A Superior Midwest Road Trip
Hit up Best Towns 2014 winner Duluth, Minnesota, then hike and bike your way to Michigan's renowned shores.
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Get your fill of Lake Superior views on this 550-mile, five-day tour through prime hiking and biking country.
Packing List: Sea kayak with spray skirt, 29er, flannel shirts
Highlights: Rest up for your tour with a waterfront suite at Duluth’s South Pier Inn (from $197). When you cross the Blatnik Bridge into Wisconsin, stop at Thirsty Pagan Brewing in Superior for a Derailed pizza and an India Pagan Ale.
In Bayfield, buy provisions—like smoked lake trout from Newago Fish Market—then launch your kayak (or take a full-day tour, $99) and explore the sea caves in 22-island Apostle Islands National Lake-shore.
Once you reach Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, take a detour up 11-mile-long Black River Scenic Byway and hike to any of seven waterfalls before the road dead-ends at Lake Superior. Book a room at Eagle River Inn, near the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula (from $99), and sip Knob Creek bourbon with your smoked spare ribs on the lakeside deck at adjoining Fitzgerald’s Restaurant.
Then head to Copper Harbor, which has some of the country’s best singletrack—the trails top out at 900 feet and roll through dense forest. Take a bike and have at it (rentals from $26). Drive down the sandy beach side of the Keweenaw Peninsula to the town of Marquette. Run the half-mile stairway up Sugarloaf Mountain, six miles north of town, then head to Black Rocks and take the 15-foot plunge into Lake Superior.
Pitch a tent lakeside at Twelvemile Beach Campground ($16) in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and get to hiking, fishing, and paddling along the park’s 40 miles of shoreline and in adjoining million-acre Hiawatha National Forest.
