2026 Vacation: Upper Peninsula, Michigan
Our usual summer holiday includes sticking to one spot, with a few exceptions.
This year, after we left Door County, we wandered around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a week – first in Ironwood, then in Escanaba.
It was a vacation spent living out of our suitcases, constantly on the go.
First, Ironwood. We picked this little city because of its proximity to the Porcupine Mountains, an ancient volcano system weathered down to our present modest range of basalt and conglomerate.
During our first full day in Ironwood, we woke up for sunrise over the Lake of the Clouds.
There’s nothing the kids love more than to wake up at 3 AM to go hiking in the woods – except for just about anything else. But the view? Totally worth it.
After a bit more hiking down to the lake, we stopped by the Lake Superior shore to grab lunch and look at the rocks along the beach.
I took just a few minutes to stop along the road, on the way back, to grab shots of the local businesses.
Our cabin sat alongside the Black River, which empties out into Lake Superior. Along the way, you can hike down to a series of waterfalls along the river.
What I loved about this section of our trip was the hiking. We didn’t get a lot of forest bathing in Wisconsin, but here we had woods a-plenty, and it was good for all of us to hear nothing but birds and the strong river running.
For these hiking trips, the Canon EOS M6 – with its portability and light weight – was perfect: small and capable.
After a few days in Ironwood, we drove down to Escanaba, Michigan, along Lake Michigan, for a different view of the Great Lakes. Here, we found a beach on Sand Island that was great for swimming and sunbathing.
We also explored a bit of downtown Escanaba and a dam that sat outside our cabin on the Escanaba River.
That was it for the Upper Peninsula portion of the trip. From here, we headed south across the Mackinac Bridge to Hale, Michigan, to meet up with my family and finish up our summer vacation.
