10 Great Lakes Towns That Were Ranked Among US Favorites

Small towns around the Great Lakes have a way of collecting titles. Budget Travel readers named the Minnesota town of Grand Marais America's coolest small town. Smithsonian put Petoskey on its list of the best small towns to visit. Cold-water surf earned Sheboygan the nickname Malibu of the Midwest. The judges rarely agree on what makes a place worth the title, and that is the fun of it. One town earns the honor with a festival and the next with a lighthouse or a single restaurant.

Bayfield, Wisconsin

The Chicago Tribune once called Bayfield the best little town in the Midwest. With about 500 residents, it is also the smallest incorporated city in Wisconsin. Rittenhouse Avenue climbs from the harbor past the town's galleries and shops. Each October, the Bayfield Apple Festival brings tens of thousands of people. It is one of the largest events on the south shore of Lake Superior.

Bayfield is the gateway to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, a string of more than 20 islands. Tour boats and sea kayaks reach them from the marina. Glass-bottom cruises head out to the sea caves and lighthouses offshore. Closer in, Hauser's Superior View Farm has grown fruit on the peninsula since 1908.

Two Harbors, Minnesota

Two Harbors is the birthplace of 3M. The company started here in 1902 as a mining venture. Its first office, the John Dwan building, is now the 3M Birthplace Museum. The 1892 light station above Agate Bay is the oldest working lighthouse in Minnesota, and it rents rooms as a bed and breakfast. Two Harbors is the largest town on the state's North Shore. It still works as an iron-ore port, with freighters loading at the Agate Bay docks.

Betty's Pies, just up Highway 61, is one of the most popular pie counters on the shore. The Sonju Trail follows the water for a mile between Agate and Burlington bays. It passes the ore docks and the old steam tug Edna G. Gooseberry Falls and the Split Rock Lighthouse lie a short drive north. Most North Shore trips start here.

Grand Marais, Minnesota

Budget Travel readers voted Grand Marais America's coolest small town in 2015. The village, the seat of Cook County in far northeastern Minnesota, has been an arts town far longer than that. The Grand Marais Art Colony, founded in 1947, is the oldest in the state. The North House Folk School teaches old northern crafts like timber framing and basket weaving on the waterfront. World's Best Donuts has fried cake doughnuts near the harbor since 1969.

Artists Point reaches into Lake Superior past the lighthouse. Painters have worked its bare rock and pine for generations. Grand Marais also marks the south end of the Gunflint Trail, a 57-mile byway into the Superior National Forest.

Munising, Michigan

Munising, a town of fewer than 2,000 on the south shore of Lake Superior, is the main gateway to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Congress made it the country's first national lakeshore in 1966. Its mineral-stained cliffs rise as much as 200 feet straight from the water. Boat cruises and kayaks leave the harbor through the warm months.

Grand Island lies a half mile offshore, ringed by a 20-mile trail. The Hiawatha National Forest surrounds the town. Divers work the wrecks of the Alger Underwater Preserve in the cold, clear bay. The Michigan Ice Fest, held every February on the frozen waterfalls, is the oldest ice-climbing festival in the country.

Petoskey, Michigan

Ernest Hemingway spent his boyhood summers near Petoskey. The mahogany bar he later drank at still stands inside the City Park Grill. That history is part of why Smithsonian named the town one of the best small towns to visit in the country. Lake Street is the spine of the Gaslight District. Symons General Store has sold provisions there since the 1870s. American Spoon turns local fruit into preserves a few doors down. The red-brick storefronts give downtown a settled, nineteenth-century look. Rock hunters comb the beaches for Petoskey stones, the fossil coral that became Michigan's state stone in 1965.

Petoskey State Park lines the shore just north of downtown. Its beach faces west, into the sunset. Inland, an observation tower in the Bear River Valley Recreation Area looks down on the rapids, where kayakers paddle in summer.

Traverse City, Michigan

Traverse City calls itself the Cherry Capital of the World. The National Cherry Festival each July made the name stick. Two wine trails follow the Old Mission and Leelanau peninsulas. The tasting rooms look out over Grand Traverse Bay. The Dennos Museum Center, on the Northwestern Michigan College campus, has one of the country's largest collections of Inuit art.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore rises 25 miles west, where the dunes fall more than 400 feet to the lake. It makes the city a base for the wider shoreline. Downtown tells a stranger story. The Village at Grand Traverse Commons occupies a restored nineteenth-century asylum, now shops and restaurants.

Grand Haven, Michigan

Grand Haven was the first town named Coast Guard City, USA. It marks the title each August with the Coast Guard Festival. On Dewey Hill above the waterfront, the Grand Haven Musical Fountain has set water to music and light since 1962. For its first decades, it was the largest musical fountain of its kind in the world. The Tri-Cities Historical Museum downtown traces the area's lumber and shipping years.

Grand Haven State Park puts a wide beach and a candy-striped pier lighthouse at the mouth of the Grand River. A riverfront boardwalk connects downtown and the pier. On summer nights the crowds gather along it for the fountain show across the water.

St. Joseph, Michigan

A Detroit Free Press columnist once named St. Joseph the most romantic city in Michigan. The town has gone by the Riviera of the Midwest ever since. It stands on the bluff where the St. Joseph River meets Lake Michigan. The downtown below is full of Victorian-era storefronts. The Krasl Art Center, on Lake Boulevard, shows changing exhibits. Its outdoor sculpture collection is one of the larger ones in the region.

Silver Beach brings families to a wide stretch of Lake Michigan sand. A restored carousel from the early 1900s turns at its edge. The pier lighthouses and the sunsets behind them earned the romantic-city label in the first place.

Sheboygan, Wisconsin

Sheboygan answers to two nicknames. Surfers call it the Malibu of the Midwest, for the Lake Michigan waves that peak in the cold months. The city also claims the title of Bratwurst Capital of the World. Brats come off the grill at summer festivals and at taverns like Al and Al's Steinhaus. The lakefront restaurants put most tables within sight of the water.

Deland Park is on the lakefront, where the wrecked schooner Lottie Cooper, lost in 1894, is on display by the marina. The surf breaks just up the shore. On calm days the beaches belong to paddlers and walkers instead.

Sister Bay, Wisconsin

Sister Bay is best known for the goats. A small herd grazes the sod roof of Al Johnson's Swedish Restaurant through the warm months. The picture has come to mean Door County itself. The restaurant, open since 1949, sends out Swedish pancakes and meatballs to the line below. A village beach and marina are a short walk away.

The rest of the village fits in a few blocks along the water. Each October, Sister Bay Fall Fest brings one of Door County's biggest crowds to them. The goats come down for the winter not long after.

What Sets These Towns Apart

The reasons these towns made their names rarely overlap. Munising is the door to Pictured Rocks. Two Harbors has a lighthouse and the company that grew out of a downtown office. Sister Bay has its rooftop goats. St. Joseph trades on romance. Traverse City sells cherries and wine. Grand Haven plays a fountain to the water every summer night. What they share is the lake. Everything else they did on their own.