The Lake Michigan Shoreline, which extends from the southwestern corner of the state up to the Mackinac Bridge, is one of Michigan’s greatest natural resources. Its placid waters, cool breezes and sugary beaches (including some of the largest sand dunes in the world) have attracted generations of tourists, including such regulars as AI Capone, Ernest Hemingway and L. Frank Baum (who wrote many of his books about Oz over the course of several summer vacations here). The southern stretch is especially popular with Chicago residents and expatriates.
Resort towns, some of which triple in population between Memorial Day and Labor Day, dot the shoreline. St. Joseph is a picturesque community whose turn of the 20th century downtown and two 1000 ft. long piers make it ideal for walkers. The artists’ colony of Saugatuck has many fine restaurants and shops, an active gay and lesbian community and enough B&Bs to make it the bed and breakfast capital of the State. Saugatuck Dune Rides offers free wheeling dune-buggy rides along Lake Michigan. In Douglas, the S.S. Keewatin one of the Great Lakes’ last passenger steamboats is permanently docked as a maritime museum.
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