Bozz Travels: Beaver Island, MI

While I have done some short posts in the past about different aspects of Beaver Island. Today I wanted to take the time to do a full write up on some of my travels there.

Having lived in Michigan all my life, I had never really heard about Beaver Island. When people talk about islands in our state, they are usually talking about Mackinac Island.

Several years ago though, my brother in law met a girl who grew up on the Island and they ended up getting married. For one of our family vacations, they wanted us all to visit the place where she had grown up. Likewise, they also had their wedding and reception on the island.

Beaver Island is about a two-hour ferry ride from Charlevoix, MI. You can also take a small plane out of Charlevoix and get to the island in about half an hour. Pricing for the ferry is pretty reasonable, but you have to plan ahead.

Parking at the ferry dock is pretty limited, so you will need to either park at the airport, or the public parking in town (at the school), and take the shuttle back to the dock.

You can pay extra to take a vehicle over to the island, but it gets pretty expensive and they have rental vehicles over there if you decide you want to drive around.

The main town and harbor is located at the Northern end of the island. The picture above is the view entering the harbor on the ferry. The intro picture at the top is of the harbor lighthouse that sits at the point of the harbor.

You can read a brief history of the island on the Wikipedia page here. The main street in town has lots of shops and places you can visit.

There are two main bars right in town along with other eateries like a pizza place and a bakery. They also have a grocery store, a fish market out by the harbor lighthouse, and a couple of other places to eat outside of town.

There is also a hardware store that has a live webcam that gives you live views of the main street and the ferry coming and going.

The island also has a gas station just outside of town, a couple of churches, a school, and many hotels. Beaver Island gets really busy in the summer as many people from the Grand Rapids and Chicago area have summer homes there.

If you have a large group and you do not want to stay in one of the hotels on the island, there are rental houses you can stay at, which is what we did.

This was our view from our rental house. We stayed in the same place all of the times we have visited. If you have a large group, you can also rent out the old convent down by the beach in town and the accommodations there are very nice.

The island also has two airports and a small nine-hole golf course. One of the days that we were on the island, my sister in law took us on a drive around to see some of the sights.

This was a picture looking back at the harbor from the harbor lighthouse. In the same area as the harbor lighthouse is a small toyshop/museum and there is also a fisherman's museum.

Here are some more pictures from our drive:

At the Southern end of the island is another lighthouse. This one is pretty old and I don't think it is used anymore.

You can climb to the top of the tower, but the staircase is pretty tight so you need to be careful. I had to carry my nephew up the staircase because he wanted to see the view, so it was pretty intense climbing up for me :)

Two of the other points of interest on our drive was the Big Tree and the Big Rock. I have posted about the Big Tree before on Tree Tuesday, but I am going to post a picture of it again.

These two sights are pretty deep in the woods. I am not sure if you would be able to find them if you didn't have someone show you where they are.

Besides some good photo opportunites, there isn't much else around there.

We drove around the island for a little more and slowly made our way back up to the town.

We then finished our day at a small beach on the North West side of the island called Donegal Bay. The island has many immigrants from Ireland, so you will find that there is a strong Irish theme. This applies to locations on the island as well as businesses on the island.

Donegal Bay has some of the best sunsets I have ever seen, so I am just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

I am going to be honest, there isn't a ton to do on the island. Once you have seen the main sights, there isn't much left to do but relax, sit on the beach and take in some fantastic sunrises or sunsets.

The pace of life on the island is pretty slow. I can't think of a better place to just relax and unwind though. Beaver Island is definitely somewhere I will make a return visit to. I will leave you with a couple of images of us coming back into the harbor at Charlevoix on different trips.

Thanks for taking this trip with me. I hope you take the time to visit Beaver Island yourself if you ever get the chance!

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