Mackinac island and door county

We spend a week in Door County every year but take our bikes and ride all around the area; including Washington Island.
The Door County Visitors Guide will help you decide. It is available at no charge. Here is the website: http://www.doorcounty.com/discover/guides-and-reports/visitor-guide/
We spend a day on Mackinac Island (pronounced mackinaw) when we are in the area staying at Mackinaw Mill Creek campground. Once again we take our bikes and ride around the island at least twice. You can rent bikes, take a horse-drawn tour or rent a buggy by yourselves. People that go across to the Island for the day are called `Fudgies'. There is a nice Visitors Center near the main drag for more info.

mimosa wrote:
We are trying to decide how many days we need to spend at each location any ideas appreciated......thanks

Your earlier thread;

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/28877467.cfm

If you have kids or like water park yourself.


Here's where you'll want to stop.



Link: www.harbourvillageresort.net



C.B.

I'd probably spend 3 days at each location. We liked Door County but actually got bored after 3 days. Everyone told us about the great biking there, but outside of the state park it was all on main roads which we didn't really care for.

Mackinac Island is fun, but one full day on the island was enough for us. We really enjoyed the area around there though. Especially just south of Mackinac - Petoskey, Traverse City and the Sand Dunes area.

This is the tough part, because it depends on personal preferences.

I can do 2-3 days at Mackinac Island before I run out of things I want to do. I can go back a few years later and do it all again. Other people have seen all they want to see in a day, yet others go to the island for a week, two weeks, or the whole summer. If I'm going someplace for the whole summer, I want a little more to do, so maybe Chicago, NYC, Beijing, the whole of England, but not a little resort island.

The Door Peninsula has more to work with, if what you want to do is explore nature's wonders or what cultural features have been created for summer visitors. I have no direct experience with the Door Peninsula, only comparable environments like the Traverse City area of the NW Lower Peninsula of Michigan, Baraboo area of Wisconsin, Driftless area of SW Wisconsin, and the Marquette area of the Michigan Upper Peninsula. Any of these I can keep myself busy exploring. I'm a geologist, I explore the rocks and history of economic uses. I have botanist friends who study the plants, biologists looking for bugs and reptiles.

With what interests me, I could likely survive the whole summer in the NW corner of the Lower Peninsula (tens of thousands of families have been doing it for more than a century) but I'd be lost after a week on Mackinac Island unless I connected with some really interesting people.

But not eveyone has such interests. I have a sister who is happy sitting quietly for a week on a beach, before ready to go back home. Another sister needs amusement parks and theme parks, or someplace whete she can zipline a couple miles of treetops, or jump out of a perfectly running airplane for the thrill of falling a mile before opening her parachute.

So what turns you on. History? Exploring? Studying nature? Roller coasters? Theme parks? Chilling on the beach with a not very good but easy to read best seller? Or jumping out of airplanes?

While you are in the UP of MI, be sure to stop at Sault Sainte Marie and watch a few ships go through. There are three museums in town and all are worth the stop, the tower isn't worth it unless it is real cheap.

Be sure to have a guide book for the area. There is a lot there.

Matt