seven nights of freshwater beach, dune forest and one ferry
A Dog Friendly Northern Michigan Vacation Package On The Leelanau Lakeshore
This is a dog friendly northern michigan vacation package for one household and one dog, seven nights in a rented house on the Leelanau shore with your own car in the drive. Two named items on the week are closed to dogs and both are on this page.
Seven nights, from $2,180 per person.
Nothing here counts you and nothing follows you off the page. One word can be stored, and only the word yes, so this slip stops coming back. The whole of what that means.
The Leelanau shore runs about thirty-five miles from the harbor town at the south end to the point at the top, and roughly two thirds of the beach frontage on it is open to leashed dogs year round. That ratio is the whole reason this week exists. Most of the freshwater coast in this state is either private or posted; here the county and the federal lakeshore between them keep enough open sand that you can walk a dog on a different beach every day of the seven and not repeat one.
A dog friendly northern michigan vacation package here means a rented house rather than a room, because a house is the thing that removes almost every restriction at once. You are not walking a wet dog through a lobby at eleven at night. The lodging we book on this trip is a two bedroom place, inland by half a mile to two miles from the water, with a kitchen and a washer, and it is yours alone for the seven nights. Nobody else has a key.
The car matters as much as the house. You drive yourself, you park where you like, and the dog rides with you. Nothing on this week involves a shuttle, a coach or a group.
- How far the dog comes
- Your dog is with you for every night of the seven and for every mile you drive; two daytime items on the itinerary are closed to dogs and are named below with the hours they cost.
- What is actually included
- Seven nights of self catering lodging booked to your household alone, two bedrooms, kitchen, washer, fenced or unfenced yard stated in writing before you pay; one round trip island ferry reservation for the human party on a vehicle-free island; a printed route sheet with driving times, beach access points that permit dogs, and the three county park entrances that do not; written confirmation of the property's own rules on dogs, including how many and any weight ceiling; a named person here who answers your questions before and during the week.
- What the dog is shut out of
- Two things, both named now. One, the passenger ferry to the island off the Leelanau peninsula does not carry dogs on the passenger deck between mid June and Labor Day; the crossing is sixteen minutes each way and a useful island day runs six to seven hours door to door, so that is one person staying back with the dog on the mainland for roughly seven hours, or the whole party skipping the island and driving the shore road instead. Two, the big climbing dune above the lake, the one with the stairs and the overlook, is closed to dogs on the dune itself and on the overlook platform, which costs about ninety minutes; the forest road that loops behind it is open to leashed dogs the whole way. Nothing else on the week is closed. We checked both by calling the operator and the county office in the season before this page was written, and we recheck each spring because rules move.
- What it does not include
- Airfare or rail to Michigan and any car rental; fuel, which runs sixty to a hundred dollars for the week depending on how far north you push; all food and drink, including the first grocery run, which for a household of two runs roughly a hundred and forty dollars; the ferry ticket for anyone who adds a second island day; state park and national lakeshore entry passes, currently sold at the gate and at self-serve tubes; any cleaning charge the property bills for dogs, which is stated to you in writing before you pay and is usually seventy-five to a hundred and fifty dollars; laundry, firewood, kayak or paddleboard rental; anything you arrange for the dog on the ferry day, which is yours to arrange and not something this office books.
- Who should not book this
- People who want a hotel with a front desk, room service and someone else making the bed will not enjoy a week of self catering. The same goes for anyone unwilling to drive: the shore is thirty-five miles long and there is no transit on it, so a household without a car has no trip. Dogs that cannot be left in the house alone for a few hours make the ferry day impossible for the whole party, and dogs that will not walk on a leash past other dogs will have a hard week on beach access paths eight feet wide.
What the house is like, and what the ground under your feet is like
The properties are ordinary northern Michigan frame houses, most of them built between the sixties and the nineties, some with cedar siding gone silver. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths, a kitchen with a full stove, a washer and dryer in the basement or a back hall. Screened porch on maybe half of them. Wood stove or fireplace on more than half, and in October you will use it. Whether the yard is fenced is stated in writing before you pay, because the difference between a fenced acre and an open one changes your whole week, and half the houses on this shore have no fence at all.
Underfoot, the shore is sand and cobble in alternating stretches. The sand beaches shelve gently and the water is clear enough at four feet to see your own boots. The cobble stretches are rounded limestone and granite, loose, and they roll under a dog's feet the same way they roll under yours. Inland, the ground turns to beech and maple forest on sandy loam, laced with old logging two-track that is soft walking and shaded most of the day.
Distances are short. The farthest beach from the farthest house is twenty-two miles, about forty minutes because the shore road is two lanes with a lot of curve and a twenty-five mile an hour limit through four villages. Cell coverage drops out for maybe six miles in the middle of the peninsula, which is why the route sheet is printed on paper.
from $2,180per person
- Behind the number
- The least this office has paid to put a party into this week during the past year, not a rate card.
- Counted how
- Per head, two sharing, one dog, and that dog's lodging supplement folded in here instead of appearing at the door.
- Pushes it up
- Taking a whole place rather than a room, bringing a second dog, a holiday week, a property that prices by the size of the animal, and deciding late.
- Goes firm
- The moment a property puts its own name to a written line saying it will take your dog on those exact dates.
You settle up with the property itself, through whatever system it happens to use. None of it routes through this office and no card is ever shown to anybody here.
When the lakeshore is worth seven nights, and when it is not
Lake Michigan is a big cold body of water that warms slowly and cools slowly, so the shore runs about a month behind the calendar in spring and about a month ahead of it in fall. Surface water at the beaches is around fifty degrees in late May, near seventy by the first week of August, and back to the low sixties by the third week of September. Air temperature in July runs low eighties by day and upper fifties at night, which is the part people forget when they pack.
The ferry restriction only bites in the high season. Outside it, the crossing carries dogs and the closed item on your week drops from two to one.
- Late May to mid June
- Air in the sixties, water near fifty, beaches empty, black flies in the forest for about two weeks. Ferry carries dogs.
- Mid June to Labor Day
- Warmest water and busiest sand. This is the window when the ferry passenger deck is closed to dogs. Beach parking lots fill by ten on weekends.
- September
- Water still in the sixties, air in the low seventies, biting insects gone, sand to yourself on weekdays. The strongest month on this shore.
- Early to mid October
- Hardwood color peaks around the second week. Air in the fifties, rain most weeks, wood stove earning its keep. Some beach access roads gate closed.
- November to April
- Not offered. Most self catering houses on this shore close for the season and the shore road drifts over.
What gets settled before you pay anything
Nothing on this week is confirmed until the property's own rules on dogs are in front of you in writing. That is one document, usually a page, and it names the number of dogs allowed, any weight ceiling, whether the dog may be left in the house alone, and what the cleaning charge is. We do not summarize it for you. You read it.
- First messageYou tell us the week, how many people, how many dogs and roughly what size. We read messages the same working day.
- Figure back to youTwo to four working days, itemized: lodging, ferry seats for the human party, and the charges the property will bill separately.
- House rules in writingThe property's dog terms come to you as a document before any money moves. If they do not work for your household, we look at a different house rather than talking you into this one.
- ConfirmationDeposit goes to the property, not to this office. You get the route sheet, the beach access list and the two closed items in writing, with the hours each one costs.
Ask about the ferry day before you decide
Most of the questions we get about this week are about that seven hour island gap and how a household of two splits it. There is no single answer and it is worth a conversation. Send the question and we will tell you what other households did.