A Quick Stop on Lake Michigan
The Michigan beach towns are without a doubt, a fabulous place to be in the Midwest during summer. Growing up in Chicago, we always headed north during the summer but typically to Wisconsin, so Michigan was a new place for me to explore this year. We had a short time there but ran into some true gems, so I’m sharing them here. Where else should we stop next time we go?
Since we only stayed one night in this area, we opted to use our travel points at the Courtyard in Holland (SUCH a nice spot!). PRO TIP: if you want a cute Air BnB or cottage along the water, book it FAR in advance! Everything we saw that looked nice was booked up in the Spring when we decided to go.
Once we checked in, we did some brief shopping (within walking distance of the hotel) and headed to Big Lake Brewing for dinner. This was an awesome spot, we loved it! It’s casual, family-friendly, and the beer is excellent (they have great cider choices). The food was great, too. We loved their pina colada IPA as well as their blueberry cider from Crane’s - which gave us the last minute idea to stop there the next day. After dinner, we headed to Holland State Park to see the sunset on the beach - as a note, we parked by the Ottawa General Store pictured above and walked to the beach, but there wasn't anyone at the guard stand collecting the fee to park at the beach that late. I am not sure if this is typical, but you could try your luck. The beach does have a bathroom area with a stand for snacks as well, to note.
Side note for the beach stop - since we weren’t doing a full on “beach day”, we really loved toting along these turkish towels to wipe our feet between stops.
After the sunset, we headed for Kilwin’s ice cream on foot from the hotel, and then had a lovely night’s sleep (Marriott hotels are always so comfortable). In the morning, we found the cutest, most photogenic spot with amazing breakfast - the 205 Coffee Bar. It was also within walking distance of the hotel - a big plus. We tried the banana waffle as well as the avocado toast and thoroughly enjoyed every bite.
After checking out of the Courtyard, we made our way to Opal Beach - and what a great spot it was! The park is $10 to enter for the day, but well worth it if you want to visit and access the water within a few steps from parking (bring cash!). We loved the swings and how they had a spot for a bathroom and snacks at the parking lot. It’s a relaxing spot!
For lunch, we stopped at the cutest root beer barrel for hot dogs and root beer on tap (ah-mazing!). It’s right by Opal Beach in Douglas, MI. The food was great - and it’s such a fun spot for families and pets (bring cash, no cards accepted). From Douglas, we enjoyed shopping in Saugatuck as well as the small farmer’s market they had set up with fresh flowers, blueberries, honey and more. We knew we wanted to find the cider we tried at Big Lake so we headed to Crane’s next and of course indulged in their blueberry pie. This is a spot you can pick blueberries as well - among many other spots, too. Blueberry season seemed to be almost wrapped up by mid-August, but we still were able to get delicious findings to bring home and freeze. Let me tell you, they are mounds better than grocery store blueberries.
That concluded this potion of our stop along Lake Michigan - but we can’t wait to go back! I'd love to spend more time on the beach and to also visit Virtue Cider, it looked adorable!
