36 Hours
36 Hours in Traverse City, Mich.
The tranquil beauty of northern Michigan — turquoise freshwater lakes bordered by thousands of miles of sandy, dune-grass-studded coastline and towering white pines — has lured visitors Up North, as the region is known, since the late 19th century. Many flock to Traverse City, at the head of Grand Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan, for the city’s annual cherry festival, vistas that have inspired artists and writers for generations and a seasonally driven culinary scene. Lately, some visitors are staying. Pandemic-era transplants are bringing a new, creative energy: renovating cafes and hotels, selling prints of watercolors at area markets and championing biodynamic winemaking. Thanks to a runway expansion, visitors can now fly nonstop into Cherry Capital Airport from 20 U.S. cities during the summer, when this still blissfully unspoiled and laid-back destination shimmers.
Recommendations
- Compass Rose Sailing Co. takes visitors for an elegant sail on Grand Traverse Bay aboard its historic yacht, Althea.
- Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore offers protected, unencumbered vistas of Lake Michigan, facing west.
- Farm Club, a market, restaurant and brewery, shows the close relationships between farms and kitchens in this region. (It’s also a scenic bike ride from town.)
- Paddle TC rents kayaks and stand-up paddle boards to take out onto Grand Traverse Bay.
- Glen Haven Village, within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, features historic buildings, a dune hike and access to Lake Michigan.
- Traverse Area Recreation Trail (TART) is a paved path for walking, running, biking and skating throughout Traverse City and beyond.
- Brick Wheels Bike Shop rents road bikes, electric bikes and accessories such as trailers.
- Dennos Museum Center is a small museum that houses contemporary Inuit art and rotating works by Great Lakes artists.
- Modern Bird is an informal but elevated restaurant where a husband-and-wife team, recently relocated from Chicago, scours area farmers’ markets to cook with the seasons.
- The Little Fleet is an open-air spot with multiple food trucks, seasonal cocktails and late hours.
- Bubbie’s Bagels not only boils and bakes its own bagels in-house, it also makes its own seasonal cream cheese.
- The Mill is a recently restored grist mill in Glen Arbor that houses a cafe and restaurant, and displays local art and antiques.
- Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate sells ethically sourced Ecuadorean chocolate and, in the summer, small-batch gelato.
- The Cooks’ House serves five- and seven-course tasting menus that showcase northern Michigan’s agricultural diversity.
- Crocodile Palace offers Sichuan takeout dishes like lip-numbing chicken wings and dan dan noodles.
- NoBo Mrkt serves breakfast sandwiches and coffee in a community cooperative overlooking the Boardman River.
- M22 inks apparel and home goods with the logo of the highway that traces the waterside edges of Leelanau County, a peninsula.
- Becky Thatcher Designs sells jewelry made with a local treasure known as Leland bluestones.
- Sara Hardy Farmers Market gathers farmers and ranchers from all over the region on Saturday mornings.
- Lake District Wine Co offers a thoughtful selection of the best bottles from the Old Mission Peninsula and Leelanau County wine regions.
- Delamar Traverse City, a waterside hotel, recently changed hands and benefited from an impressive remodel. It offers both an indoor and outdoor pool, and its restaurant, Artisan, open for dinner and Sunday brunch, has a sprawling patio overlooking the boat traffic on the west side of Grand Traverse Bay. Rooms start at $290 in June.
- Hotel Indigo Traverse City set off a lodging boom in the area when it opened in 2016. In the Warehouse District and just across Route 31 from the water, the property has 107 rooms, many facing West Bay. In the summer, a rooftop patio is open to all and can be a great place to catch the sunset, which happens late this far north. Rooms start at $270 in June.
- Alexandra Inn, run by second- and third-generation members of a Traverse City hotelier family, is a new property with Nantucket-meets-northern-Michigan vibes. A welcome respite from the hustle of the East Bay Beach District, the hotel offers elevated views of the bay’s ombré blues and convenient beach access at an affordable price point. Rooms start at $175 in June.
- For short-term rentals, Traverse City and its surrounding area are home to many Airbnbs that provide a modern Up North vibe. Many such rentals, however, require a three-night minimum stay (or more) during peak season.
- A rental car is the easiest way to explore the region. While you can take taxis and use ride-hailing apps like Uber at the airport and within Traverse City proper, both can be spotty farther afield. In town, you can ride the BATA bus ($4.50 daily, city loop routes) or rent bicycles to get around.
