Door County With Kids: Cherries, Fish Boils, Lighthouses and the Best Beaches on Lake Michigan

Door County is the peninsula that sticks up into Lake Michigan like a thumb, and it is Wisconsin’s Cape Cod. Small villages, cherry orchards, fish boils with a big flame at the end, and a state park where families bike to the beach. A week goes fast.

Peninsula State Park

The big park near Fish Creek with paved bike trails through the woods, Nicolet beach with a swimming area and kayak rentals, Eagle Tower with a ramp to the top for a view over the bay, and the Eagle Bluff lighthouse tour. The campground is the best bed in the county. Sunset at the tower or the bluff is the daily event.

Cherries

Door County grows the tart cherries and in July the orchards open for picking. Lautenbach’s, Seaquist and Wood Orchard have the stands with pie, juice and cherry everything. Kids pick a bucket in twenty minutes and eat half.

Fish boils

Whitefish, potatoes and onions boiled outdoors in a huge kettle, with kerosene thrown on the fire at the end for a fireball that boils the oil over. It is dinner and a show and kids stand well back and cheer. Pelletier’s in Fish Creek and the White Gull Inn are the classics. Cherry pie after.

Cave Point

A county park on the lake side where the waves crash into limestone caves under the cliffs. Kids scramble the rocks, and in calm weather kayak tours go along the cliffs from Whitefish Dunes state park next door, which has the best sandy beach in the county and dunes to climb.

Washington Island

The ferry from the tip of the peninsula crosses Death’s Door strait in half an hour to a quiet farming island. Schoolhouse Beach is all smooth white stones, no sand, and kids build cairns for hours. The lavender farm, the stavkirke church and the Nelsen’s Hall bitters club, where the adults join by drinking a shot of bitters. Bikes on the ferry.

Villages

Fish Creek, Ephraim and Sister Bay on the bay side are the ones with the shops, ice cream and the beaches. Al Johnson’s Swedish restaurant in Sister Bay has goats grazing on the sod roof and Swedish pancakes with lingonberries. Wilson’s in Ephraim for ice cream since 1906. Egg Harbor for the playground on the bay.

Where to stay

Cottages and resorts around Fish Creek and Ephraim book a year ahead for July. The state park campground reserves eleven months out. Sturgeon Bay at the base has hotels, a maritime museum with a tug boat, and is cheaper. Fall for the color and the apple orchards, and the county is quiet in winter.

Planning Wisconsin with kids? Start with the full Wisconsin family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.