Michigan With Kids Family Travel Guide

The shoreline is the whole point. Michigan has 3,288 miles of freshwater coast, more than any state except Alaska, and it is the only state that touches four of the five Great Lakes. From the water on a July afternoon, Lake Michigan looks like an ocean. It just does not taste like one.

It is a driving state, and that is a feature. Families come up from Kansas, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana and are on Mackinac Island by dinner the next day. No lost bags, no 600 dollar flights for five people, and the car is already there for the dunes and the falls.

It has one thing nowhere else does. Mackinac Island banned cars in the 1890s and never changed its mind. Your children will ride a bike down a street where the only traffic is a horse, and they will not stop talking about it.

Two peninsulas, two trips. The Lower Peninsula is beaches, dunes, cherries and the island. The Upper Peninsula is cliffs on Lake Superior and a waterfall the color of root beer. Pick one for a week. Trying to do both in seven days is the mistake I see most.

I-75 is the spine. It runs from the Ohio line through Detroit and Flint to Mackinaw City. From Detroit to the bridge is roughly four hours in normal traffic. Traverse City sits off to the west on US-31, and you can loop it in on the way up or the way back.

The Mackinac Bridge toll is 4 dollars a car. It is 2 dollars an axle, paid on the way over. The bridge is 26,372 feet long and it opened in 1957. The kids will want the window seats. Give them the window seats.

The state parks want a Recreation Passport. Nonresidents pay 12 dollars a day or 42 dollars for the year, and it gets your car into all 103 state parks and recreation areas, including Tahquamenon Falls. If you plan on more than three park days, the annual pays for itself.

Sleeping Bear is federal, so it has its own fee. A private vehicle is 25 dollars and the pass is good for seven days. Walking or cycling in is 15 dollars a person over sixteen and free under sixteen. It is not covered by the Recreation Passport, and people get caught by that.

Amtrak’s Wolverine is the one rail option worth knowing. Chicago to Detroit in about five and a half hours, no traffic. It does not get you to the island or the dunes, so it works for a Detroit and Dearborn trip and not much else.

Mackinaw City or St Ignace for the island. Both have ferry docks and both are cheaper than sleeping on the island. Mackinaw City is on the Lower Peninsula side, so it is the easier one if you are not crossing the bridge. St Ignace is on the far side and works if you are heading into the UP afterwards.

The island itself, for one night. Sleep on Mackinac once. The day trippers leave on the last ferry and the streets go quiet in a way you cannot get any other way. The Grand Hotel is the famous splurge. The smaller inns on Main Street cost a lot less and put you in the same quiet.

Traverse City for Sleeping Bear. Sleeping Bear Dunes is about half an hour west of town. Traverse City has the restaurants, the grocery stores and the beaches on Grand Traverse Bay, and the cherry orchards are on every road out of town.

Munising for Pictured Rocks. The boat tours and the kayak outfitters leave from here. It is a small town and rooms go early in summer, so book Munising the day you book the boat.

Shepler’s ferry is 39 dollars an adult and 27 for a child aged five to twelve, round trip. Under fives are free but need a ticket. There is a 2 dollar booking fee on every ticket, so a family of five with two under twelve is 195 dollars before fees. Parking at the dock is 15 dollars for the day or 25 a night in the standard lot.

Bringing your own bikes costs 21 dollars each on the ferry. Renting on the island is often simpler for a family. The loop road around the island is M-185, the only state highway in the country with no cars on it, and it is about 8 miles with Lake Huron on one side the whole way. A nine year old can ride it with a break in the middle.

The horses are the taxis. Carriage tours are the classic way to see the island and they are the right choice with a small child who will not manage the bike loop. Everything moves at a horse’s pace, including the luggage, which is why you should pack light for the island night.

Fudge is the local sport. The shops on Main Street make it in the front window and the smell carries down the street. Watching costs nothing. Buying one slab for the whole family is plenty, because it is very rich and it is everywhere.

Fort Mackinac sits above the town. The cannon firing is the thing children remember. Combine it with the Grand Hotel porch, which nonguests pay a fee to walk, and you have used the whole afternoon without needing a plan.

The Dune Climb is the reason to come. It is a steep wall of sand you climb straight up from the parking lot. Children go up it like it is nothing and adults do not. It takes about ten minutes to reach the first ridge and the view of Glen Lake is the reward. Go before ten in the morning in summer or the sand is too hot to sit on.

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive is the easy version. A seven mile loop road with pull offs, and the Lake Michigan Overlook at the top is 450 feet above the water. Do not let the kids run down the bluff there. The signs say it and they mean it, because climbing back up takes hours.

