MICHIGAN

Why drive farther when it’s all right here?

The people you care about appreciate all you do for them—earning, carpooling, cooking, juggling schedules. But it’s those times away from the routine that ignite their memories. Hearing a loon. Building a sandcastle with Grandpa. Screaming together on a roller coaster. Savoring a leisurely dinner after a perfect summer day.

And that perfect day? Everyone has a different definition, but Michigan has so much to see and do, for every taste, interest and age. You’ll build wonderful memories here.

It’s incredibly easy to plan a summer vacation best suited to you and those you love. Simply search by city or activity on michigan.org. From lodging to attractions, from golf to museums, from shopping to great deals—it’s all on the official State of Michigan travel web site, michigan.org.

Here’s a sampling of all you’ll find on michigan.org.

Attractions

Subhead: Delight Your Kids

When “Bond, James Bond, The Exhibition” makes its U.S. premier on June 28, you can see Oddjob’s deadly hat and the Acrostar jet. Learn how stunt actors survived the bungee jump in Goldeneye. Swipe your M16 Agent card through the computer and follow the instructions toget the better of Bond’s adversaries.

The blockbuster debuts at The Henry Ford, America’s greatest history attraction. This Dearborn destination will fascinate your family for days.

Continue the adrenalin rush at Michigan’s Adventure Amusement Park in Muskegon. Operated by the same company that owns Cedar Point, it has over 50 rides, a water park and mini golf. Shivering Timbers, a wooden-tracked roller coaster, climbs 125 feet and zooms 65 mph.

For more hands-on fun, visit the outstanding Upper Peninsula Children’s Museum in Marquette. Here kids create art, pick up turtles and crawl through behemoth-sized internal organs.

Subhead: Test Your Sea Legs

Surrounded as we are by inland seas, we suspect you’ll want to get out on the water. Take a ferry to Mackinac Island for the Lilac Festival, June 6-15; Heritage Baseball Tournament, July 19; and a blacksmith convention, August 2-3. Don’t miss the forts and working sawmill at four area Mackinac State Historic Parks.

Up north at Sault Ste. Marie, Soo Locks tours navigate the world’s largest waterway traffic system. Your boat rises 21 feet as the locks fill to Lake Superior’s level.

In nearby Paradise, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum tells why the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in 1975. Stories and artifacts immortalize other Lake Superior shipwrecks, some of which divers can explore in Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve. The museum also offers guided tours of Whitefish Point Light Station—which has five rooms for bed-and-breakfast guests.

Michigan’s boat lore is just as accessible below the “Mighty Mackinac” bridge. In Lake Huron, the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary preserves the Great Lakes’ largest concentration of shipwrecks per square mile. One Alpena dive charter has a glass-bottom boat, so non-divers can view downed wooden schooners, steel steamers and diesel freighters.

At tall ships festivals in Muskegon, August 8-10, and Bay City, August 14-18, you can tour the stately vessels. “To be aboard a tall ship under full sail is to be at one with wind and wave, feeling graceful silence and the ship’s rhythm,” says Thomas Skinner, a biologist on Inland Seas in Traverse City.

History rings in your ears on the U.S.S. Silversides, a World War II submarine docked in Muskegon, and the S.S. City of Milwaukee, a Great Lakes passenger/train ferry, docked in Manistee.

Subhead: Treat Your Eyes

Do clean lines and gentle curves soothe your soul? Then check out mid Michigan. In Midland, the Alden B. Dow House is a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired landmark surrounded by a pond. Roses and lilacs scent the 110-acre Dow Gardens each June.

Feel your face break into a smile as you check out over 200 sculptures—animals, clowns, biblical figures—in Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum at Saginaw Valley State University.

Your eyes will stimulate you to action, probably laughter and applause, at River Place in Frankenmuth. Unique items in Bavarian-themed shops are fun. But outsmarting the mirror maze is even better, as are free evening laser light shows.

The eye-hand coordination continues at seven “Summer of Sports” exhibits across Michigan. Improve your forward pass or test your tackle stance in “Football: the Exhibit” at Kalamazoo Valley Museum. Lansing’s Michigan Historical Museum honors “Hometown Hoops,” while Flint’s Alfred P. Sloan Museum celebrates hunting and fishing.

Subhead: Bring Home a Michigan Keepsake

If you’re into wrought iron estate gates, glassware, pie safes and vintage hats, you won’t be leaving Michigan anytime soon. You can spend a week hunting bibelots and shabby chic furniture along US Highway 12, from New Buffalo to Saline.

