Handbook: Michigan

From downtown Detroit’s resurgence to Caseville and other small towns of note in the Thumb, the lakes and vacation towns of Northern Michigan to the vast empty opportunities for outdoor adventure in the Upper Peninsula, Michigan is some of the best the Eastern Timezone has to offer.
Here we’ve collected everything we’ve written about the Great Lakes State into one convenient volume.
Tales from the Great Lakes State
RVing in Michigan

A family travels Michigan, and falls in love with its Upper Peninsula, in the strange year that was 2020.
My Mom Goes to 8 Mile…For Fun

Two RV tourists exploring the neighborhood from which Eminem hails.
Northern Woods

A host of things to do for campers, RVers and vanlifers, from Voyageurs National Park to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. All of them lakefront and bathed in the ample hardwood forests of the region.
The Evolution of Suburbia and the Collapse of Paper Porn

A couple of empty-nesters leave their kids to their own lives in Oregon to explore the Midwest’s small towns and changing landscape.
Beach Camping on our National Seashores and Lakeshores

National parks on America’s lakes and seas, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.
Midwesterly Roadtrip

A roadtrip through the northern midwest, from Munising, Michigan to Mille Lacs Lake in Minnesota.
More Stories About Michigan
Greetings from the Upper Peninsula!

Old-growth forest and lakefront camping all through Michigan’s finest landscape.
Post Card from Ontonagon, MI

Part of the sky cracked open just before sunrise this morning, bleeding a purple vivid and calm light across the river. Myst marches slowly hovering above the surface of the Ontonagon. The flapping hum of a small fishing boat firing its engine lurks through the fog from an unseeable other shore.
Scotty’s Motel
I just liked the look of this place. The whole UP is kind of dingy, but down-home kind of dirty not just trashy. For $31 a night though, I felt the red light district style lights really made it worth the money.
Great Laking
The Upper Peninsula of this Great Lakes land of Michigan has proven so dual in nature, the homey feeling of bug open forests and blue expansive lakes mixed with cold cans of beer folk living simple and hard lives. I could see me growing up here and ending up a very similar person. A mama […]
I’m on a Boat!
I could get used to a life on a boat.
Updates from our Life: the Road
Leaving New England, and as we passed through what New York had left and exchanged $10 / pack cigarettes for the Pennsylvania Wilds, heading back to Pittsburgh via the PA Grand Canyon and all of it’s splendor, it certainly feels like we’re finishing one trip to embark on another. The next stretch, through Ohio and […]