Our Top 10 things to do on Mackinac Island, Michigan (Best tourist attractions in 2021)

hi i'm james and i'm lauren and today we are in beautiful mackinac island or as i like to call it machina no i grew up in michigan and as a true michigander i spent all my summers up north in traverse city petoskey charlevoix but we also love to visit northern michigan in the fall and enjoy the beautiful fall colors but mackinac holds a special place in my heart to me it's the gem of northern michigan and in this video we're going to show you our favorite 10 things to do on macano island so let's go mackinac island is located in the straits of mackinac a three mile wide strait that connects lake michigan to lake huron and the strait also separates the upper peninsula from the lower peninsula of michigan and mackinac island is on the lake huron side of the strait and since 1957 there's been a five mile long bridge over the strait the meccano bridge which at the time of its construction was the longest suspension bridge in the world unless you can afford a charter flight to the island's small airport the only way to make a new island is to take the ferry from the mainland there are two different ferry companies starline and shufflers we've used both in the past and to be honest we don't think there's much of a difference between the two both companies offer hourly rides for mackinac city on the lower peninsula and from st ignis on the upper peninsula for most people driving from down south macando city would be more convenient but catching the ferry from st ignis will give you the opportunity to drive over the bridge the ferry ride normally takes 20 minutes but some of the theories take a detour to go under the bridge and if you have an extra 10 minutes to spare on your vacation we strongly recommend you choose one of these ferries we were able to take really cool shots from underneath the bridge but if you're going to sit on the upper deck be sure to bundle up the ferries are super fast and it gets pretty windy up there [Music] once you get off of the ferry you'll have to travel around the island and one of the best features of makano island is that cars have been banned since 1898 and the best way to move around is to take a horse-drawn carriage it might look a little bit cheesy at first but it's actually a lot of fun there are several different horse-drawn carriage options if you're staying on the island overnight most hotels will provide a shuttle from the fairy dock to the hotel if not you have the option to take a taxi they are available 24 hours a day and they charge by the distance the carriage tours company also offers narrated tours of the island it's mackinac island's version of the double-decker red bus that you find in larger cities the tour lasts around two hours and takes you to some of the islands hotspots that will be featured throughout this video you also have the option to rent your own carriage by the hour in that case you'll have to drive the buggy yourself it's a lot more expensive than a taxi but it provides a lot more freedom and finally you can also ride a horse it's just that you're not allowed on the main street on a saddled horse but you can always walk down main street and that's actually the third activity on our list both ferry companies will drop you off in the heart of main street and the minute you get off the boat you'll be surrounded by hotels bars restaurants and tons of souvenir stores makano island started becoming a tourist destination in the mid-1800s when the development of railroads made it easier for rich people from chicago detroit and the east coast to travel to northern michigan and even though main street has a bit of a disneyland feel to it it's actually been like that from day one and all the buildings are authentic but if you keep walking past marquette park you end up in a much quieter part of lakeshore drive you can see some of the beautiful victorian houses as well as quaint wooden churches and we like to go all the way to mission point at the edge of town and sit down relax and stare at the lake another quaint street to explore is market street it's just one street over parliament to main street it has some of the oldest buildings in the city and lots of little shops and bed and breakfasts it's really cute it is [Music] and number four on our list is walking the deck of the grand hotel the grand hotel was built in 1887 and is the most recognizable building on the island it's a huge building with 400 rooms and the 660 foot long deck it's the longest in the world that's longer than two football fields when the railroads started expanding in the 1800s railroad companies needed destinations to attract tourists and give them reasons to ride their train so they started building hotels like the grand hotels in mackinac but very few of them survived because lots of them were made of wood and were not built to last that's what's so amazing about the grand hotel it's still here 130 years later and it hasn't burned down knock on wood we also enjoyed walking inside the hotel and going up to the bar in the cupola at the very top of the hotel but to me the most spectacular was the main dining room it really felt like nothing had changed since the hotel opened in 1887. and you could almost expect to see jackie kennedy or esther williams enjoying dinner alongside us in addition to horse-drawn carriages bikes are also a main form of transportation on my canoe island and biking around the island is number five on our list lakeshore drive a circular loop around the island is only eight might long so biking around the island should only take you a couple of hours depending on how many stops you want to make along the way you can rent a bike pretty much anywhere in town there are lots of different bike rental stores but they all charge more or less the same price for the same bike your decision is really about which type of bike you want to rent if you are going to stay on lakeshore drive where it's all flat you don't need a bike with a lot of gears but if you're going to bike on the trails inside the island a mountain bike is probably better we