, the beloved "Christmas Around the World'' trees at the Museum of Science and Industry and the Apollo Chorus' impassioned performances of Handel's "Messiah.''

For more, see Chicago at Christmas. For doing it on a budget, see Cheap Chicago.

Last updated on March 16, 2010