On day four, we got up early and drove the two-ish hours to Mackinac Island.
This place is a tourist trap destination, and yet it sucks us in each and every time! This is the second time Theo and I have visited the island, and each time we find out some more tips and tricks to make a day on Mackinac Island fun and affordable! Mackinac Island allows no cars on the island, so the only means of transportation are horses, bicycles or on foot!
First up…the only way to the island is via ferry (or a personal boat, but we all know we don’t have that option LOL). As soon as we pulled up, I freaked out a little bit inside realizing that I had to get on a boat and wondering if I was going to feel seasick from my all-day morning sickness. Since it was a Friday morning, there were a lot of people in line to board the ferry and we had to wait for the next ferry to come.
Our ferry arrived and we were quickly loaded up and on our way! The ferry charges $11/bike to get it to the island, so many people brought their own bikes over!
The ferry ride is about 15-20 minutes long and while it was a little bit wavy in some places, I ended up being fine and not feeling seasick at all. The view is absolutely GORGEOUS and the boat captain even took us right under Mackinac Bridge! We also joked about how we had the best seat on the boat…first to the lifeboats! Thankfully that wasn’t necessary.
Stepping off the ferry onto the island is both overwhelming and underwhelming. It’s absolutely overwhelming because there is just people EVERYWHERE. It’s so crowded and everyone stops mid-walk to take photos or gawk or something. There are bottleneck traffic jams and people trying to navigate strollers and bikes and horses and more people. The first thing you smell is horse poop and pee. It literally feels like stepping into a barn. Nobody knows what direction to go and everybody seems to be lost. It’s underwhelming because at this point we were wondering if it was really worth it to drag our whole family onto this stinky island and be overwhelmed all day long.
We finally picked our route and started walking, but it took us a while to get our bearings and figure out all the sights, sounds and smells!
First stop: a fudge shop for some samples! Mackinac Island is America’s Fudge Capital, and there are over 16 fudge shops on the island! It’s a MUST!
We decided to walk up and down Main Street to scope out the shops and what our options were for lunch. It is such a beautiful and quaint little street (if you can navigate the crowds and don’t gag at the smell of barn).
Tera LOVED all the sights and smells and there were so many cute shops that I wanted to spend all day in!
This was the perfect card for Theo and I. Ha.
We walked up and down Main Street and we were all still feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the crowds, the smells and the prices. Still, it was the most beautiful day on the island and we were determined to make the best of it!
It’s soooo picturesque and BEAUTIFUL!
We found the Good Day Cafe for lunch and ordered three sandwiches and a crepe for our whole family. It was SO DELCIOUS. I want to go back to the island just to get that sandwich again! The crepe was delicious, too. I highly recommend this little cafe!
The cafe was all hip and modern and only sold their water in boxes for $2.50 a pop. We were running low on our water bottles but didn’t want to fork out so much money for water, so Theo ran into Doud’s general store next door and bought an entire two galloon of water for $1.50! Sure, we had to carry it around all day, but it saved us so much money, since those $2.50 boxed waters would not have lasted all day, anyways.
After lunch we knew we needed a down time activity to hopefully get Kiah to sleep, so we decided to rent bikes and try to ride around the whole island (8 miles all the way around). But first, we got super smart and decided to walk down Market St and avoid the crowds on Main St.
NOW we are talking. There were so many cute little homes and gardens and shops- and no crowds, even though we were only one street over from Main St!
How cute is this Market St. Inn? For $200ish a night, that’s not bad for the island! Tera LOVED all the flowers and how cute everything was on this street!
Once we were fed, slightly rested, hydrated and off the busyness of Main St, we started to LOVE the island more and more.
We weren’t sure if I would be able to bike the full 8 miles around the island, but we decided to attempt it and see how it went. Theo and I both rented bikes and he rented the kiddie trailer to pull behind him while I had the nice leisurely ride by myself. It worked PERFECTLY. There were tons of bike shops and tons of options for bikes. They had tandem bikes, kid attachment bikes, bike trailers for kids and even ones for dogs! They had options to rent the bikes for the whole day, half day or by the hour. After some debate we decided to rent them by the hour because it would have been cheaper than paying for half the day. And off we went!
Ya’ll. This bike ride was the best thing I have done in a long time.
The weather was PERFECT.
The views were INCREDIBLE.
The trail was flat and paved the entire time (I didn’t have to stand up even once to pedal)
Seriously, the entire ferry ride (and cost) and everything else to get to the island was so worth it for this bike ride.
There were cute little houses to look at, there were beaches and the lake (plus the great view of the bridge!), and there was shady wooded sections. The scenery changed just enough to keep it interesting while also giving us enough of these views to soak in!
At first, the bike path was slightly crowded, but as we went further and further we only passed the occasional person! Did I mention that it was PERFECT? It was seriously perfect.
We found a secluded little piece of shoreline and stopped to take a little break..
Tera and Theo searched for stones while Kiah threw stones and I supervised. The waves were perfect and the water temperature was chilly but perfectly acceptable for the 85 degree day!
One of the most perfect rocks Theo has ever found!
Around mile 6 I was starting to get a little bit tired, but I had no problem finishing off the 8 mile bike ride.
In fact, I didn’t want it to end. Maybe this had something to do with it:
After our bike ride, we were feeling pretty tired and ready to head back to the mainland. We stopped into a fudge shop to get some fudge, and then we boarded a nearly empty ferry and enjoyed our afternoon ride across the lake!
Our time on the island was SO FUN! While Main St. was not exactly our jam, we loved the rest of the island. There was so much of the island that we didn’t get to see, or we opted out of because of the pricing. I know that the Grand Hotel is a big attraction, as well as the fort on the island. The butterfly house was also an option but we decided to not spend our money on any of those. I’m SO GLAD we went with the bike rentals…worth every penny and so many memories I will store up forever.
Have you ever been to Mackinac Island? What was your favorite part of the island?
Price Breakdown:
$52 round trip ferry (2 adults, 2 children)
$48 lunch (probably the only cheaper option would have been packing our own lunch- totally doable, but would have been challenging to carry around the supplies all day)
$1.65 water jug
$35 bikes (2 hours for the two bikes and a trailer)
$8.50 fudge
Total: $145.15
Cute pictures! I’ve never been to Mackinac Island but I went to the UP twice when I was a child. Now we have family who live near Lake Erie; it’s nice to have a place to stay so close to the water!
Did waiting for the second ferry and the crowds getting off bring back childhood memories? Also, on the ferry, you were close to the lifeboats, but you know Theo would have been helping everybody in and the last one off the boat. Dad and I were in Mackinac City a few hours when we went to visit Dave and Debbie. We stopped at a fish shop there and got fudge. The island looks gorgeous!