really wanted to try a tandem bike but it just looked too complicated for us yeah more than 80 of mackinaw island is a state park so once you leave town you're pretty much in the wilderness but british landing which is almost the halfway point is a good place to stop and grab a bite and apparently some of the tourists engage in reckless biking if we believe all the signs we saw on the side of the road and number six on our list is visiting fort mackinac because of its strategic location at the junctions of lake michigan lake huron and lake superior makano island has always had a military significance the british built fort mackinac in 1780 during the american revolutionary war and they didn't relinquish the fort until 15 years after the american independence he then became an american fort until congress closed it in 1895. today fort mackinac is a museum that tourists can access from marquette park at the end of main street because the fort is on top of a hill it's somewhat of a climb to get up there but from the fort you have beautiful views of the city and the lake inside the fort you can visit the barracks where the soldiers used to live as well as the officer's quarters there are also several cannons pointed at the lake and costumed employees reenact war scenes including firing the cannon several times a day back on main street after visiting the fort you'll probably want to grab a bite to eat and while you're on main street you'll quickly notice that every other store front is a fudge store mackinac is famous for its fudge you cannot leave the island without trying it at least once all the stores claim they were already the best fudge on the island so we're not gonna recommend any particular brand we tasted several over the years and they've always been delicious and low calorie too yeah fudge has been a tradition on mackinac island since the late 1800s as tourism developed people on the island were looking for items to sell to tourists and early on fudge was the one that caught on what's funny about it is that the stores don't just sell fudge they also show you how fudge has been made you cannot watch them make fudge experience that delicious smell and then leave the store empty-handed after that [Music] and number eight on our list is arch rock if you're looking for the best selfie spot on the island then arch rock is the place to go as the name indicates our truck is a see-through rock formation right on the shore of lake uron 4000 years ago the water level was a lot higher than it is today the waves from the lake eroded the base of the cliff and parts of the cliff collapsed to create the arch we see today our truck is not very far from town and you can easily walk there you can also see our track from underneath when biking on lakeshore drive but if you want to go on top of the rock from the shore you'll have to climb more than 200 steps the best time to go see arch rock is early in the morning at sunrise there will be a lot you are tourists at that time if you go there in the middle of the day once the narrated tours start dropping large crowds of tourists you'll have to wait your turn to take a selfie another popular surfy spot is sunset rock on the complete opposite end of the island just behind the innate stormcliff of course sunset rock is much nicer at sunset but even during the day it offers some of the best views of the mackinac bridge although biking around the island is much easier because it's all flat exploring the inside of the island is also something we recommend you do and that's why it's number nine on our list if you like hiking makano island is small enough that you can do it by foot but it will take you several hours to do that if you choose to explore the inside of the island on a bike you should get one with multiple gears you don't want to walk your bike when it gets too steep the island is pretty woodsy and there is a nice natural trail with sign with the names of all the trees along the way another interesting rock formation is sugarloaf it's a weird rock that sticks out in the middle of the woods and the best view of sugarloaf is from a vantage point called point lookout point lookout is also the best place to see the fall colors in addition to fort macanally there is a second fort on the island called fort holmes it was built by the british during the war of 1812 on the highest point of the island and was named fort george at the time the americans later renamed it fort holmes but it was quickly abandoned and the four you can visit today is not the original one but a reconstruction from 2014. and tenth on our list is to walk past the victorian mansions mackinac island has always attracted rich vacationers from all over the midwest and beyond and in the spirit of keeping up with the joneses they all tried to outdo their neighbors whenever one built a new tower on their house the next year their neighbor would build an even higher one but the result is that there are now these magnificent summer homes and we love walking past them and just looking at them some of the most spectacular mansions are on bluff road right past the grand hotel but if you don't want to walk that far there are also some beautiful mansions right at the end of main street but victorian or not there's plenty of beautiful houses throughout the island [Music] so we hope you enjoyed this video if you did give it a big thumbs up and put your comments in the comment section below and if you want to subscribe to our channel we're going to put a link right here and if you want to watch our other videos we're gonna put one right here and another one right there bye

Channel: James and Laurent

Views: 30,099

Rating: 4.959528 out of 5

Keywords: Mackinac Island, Michigan, Northern Michigan, Grand Hotel, St Ignace, Mackinaw City, Shepler's Ferry, Mackinac Island ferry, Mackinaw Island, Ryba fudge, Murdick Fudge, Sonecliffe, Stonecliffe Inn, Arch Rock, Main Street, Horse carriage, Horse drawn carriage, Fort Mackinac, Fort Holmes, British Landing, JoAnn's Fudge, Mackinac fudge, Sugar Loaf, Mission Point

Id: iQSiFbAPZe0

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020