One of our favorite Midwest weekend getaways to date! We had the best time visiting Glen Arbor/Traverse City this Summer (my second time, Blake’s first time). I wanted to share with you all of the fun things we did and ate! Below is a quick little guide for a few days in Northern Michigan. I 1000% recommend taking a visit here if you’ve been considering! It was so beautiful, and often felt like we left the Midwest! We really did have the best time.

Enjoy the guide!

Where To Stay

We were lucky enough to stay at my cousin’s fiancé’s beautiful family home on Big Glen Lake. I’m sure there are some great Air bnb options on the lake if you want to stay in a house!

My family also stayed at The Homestead Resort when I was in high school, which is also a really great option! It’s an enormous property (Blake and I actually drove around the property and it was so beautiful!), and they have some little restaurants and things within the resort! I can’t really remember how the rooms were when we stayed there, but I definitely recommend this as an option!

Things To Do

You can’t visit Traverse City without stopping by the Cherry Republic! They have cherry flavored everything- seriously everything you could imagine haha! We bought some cherry wine, cherry BBQ seasonings, cherry cookies, cherry juice, snd chocolate cherry coffee beans. It’s a super cute and homey little set up, and you can grab a beer or bite to eat at the restaurant next to the shop!

If you like cherry ice cream, you have to walk over to the Boonedocks and stop in the little ice cream shop. The cherry chocolate moosetracks is seriously my favorite ice cream ever!! I had it once there when I was younger and never forgot about it lol. It was just as good as I remembered!

We also walked around the little downtown area and stopped in some shops and grabbed a coffee. It’s a small but cute town with lots of spots with old school Midwestern vibes. This little bed&breakfast looked so cute,too!

We had so much fun checking out the wineries! There are quite a few to visit, and the views are so beautiful! We went to Big Little Wines because it was close to dinner, but there are a ton of options! Here is a list; I have seen some people recommend Mari Vineyard before. We became obsessed with cherry wine, so we got to enjoy some with views of the vineyards 🙂

Spend a couple hours in the historic Fishtown/Leland! It is such a cute little town to walk around. We loved seeing the little fishing houses. You can grab a sandwich at the Village Cheese Shanty for a little old school bag lunch vibes. Super cute and highly recommend stopping here!

Head to Sleeping Bear Dunes! It’s honestly breathtaking. You would never guess you’re looking at a lake! It looks like stunning ocean views. I recommend going early morning or in the early evening if you’re able to, as it gets really hot on the sand. I’m sure seeing the sunset here would be stunning!

Note, there is a fee to get into the park to go. I think it was something like $25 per car.

The drive through the park to get to the dunes is stunning on its own. We had some music on, the windows down, and our iced coffee while we driving through, and we were absolutely loving it. I wanted to drive through it again haha! SO pretty!

Place To Eat

After spending some time at the vineyard, we went to dinner at The Farm Club. It was SO cute and a highly recommend. All of the food was delicious (get the pesto pasta!!), and we drank some wine and sat outside.

They also have the cutest little gift shop inside the restaurant! We bought some hot honey and coffee beans!

We didn’t eat here, but we drove past this restaurant (Trattoria Funistrada) near the house we stayed at and thought it looked super cute!!

On our last morning, we grabbed some breakfast burritos and sat outside at Market 22. Because of Covid, the inside wasn’t open, but they had a little outdoor bar for us to sit at. We met some nice people and had a cute little breakfast 🙂

I’m sure there are some other great spots to see and places to eat! This is everything we fit in, but if we go back soon I will definitely update the list!

Overall, we had the best little weekend away. We packed in a lot of things, while also spending lots of time on the boat. The water on Big Glenn was unreal- it was SO blue you would think you were somewhere tropical honestly! It was a little too cold for us to go in the water when we went in June, but we saw some AMAZING sunsets on the boat, and had fun on the jet skis too.

This is such a great destination to go with family, your significant other, or with friends. You have to let me know if you visit and use this guide! If you do, enjoy your trip!! xo