Antiques Market of Williamston has 75 dealers, but that’s just for starters. Lansing and the Irish Hills area near Ann Arbor are also antique treasure troves. For ultra-luxe European cabinets and sconces, try Traverse City, Northport and Petoskey.

Browse 120 booths of fine jewelry, metalsmithing, painting, drawing, photography and ceramics at the 2nd annual Fine Art on the Grand. It will stretch a quarter mile between Grand Rapids’ Grand River and North Monroe Avenue galleries and restaurants on August 16, rain or shine.

Subhead: Invite the Whole Gang

Michigan is so rich in attractions that you can invite the in-laws or neighbors, confident that everyone will find something appealing.

Say you camp at Fort Custer Recreation Area or book a lodging in Kalamazoo and then do day trips. Kellogg’s Cereal City USA in downtown Battle Creek has hands-on exhibits and a simulated production line for corn flakes. Propeller-topped beanie caps and other cereal box prizes are sure to prompt “Remember when?” conversations.

Nearby Binder Park Zoo shows animals in their natural habitats and lets kids climb rope spiderwebs and pump water for camels. Get a rare after-hours view of giraffes and zebras on an overnight safari; you’ll bed down in the Wild Africa open-air pavilion.

Aircraft enthusiasts often spend three hours at Kalamazoo Air Zoo, so named for its World War II Grumman Cats and Flying Tiger. It has 60 magnificently restored flying machines, aviation art, wartime cartoons and cockpits you can enter.

You don’t have to be a gear head to fall under the spell of sumptuously restored autos and children’s pedal cars, housed in magnificent vintage barns at Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners.

Or, your group might choose a cabin resort on Lake Huron, between East Tawas and Rogers City. You can explore a dozen lighthouses, such as Forty Mile Point and the Old and New Presque Isle Lighthouses—both of which you may climb. Then look for otter, deer or duck, as you float the gentle Au Sable River by canoe, kayak or tube.

Subhead: Get Lucky

Because Michigan’s gaming palaces are so new compared to those in other states, you’re in for a grand slam. The four-diamond Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mount Pleasant scores top comedy and music acts and sells exquisite Native American art—as does Kewadin Casino in Sault Ste. Marie.

Plenty of smaller Upper Peninsula casinos offer the chance to chat up local people, while Detroit casinos hum with big city excitement.

Manistee and Traverse City are great plays when you want go gaming but your partner would rather golf, jet ski or shop.

Shoreline Getaways

Match Your Heartbeat to the Waves

With over 3,200 miles of shoreline, we can promise you great times in great towns along our Great Lakes.

For example, U-pick blueberries, premium ice cream and the U.S.S. Silversides submarine only begin to explain why Rand McNally designated the Benton Harbor-to-Petoskey West Michigan Shoreline Drive as “Best of the Road 2002.”

You’ll want to take it slow, reconnecting with nature and your loved ones as you move north along our gorgeous Lake Michigan coast. In southwestern Michigan, try biking 34 miles on Kal-Haven rail trail, photographing Michigan’s oldest courthouse or birding in Grand Mere State Park’s cranberry bog.

Expect hand-painted furniture, wearable art and Indonesian gamelans in artsy Saugatuck, also home to a 1907 steamship and secluded state park.

Holland, the next town north, was named “a distinctive destination” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It has a cobblestone downtown (great shopping!), 18th-century working windmill, Dutch history museum and twin-gabled “Big Red” lighthouse.

All ages keep the 14 shuffleboards buzzing at Ludington’s beachfront Stearns Park. Other nostalgic sure bets: charter fishing for salmon and trout; hiking at Ludington State Park; discovering Historic White Pine Village.

In Alpena—on Michigan’s “Sunrise Side”—Thunder Bay Shores Marine offers a fleet of yellow bikes for visitors’ free use. “Ride our 12-mile Bi-Path along Thunder River and Lake Huron. You’ll see canoes, sea kayaks, fishing charters and freighters,” promises Deb at the local visitors bureau.

Find these and other relaxing destinations on michigan.org. Go to the Driving Tours tab and look under City Tours for Beachtown Itineraries. Or type tour and town names in the Search box on our homepage.

Driving Tours

Don’t-miss Road Trips

Michigan produced the nation’s first traffic signal and four-lane divided highway. So, naturally, michigan.org can clue you in on our grand touring tradition.

Just click on the Driving Tours tab for 60 fantastic itineraries—from an afternoon to a week—each with dining, lodging and shopping tips.

