Going Off Plan Again

I'm a firm believer in having a plan, whether it's for planning a Disney trip or a five week long RV trip.  There are people who just wing the whole thing and that does seem like an interesting adventure, but for a trip like this, the planning can be almost as fun as the trip itself.  But one of my rules for planning is that it's okay to go off the plan if something better or new pops up.  

In our original trip plan, we were supposed to spend three nights in Traverse City, Michigan.  We had never been, but it seemed like a good place to go.  It was on a bay attached to Lake Michigan, it is the cherry capital of the state (and Jeff loves cherries), it's near sand dunes and the city has museums and other things to do.

But while we were in Iron River, Wisconsin, we met a man from Virginia, and while talking about our future trip plans, he said he hoped we were staying at a KOA resort near Harbor Springs that was really nice.  He said it was near the water and some really nice small towns.  In doing some research, it wasn't the Traverse City KOA he was talking about - it was the Petoskey KOA.  I went online and the Petoskey KOA had available sites, so I switched our reservation.

View Larger Map

I'm sure Traverse City would have be fun, but Petoskey was a good choice.  It was a short drive from St. Ignace, less than an hour.  In theory, we could have just spent five nights here and driven up to Mackinaw City to take the ferry to Mackinac Island for the day, and if we felt like spending some time in the car, we could do a day trip to Traverse City as well.  But the kids loved the beach near St. Ignace as well as the miniature golf course, so I think it all worked out okay.

Petoskey is a small beach town on Little Traverse Bay, a small bay that's part of Lake Michigan.  It has a cute downtown gaslight historic district with shopping, restaurants, and fudge (of course) and ice cream shops. 

The campground is very nice, just as our fellow camper told us.  It's conveniently located near Petoskey, Petoskey State Park (with a beautiful beach) and Harbor Springs, another small beach town on the north end of the bay.  There are many scenic drives and beach towns to see in the area.  The county fair is this week, and Petoskey has a festival going on this weekend.