Michigan Travel Guide: Great Lakes, Detroit and Up North

Michigan is a water state with a city attached, and most first-timers plan it backwards. They treat Detroit as the airport, then drive until they see a dune. Flip it. Give Detroit a night. Then point the car at Lake Michigan. Then, if you’ve still got days, pay $4 at the Mackinac Bridge and leave the car at a ferry dock.

Michigan Avenue is a Chicago address; the state is a different thing entirely, and it has 3,200 miles of shoreline on four of the five Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie. Ontario is the one it doesn’t touch. The Illinois shore of Lake Michigan is the same lake. It is not the same trip. West across Superior lies Minnesota lake country - Minneapolis is the usual airport gateway, and Boundary Waters paddlers often fly through MSP before heading north.

Four lakes and a mitten

Look at a map. The Lower Peninsula is the mitten. The Upper Peninsula is the part people forget until they’re already on the bridge. Lake Michigan is the west coast of the mitten, the one with the dunes and the cherry country. Lake Huron is the east coast. They meet at the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile gap that Michigan’s environment department treats as the reason the two lakes are, hydrologically, lobes of one body of water. You will still hear them named separately. Both are right.

Lake Superior is the cold one, the biggest by area at 31,700 square miles, 1,332 feet at its deepest. The Upper Peninsula holds 917 miles of that shore. Erie is the shallow, warm south edge. You do not “do the Great Lakes” in a week. You pick a coast.

A car is the instrument. Michigan is not a train state once you leave Detroit, and driving in the USA is the page for licenses, tolls and the self-service pump. Fill up before the Straits. Don’t assume every lakeshore town has a 24-hour station.

Give Detroit an evening of its own

Land at DTW and the instinct is to collect the rental and run north. That’s how you miss the only big city on this trip.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is at 5200 Woodward Avenue. Adult admission is $20. Seniors and college students with ID pay $10, youth 6-17 pay $8, under 5 free. If you live in Macomb, Oakland or Wayne counties, bring ID and walk in free - that’s the millage talking, and it is the best museum deal in the Midwest if you qualify. Visitors from everywhere else pay the $20. Hours: Tuesday to Thursday 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Monday. Closed New Year’s Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas. Some second-floor galleries have been in a renovation rotation since March 2025; the tickets page still flags it. Go anyway. The Rivera Court is the room people fly for.

Motown Museum is a timed, guided hour, not a wander. Adults pay $20. Seniors 62 and over, students and veterans pay $17, children 5-17 pay $17, age 4 and under free. Tickets are for a specific slot. They don’t move and they don’t refund, and Saturday sells out. The museum runs Wednesday to Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday to 8 p.m. and Sunday to 6 p.m., with three windows in summer 2026 when Wednesday to Friday shifts to an evening slot of 5 to 8 p.m. The June-to-September Wednesday-Sunday schedule you may see quoted belongs to the campus store, not the tour. Book before you drive.

One night downtown or in Midtown covers both. Two nights if you want a ballgame or a neighborhood dinner. Then leave. The lakes do not come to you.

The dune that hides the lake

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is the west-coast stop people mean when they say “Up North” without crossing the bridge. It is a national lakeshore, not a city beach. A private car is $25 for one to seven days. Motorcycles are $20. Walk-ins 16 and older are $15. Under 16 free. The park does not take cash. There is no timed-entry reservation in 2026. The lakeshore is open 24 hours; the visitor center in Empire keeps its own clock.

Sleeping Bear is not on the list of eleven parks that add $100 per nonresident adult. If you already bought an America the Beautiful Pass, it works here. The park’s own annual pass is $45 and is sold to US citizens and residents. Don’t pay the $250 nonresident ATB just for this lakeshore.

The Dune Climb sits about five miles north of Empire on M-109. You climb sand for a view of Glen Lake. You do not see Lake Michigan from the top. The big lake is about two miles farther, and the trail to it is about 3.5 miles round trip, three to four hours in loose sand. Bring water. NPS is blunt: it is strenuous, it is disorienting, and if you get tired you turn around - gravity helps on the way down. Pets are not allowed on the Climb.

If you’d rather look than climb, drive the 7.4-mile Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. Twelve stops, overlooks of Glen Lake and Lake Michigan, and you keep the car. That’s the hour that actually shows you the water the Climb hides.

Leave the car at the dock

Mackinac Island has no bridge and, since 1898, no private cars. Shepler’s ferry FAQ is the operator line: the city banned motorized vehicles that year. You also may not bring a hammock, a Segway or a drone. E-bikes are for people with a documented mobility disability and a city permit, not for tourists who packed a battery.

Ferries run from Mackinaw City (Lower Peninsula, south of the bridge) and St. Ignace (Upper Peninsula, north of it). The island tourism bureau names Shepler’s and Arnold Transit, late April through the end of October, often every half hour in the heart of the season. The fares below are Shepler’s. Check Arnold on its own site if that’s the boat you want. Shepler’s 2026 season is April 21 through October 31. Adult round trip is $39, children 5-12 $27, under 5 free but they still need a ticket. Online bookings add a $2 fee per ticket. Tickets are good on any departure that season and are not refundable. A regular bike is $21 extra. Pets ride free on a leash.

Park in the ferry lot - budget about $15 a day there, more if you leave the car overnight, and check the operator before you go. Ride the boat. Walk or rent a pedal bike. Horse-drawn taxis exist for people with luggage. That’s the whole transport stack. Closest useful airports, per the tourism bureau: Pellston (PLN), about 20 minutes south of Mackinaw City; Chippewa County (CIU), about 30 minutes north of St. Ignace; Traverse City (TVC), about a two-hour drive.

A day trip works. An overnight is calmer after the last day-boat leaves. The fudge shops are not a joke - they’re the souvenir, and the smell hits you on the dock.

Crossing the Straits to the UP

The Mackinac Bridge has spanned the Straits since 1957. It is five miles long, 26,372 feet if you like the Authority’s exact number, with a 3,800-foot main span and towers 552 feet above the water. The roadway sits 199 feet up at midspan. Passenger cars, vans, motorcycles, SUVs and pickups pay $4.00, or $2.00 per axle. Everything else is $5.00 per axle. Cards take a 2.3% fee. Cash and MacPass don’t; the Authority doesn’t spell out where Apple Pay and Google Pay land, so assume the card rate.

That $4 is the cheapest structural decision on this trip. It is also how you reach the Upper Peninsula. Pictured Rocks and Isle Royale live up there. Confirm 2026 fees on nps.gov before you add a day - those numbers are not on this page.

If you’re only going to the island from Mackinaw City, you never need the bridge. If you’re sleeping in St. Ignace, you do. Don’t drive it “for the view” in a crosswind without checking the Authority’s conditions page. They post a live line. That is not a forecast.

Water first, miles second

Build the week around water, not around a loop that looks tidy on a map.

Detroit first, because it’s where the plane is. One Motown slot, one DIA afternoon, one dinner. Then the mitten’s west coast: Sleeping Bear with a $25 pass on the dash, Pierce Stocking if you’d rather keep your shoes, the Climb if you want sand in them. Then the Straits. Ferry from Mackinaw City if you don’t care about the UP. Bridge plus St. Ignace if you do. Superior is a different climate. Don’t add it because a map made it look close.

You’ll spend more time in the car than the brochure implies. That’s fine if every drive ends at a lake. It’s a waste if it ends at another highway town you could have skipped. Michigan rewards the people who pick a shore and stay on it.