michigan’s upper peninsula to mackinac island

We explored Michigan as the last part of our Great Lakes Road Trip in May-June of 2021. Our explorations included Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. This video covers the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (see map below).

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan – also known as Upper Michigan or colloquially the U.P. – is the northern and more elevated of the two major landmasses that make up Michigan; it is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac. It is bounded primarily by Lake Superior to the north and flanked by Lake Huron and Lake Michigan along much of its south. Residents are nicknamed Yoopers (derived from “UP-ers”) and have a strong regional identity, enhanced by the perception that the rest of the state neglects them.

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is all about Pictured Rocks, huge ships going at a snail’s pace through the Soo Locks, lighthouses, “yoopers,” waterfalls, shipwrecks, Lake Superior, and pasties.

We visited the Sand Point Lighthouse in Escanaba and the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse in Marquette, watched The Sand Lot on a big screen at the Delft Bistro, and explored Miners Castle, Miners Beach, Sable Falls, and the Au Sable Lighthouse Trail (accompanied by black flies and mosquitoes aplenty) at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We went on a 2-hour sunset cruise with Pictured Rocks Cruises after eating pasties at Muldoon’s Pasties. We found “Yoosta be a Yooper” bumper stickers in Munising. We visited waterfalls in Munising and Tahquamenon (rhymes with Phenomenon) Falls State Park, the Edmund Fitzgerald and other shipwrecks at Whitefish Point’s Shipwreck Museum and a ship moving glacially through the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie. We enjoyed a leisurely bicycle ride around Mackinac Island and crossed the Straits of Mackinac on the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge, known as the “Mighty Mac.”

Our top eight experiences in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula were:

8) Crossing the Mackinac Bridge
7) Escanaba
6) Marquette
5) Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks
4) Whitefish Point and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum
3) Tahquamenon Falls State Park
2) Bicycling all over Mackinac Island
1) Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Munising: Pictured Rocks Cruises, Miners Beach, Miners Falls & pasties!

Thank you for watching!