Itinerary
Friday
Kayak rentals from Paddle TC.
Many first-time visitors marvel at how clean and clear the water is in Grand Traverse Bay, which is split into East Bay and West Bay by Old Mission Peninsula. Take a two-hour sunset sail with Compass Rose Sailing Co. aboard a 46-foot racing yacht built by the decorated yachtsman and naval architect Ted Hood in 1963. Once you’re under sail power, listen as the crystalline West Bay waves slap against the navy hull and exhale as the sun sets behind Leelanau County, another peninsula to the west. The private sail costs $430 and accommodates up to six guests. Looking for something that burns more calories and less cash? Rent kayaks ($30, one hour) from Paddle TC and paddle around the sailboats moored in front of the Grand Traverse Yacht Club.
Kayak rentals from Paddle TC.
For dinner, reserve seats at the bar at Modern Bird, an informal but elevated restaurant open since 2022 on Traverse City’s west side. Its chefs and owners, a husband-and-wife team, represent a talented new cohort pushing the culinary traditions of the Great Lakes region beyond its fried-fish roots. Try dishes like cold-smoked local carrots with arugula, labneh and spiced almond crunch ($16), and trout crudo with Suttons Bay Shiro plums, pickled serrano chiles and smoked soy sauce ($18). In season, don’t miss the dark chocolate cake served with whipped almond mascarpone and cherry jam ($13), akin to Black Forest gâteau, which is also a nod to the area’s cherry production. (Michigan produces some 70 percent of the country’s tart cherries.)
Locals love the open-air spot the Little Fleet not only for its food trucks (like Juicy Oistre, a traveling fish shack from Ann Arbor), but also for staying open until midnight on weekends. Have a nightcap at the indoor bar, where the drinks change with the seasons. Order whatever sounds as if it was conceived at a roadside farm stand: The All Good, Sweet Pea ($12) is as bright and fresh as snap-pea tendrils, while the dusty purple Concord Negroni ($13) is infused with local grapes. There’s live music on Fridays, so it can be crowded as people first roll into town that evening, but as things cool down, huddle around the outdoor fire pit and see which constellations you can spot this close to the 45th parallel, where you are as close to the North Pole as you are to the Equator.
Lining up at Farm Club’s outside bar on a sunny Sunday.
Saturday
The Midwest isn’t exactly known for banner bagels, but the ones at Bubbie’s Bagels are the real deal: fermented over two days, boiled and baked in an unassuming strip mall at the foot of Old Mission Peninsula across from Civic Center park. Skip the lines and place an online order for pickup. This summer, select the caraway rye or whole wheat bagel, both of which are now made with locally grown and milled flour. Be sure to ask for a schmear of seasonal cream cheese, which is appropriately generous and made with foraged ramps or area-grown strawberries, depending on the week ($6).
Hit Front Street, Traverse City’s main drag and home to the State Theater, programmed by the filmmaker Michael Moore. Join the crowds at M22, a store that sells hoodies, water bottles, even candles inked with the name of the highway that nearly circumnavigates the pinkie finger of Michigan’s mitten-like shape. Seek out a more artisanal keepsake at Becky Thatcher Designs, a jeweler known for using Leland bluestones (a byproduct of the iron ore furnaces that operated in the nearby fishing village of Leland until the mid-1880s, which can still be found on area beaches). Ogle a bluestone necklace, bracelet or ring (from $75 to $800). Those who prefer edible purchases can wander over to the Sara Hardy Farmers Market, a few blocks away. You betcha you can grab a pint of wild black raspberries or other micro-seasonal treasures there.
Hop in the car and head northwest toward Glen Arbor, a small resort community of fewer than 1,000 residents when the snow flies. Bob up and down the region’s drumlins (rolling glacial hills), meander past cherry farms and vineyards, and see the boat tie-ups beginning to swell on Leelanau County’s inland lakes. Stop in at the cafe within the Mill, a former grist mill from 1879 on the Crystal River. It reopened last year after a painstaking restoration and features behemoth oak posts and beams and original milling equipment, as well as artwork (check out the giant gherkin pickles painted onto local coffee bags by the Northport artist Jesse Hickman). Order a simple lunch of panzanella salad ($12) and wander out to the back deck, seemingly suspended above the river.
