Beaches
Planning a Circle Tour of Lake Michigan
For a summer road trip, follow the shores of this Midwestern Riviera.
If sun, sand and water are your favorite things, the Circle Tour of Lake Michigan is the vacation for you.
The 1,100-mile drive along this Third Coast is an easygoing road trip that appeals to beach bums, lighthouse lovers, boating buffs and anyone who likes to wander in and out of wineries and fudge shops.
It's a great family trip because there's a beach every few miles, almost always with a playground. On the northwest side of the lake, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is one big sandbox.
Circling Lake Michigan
A road trip around this sandy inland sea uncovers multiple personalities.
If Lake Superior is the drama queen of the Great Lakes, then Lake Michigan is president of the pep club.
It’s beautiful, popular and a lot easier to get along with than its tempestuous sister. Its shores are lined with sand, not jagged cliffs, and its beaches attract festive crowds every summer.
It’s the only Great Lake you can circle without a passport, and if you don’t want to drive around the whole thing, you can take a short cut on a car ferry.
America's freshwater Riviera
On Lake Michigan's gorgeous beaches, everyone can find a spot in the sun.
It’s funny that some people in the Upper Midwest spend their summer vacations on the beaches of Cancun or Cape Cod, because the best beaches in the world are in their own back yard.
Lake Michigan is America’s freshwater Riviera, a nearly unending strand of sand that looks like Florida without the high-rise condos. It’s clean, blue and pleasantly cool, with water temperatures in the 60s, and in most places it looks just like the ocean.
Add in candy-striped lighthouses and even more ice-cream stands, and you’ve got the makings of a great beach holiday — a cheap one, too, if you're on a budget.
Camping around Lake Michigan
For a beach vacation on a budget, stay at cabins and campgrounds in state parks.
No summer vacation is more fun than a Circle Tour of one of the Great Lakes — and nothing is more of a pain than planning one.
Fans of sand and sun love Lake Michigan, which is lined by state and city parks with gorgeous stretches of sand and dunes. You can’t buy a better beach vacation at any price, but you have to plan ahead.
Planning is tricky because you pass through four states, 30 state parks and two big metropolitan areas, each of which floods beaches with hordes of sun-worshippers on weekends.
Grand sand
Along Lake Michigan, the Sleeping Bear Dunes are a giant playground for all ages.
One Great Lake east of Superior, there’s another North Shore.
It doesn’t have any craggy points or sheer palisades, and there are no agates waiting to be found. It has no waterfalls, and not a scrap of basalt; in fact, there’s nothing volcanic about it.
But this north shore, on the leeward side of Lake Michigan, has something Minnesota's beautiful North Shore on Lake Superior doesn’t have: Sand, lots and lots of sand.
Lake Michigan with kids
Following the sandy shores of this great lake, families find many playgrounds.
Not many parents would think that a long road trip would be a perfect vacation to take with young children.
But the shores of Lake Michigan is one big sandbox, and on a drive along its shores, you'll hit one big playground after another.
On the east side, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is spectacular, a Disneyland of sand. But the lake also is lined with lighthouses, fudge shops, fur-trade forts and endless beaches.
Mackinac Island by bicycle
On a scenic web of trails, visitors see another side of a celebrated spot.
In the straits between lakes Michigan and Huron, you can find more than one Mackinac Island.
The best-known first was advertised as “the Fairy Isle of Mackinac’’ and is not quite rooted in reality. It has a tuxedo shop but no hardware store, a Victorian house called Brigadoon and a fan club that gathers every October in vintage clothing to revere the year 1912.
You get to that island in a horse-drawn surrey, driven by a liveryman in a top hat.
Michigan's great lake cabins
In the only state that borders three Great Lakes, the best places to stay are in state parks.
On a summer day in Holland, Mich., all roads lead to the beach.
When we were there in June, people streamed toward this broad swath of sand until the sun fell low on the horizon, making the fire-engine-red harbor beacon glow like an ember. They ate ice cream, they strolled on the breakwall, they took a last dip in Lake Michigan.
But at 10 p.m. sharp, a police cruiser started flashing its red lights to shepherd everyone out of the park.
© Beth Gauper, 2007 - 2012 all rights reserved