Under Heritage Tours you’ll find Henry Ford: Ghosts of his Northern Empire> traces Ford’s legacy as the largest Upper Peninsula (U.P.) employer in the 1950s. Venture into villages and sawmills built to produce “Woody” station wagons. Watch ore boats unload at the dock Ford once used. Sleep at his private wilderness hideaway.

Want to sip tea in Edsel Ford’s mansion, see gleaming vintage Chryslers and Caddies, hear Motown classic hits or view automotive art in southeastern Michigan? Michigan’s Automobile National Heritage Areas are your road maps.

Nine Hub tours focus on local inspirations, such as Ypsilanti’s Cruise Nights. It attracts up to 100 cars, from antiques to street rods, every Thursday night, from June 13 through September 19. “You can walk up and talk to the owners. The mayor brings her Corvette as often as she can,” says Jack Miller, curator of Ypsi’s auto museum.

The romance of Michigan heritage goes well beyond cars, though. Check out Ojibwa, pioneer and mining sites on Iron County Heritage Route in the U.P. Along Once Upon a Farm in southwestern Michigan, you can ride horses, feed buffalo, sniff roses and relish fresh-squeezed cider.

Seeking sophisticated cities? Books, Arts and Wine features Inuit sculpture at the Dennos Museum, a dozen wineries, poetry readings at Traverse City’s Horizon Books and a visit to the nationally renown Interlochen Center for the Arts. Words, Words, Words reveals where to buy handmade paper, view rare books and visit Ann Arbor settings that appear in recent novels.

Golf and Outdoor Recreation

Your Green Dreams Come True

Whether you dream of undulating fairways and immaculate greens or prefer your nature less manicured, Michigan guarantees great outdoor action.

Golf Digest selected Michigan as the world’s “12th Best Golf Destination.” Home to more than 1,000 golf courses designed by experts such as Jack Nicklaus, Robert Trent Jones Sr., Tom Fazio, Donald Ross and Pete Dye, our courses overlook woods, meadows, marshes and rivers. Their natural beauty relaxes you into the rhythm of your game.

Great Lakes Golf Magazine recently chose Gaylord as the Midwest’s top golf destination. Chalk it up to long summer days, romantic resorts and an amazing range of courses.

Mount Pleasant, Boyne, Petoskey and Grand Rapids also draw raves for their wealth of golf. Bay Mills’ Wild Bluffs course borders Huron National Forest and Lake Superior.

If you prefer a walking stick to a golf club, Michigan is still the best place to be. Your kids will always remember their stays in our state parks and forest campgrounds. Cadillac’s Mitchell State Park is on a canal between two lakes. Port Crescent State Park offers modern campsites, mini cabins, a 900-foot boardwalk and three miles of sandy beach on Lake Huron.

In the U.P., J.W. Wells State Park fronts on Lake Michigan and is a short drive from whitewater rafting through the Menominee River’s Piers Gorge.

The U.P. is also unmatched for hiking. If waterfalls stir you, then check out Tahquamenon Falls and the half-dozen cascades in Keewenaw Peninsula. Porcupine Mountains State Park and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore combine long trails and stunning overlooks.

Bring your bicycle along on your Michigan vacation. We’ve got over 1,300 miles of rail trails—converted railroad corridors free of traffic and hills. From the zoo in Grand Rapids you can pedal 15 miles south on paved Kent Trails. Or start the 92-mile White Pine Trail State Park near Grand Rapids’ Fifth Third ballpark.

At Saugatuck or Silver Lake, you’ve simply got to ride one of the nation’s few remaining dune schooners. Outfitted with fat airplane tires, these 18-seat trucks zoom and twist through steep dunes. You get corny jokes and spectacular views of Lake Michigan. The memories will last a lifetime.

Why wait a minute long? Go to Michigan.org

Rejuvenation is so close. Yours may happen in the Upper Peninsula—think thimbleberry jam, copper mine tours and Lake Superior sunsets. Or imagine yourself in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, rich in antiques, wineries, bike trails and auto heritage.

Our miles of shoreline, soaring dunes, pine-scented forests and clear waterfalls are stunning. So are our distinctive museums, restaurants and lodgings. (Want to sleep in a lighthouse…glimpse eagles near your golf condo…or luxuriate in a penthouse?)

You’ll find Michigan a friendly place to reconnect with friends and family. And you won’t have to drive far to sink your toes in warm sand or marvel at world-class exhibits.

Your Michigan memories are mere mouse clicks away at michigan.org.

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