Continue west to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a 70,000-acre stretch of protected forests, sand dunes and shoreline named for a legend of the Anishinaabek (a collective of Native American peoples that live in the Great Lakes region, and beyond); one-day pass, $25. Many tourists flock to the steepest sand dune, known as the Dune Climb, and a seven-mile auto loop called Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. But Glen Haven, a restored 1920s village north of both, offers history, dune hiking and vistas of Mama Lake, as some locals call the open waters of Lake Michigan, all in one stop. See Glen Haven’s vintage cannery building, boat museum, blacksmith shop and general store before proceeding to the Sleeping Bear Point trailhead to hike about 15 minutes across rolling dunes to the water’s edge. Spot Petoskey stones, fossilized coral unique to the region; take a quick (brisk!) dip; and skip stones toward North and South Manitou Islands in the distance.
Instead of doubling back to Traverse City the way you came, make a loop by continuing south to the town of Empire, stopping in at Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate, a confectionary shop in a Granny Smith green building that hugs the side of the road. The co-owner Jody Hayden, who sells ethically sourced chocolate that is molded into bars, barks and even sleeping bears, added a gelato shop next door in 2022 (opens for the summer on May 25). Ask for a scoop of Ecuadorean milk chocolate or the olive-oil gelato that is made with oil from Fustini’s, a Traverse City importer ($5.50, one scoop). Those who are dairy-free should try the seasonal sorbets, like peach or saskatoon (also known as serviceberry).
The Cooks' House
Back in town, settle into the good care of the hospitality wizards at the Cooks’ House, a 26-seat gem. Respect for ingredients shines in each dish by the chefs, Jennifer Blakeslee and Eric Patterson, who have unmatched relationships with regional farmers and winemakers. The two tasting menus (five or seven courses, $87 or $104) change daily and have inventive, globally inspired touches: A recent asparagus dish came with lentils, smoked whitefish, chive and an aioli made using fried eggs. Didn’t score a seat? Place a to-go order of lip-numbing Sichuan chicken wings ($12) from Crocodile Palace. Grab a bottle of any of the area wines sold at Lake District Wine Co (ask about BOS, by a biodynamic winemaker who recently moved to Michigan from Napa) and throw down a picnic blanket near, but not too near, the beach volleyball nets at Clinch Park.
The Cooks' House
Music lovers and locals don’t let summer pass without catching a recital or performance at Interlochen Center for the Arts, a boarding school and performance campus 15 miles southwest of Traverse City that attracts teenage prodigies from all over the globe. Travelers tight on time can find world-class music in Traverse City proper as well. Inside Commongrounds Cooperative, a new community-owned development, see a show at the Alluvion, an intimate 150-person performance space with stellar acoustics that hosts funk acts, jazz bands, piano trios, guitar ensembles and more, from Interlochen and well beyond. This summer, its Alluvial Nights series brings together D.J. sets and projections to guarantee dancing well after the late northern Michigan sunset.
Members of a cold-water swim club gathering in Lake Michigan at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Sunday
Commongrounds Cooperative
Revisit the Commongrounds building for a completely different experience during daylight hours. Inside is a coffee bar and market in one, NoBo Mrkt, a gathering place where the community conversation is as exciting as the food. Order a cortado and an eggy breakfast sandwich made with 9 Bean Rows ciabatta ($12), settle into a plush stool that overlooks the Boardman River and the north end of Boardman Lake, and eavesdrop as Michiganders compare notes on everything from kitesurfing and freshwater fishing to regenerative farming and Line 5 (the oil and gas pipeline, opposed by environmentalists and tribal nations, that runs under the Straits of Mackinac).
Commongrounds Cooperative
Benjamin Maier Ceramics at Farm Club
Rent a bike from Brick Wheels ($35, four hours) and ride north on the Traverse Area Recreation Trail (TART). Pedal past the Leelanau Conservancy’s 191-acre DeYoung Natural Area, a historic farmstead. At Lake Leelanau Drive, take a right on the boardwalk, downshift and push up the gravel path to Farm Club, equal parts produce market, restaurant and brewery, to be first in line for lunch at noon. Hit the onsite market for ceramic tableware by the area artist Benjamin Maier before cruising back to town. A 14-mile round-trip bike ride not in your wheelhouse? Stop at the Dennos Museum Center, which has a permanent collection of contemporary Inuit art, as well as rotating installations: See the colorful, often-floral paintings of the Detroit-based Chinese American painter Louise Jones, also known as Ouizi, from June 21 through Sept. 1.
Benjamin Maier Ceramics at Farm Club