The beaches are free with the pass. Glen Haven, Platte River Point and Empire Beach are all inside the lakeshore and all covered by the same 25 dollar vehicle ticket. Platte River Point is the one for small children because the river runs shallow and warm into the lake.

Traverse City calls itself the cherry capital and it is not exaggerating. Tart cherries come in during July, the National Cherry Festival runs around the Fourth of July, and every farm stand out of town sells them by the bag. The rest of the year it is cherry pie, cherry jam and a very good downtown to walk.

Pictured Rocks Cruises out of Munising is how you see the cliffs. The Classic Cruise is two hours forty minutes, 48 dollars an adult, 19 for a child aged four to twelve and 1 dollar under four. It runs May to early September. The Spray Falls Cruise is shorter at two hours, 56 dollars, and runs into October. The cliffs go on for 15 miles and you cannot see them from a road.

Kayaking is the better version if your kids are ten and up. The outfitters in Munising run guided paddles right under the arches. It is a full morning and it is not for a nervous child, but the older two would trade any boat tour for it.

Tahquamenon Falls is the color of root beer, and it is not a trick. The Upper Falls drops about 48 feet and is more than 200 feet across. The brown comes from tannins out of the cedar swamps upstream. The Lower Falls are four miles downstream, gentler, and the ones where children can get closer to the water.

It is a state park, so the Recreation Passport applies. 12 dollars a day for a nonresident car. The Upper Falls is a short paved walk from the parking lot, then a long staircase down to the brink. Bring bug spray. The UP in June and July has mosquitoes that mean it.

Eat a pasty. The UP’s meat and potato hand pie came over with Cornish miners. You will see signs for them at every junction and the kids will eat them without argument. It is the one meal up here that costs less than the ferry did.

The Henry Ford Museum is 34 to 36 dollars an adult depending on the date. Youth aged five to eleven get 25 percent off and under fives are free. The Rosa Parks bus is inside and you can sit on it. So is the chair Lincoln was sitting in at Ford’s Theatre. Parking is 10 dollars added to online orders.

Greenfield Village next door is a separate ticket, 37 to 39 dollars. It is an outdoor village of real historic buildings that Ford moved here, with a steam train and Model T rides. If you only have one day, pick the museum for under tens and the village for a warm afternoon with older kids.

The Ford Rouge Factory Tour is 24 dollars. You watch F-150 trucks being built from a walkway above the line. This is the one my ten year old would choose over the other two.

Motown Museum is a real house on West Grand Boulevard. Hitsville USA, where the Supremes and the Jackson 5 recorded. The studio is original. Tours are timed and sell out on weekends, so book it before you leave home.

A Coney dog is lunch. American Coney Island and Lafayette Coney Island sit next door to each other downtown and have argued about which is better for a century. Order one at each and let the kids vote.

The lakes are cold until July. Lake Michigan is swimmable by mid July and stays warm into September. Lake Superior almost never gets warm. Plan on wading at Pictured Rocks and swimming at Sleeping Bear.

Rip currents are real on the Great Lakes. Flags fly at the state park beaches. Red means stay out and it is not a suggestion. The water looks harmless and it takes people every summer.

Poppy can come to most of it. Dogs are allowed on the Mackinac ferries, on the island and on leash on the trails at Tahquamenon. Sleeping Bear allows dogs on some beaches and trails and bans them on others, so check the map before you commit a day.

Do not sleep on the island more than one night with a toddler. The horse pace that charms adults is slow with a stroller and a tired two year old. One night, then back to the mainland base.

Budget for fudge, ice cream and cherry everything. The small food is the memory. The big meals are not.

Late June through August is the safe window. Everything is open, the ferries run all day and the lakes are warm enough. It is also the most expensive and the busiest, and the island fills on weekends.

September is the one I push families toward. School is back so the crowds thin, the water is still warm from summer, cherry season has passed but the orchards are pretty, and the ferries still run. The first two weeks are ideal.

Labor Day is the one day you can walk the bridge. The Mackinac Bridge Walk has run every Labor Day morning since the 1950s. Five miles, tens of thousands of people, and a story your kids will tell forever. Book the hotel a year out.

Winter is a different state. The ferries scale back or stop, the island goes quiet, and the UP gets serious snow. It is beautiful and it is not a first trip.

Families within a day’s drive who want a beach without an ocean. This is the trip. Drive up, dunes, island, cherries, home.

Children between about six and thirteen. Old enough to ride the island loop and climb the dune, young enough that a horse drawn carriage is still magic.

Anyone who wants a national park feeling without the western distances. Pictured Rocks and Sleeping Bear deliver that with far less driving than Utah.

Families who need warm water in June. The lakes are not ready. Wait for July or go to Florida.

Anyone who wants to see the whole state in a week. Pick a peninsula. The other one will still be there.