Weekend Getaway: Return to Saugatuck, Michigan
Some new spots for coffee, tacos, and more in the lakeside town.
Welcome to the weekend! Here’s what you’ll find in this week’s newsletter:
Weekend Getaway: We’re heading back to the Lake Michigan beach town of Saugatuck to see what’s new this season — and new to us, including coffee, brunch, tacos, a great new dinner option, and more. Plus: a freshly updated Saugatuck guide!
August’s Featured Field Guide: Want to plan a trip to Boston? Our full list of favorites is available in our Field Guide to Boston — free this month for our paid newsletter subscribers. This 49-page dining guide includes a curated four-day itinerary with 30+ recommendations for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and drinks.
Weekend Reading: The best breweries in Cleveland, the best restaurants in Dallas, the best hotels in Palm Springs, and more!
SAUGATUCK, MICH. — Our first visit to Saugatuck, Michigan was in October 2020. Eager to escape Chicago — and feeling like we could handle a destination where we’d be mostly outdoors — we booked a trip. While we’d visited the Harbor Country area a few times before, we hadn’t yet driven the extra hour north to Saugatuck. We’ve been five times since that initial visit and know that this area is going to be part of our summers for a long time to come. If you haven’t been to Saugatuck and the adjacent town of Douglas before, there are galleries, walkable downtowns, shops, beaches, hiking, and lots of great food. It’s certainly family-friendly, but compared to Harbor Country we find this stretch of Michigan particularly appealing for couples and a bit of an older crowd.
Our annual trip this year fell over four days in mid-July. While we typically opt for a shoulder season (I think September is the best month to travel; it’s still summery but less crowded), we have a lot going on this fall and also wanted to see what high summer was like. While it’s certainly busier, it’s also hotter (good for pool time) and menus reflect the best of summer produce (like the peach melba I had at Pennyroyal Cafe & Provisions, because peaches and raspberries are in season).
We stayed at Lake Shore Resort again, of course (it was our fifth time there), but this year we were in their brand new cottage. Tucked to the side of the property, the cottage has two floors, each with two bedrooms, and you can rent either one floor or the whole house if you have a group. There’s a large living area and kitchen in the middle (we used the fridge to store bottled Hoste Cocktails that we brought to share with other guests at the fire pit at night). The indoor space is beautiful, and I have to note the little library in the living room that was stocked with all the buzzy new releases and other books from the past few years. Each floor has patio space, and from our top-floor balcony, we had a perfect view of the sunset and view of the grounds.
I get a lot of questions each year about how to get a room at Lake Shore Resort, and I’ll share the same info here as I did in a recent story I wrote for Chicago magazine — bookings open at 8am EST on April 15. If you’re unsuccessful, call throughout the summer to check since rooms open up when people’s plans change. We frequently meet people around the fire pit who had only booked a few days before (another tip — be flexible!).
At Lake Shore, we took part in all our favorite activities — sitting quietly looking at the Lake, hitting the pool, going for a walk along the road that overlooks the Lake, taking the yoga classes that are held four times weekly on the deck along the Lake — but also did some exploring. We ate at some of our go-to spots but also checked out some new places in town (and new-to-us places).
If you’d like to plan a trip, we’ve updated our Saugatuck guide with all our current favorite picks! This month, paid subscribers can use the code below to download the guide for free as part of their subscription (which is $7/month), or you can head to our website and snag the guide for $10.
Let’s go explore Saugatuck.
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