Treat your kids to pirates, red coats, lumberjacks and more family-friendly activities in Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island and St. Ignace.
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Mackinaw City is home base for your trip through the Straits. Kids will love sticking around this town to explore Colonial Michilimackinac, an 18th-century fort abuzz with costumed interpreters. See British soldiers giving rifle demonstrations and firing the fort cannon while voyageurs and merchant families offer craft and wood-fire cooking demonstrations.
Down the road at Historic Mill Creek Discovery Park, watch a reconstructed sawmill in action, climb the five-story Treetop Discovery Tower, teeter across the forest canopy bridge or fly over the creek on a zip line.
Before tucking in for the day, watch real-life lumberjacks in action at the Jack Pine Lumberjack Show, where audience members are divided into rival logging camps and cheer wildly as lumberjacks scale cedar poles, race across floating logs and send wood chips flying.
Shiver me timbers! As if riding the ferry to Mackinac Island wasn’t exciting enough, Tuesdays through Saturdays from mid-June to the first weekend in September, you can ride the pirate ship Good Fortune to or from the island. Go ahead and dress up like a pirate for the ride—and bring along your best and loudest “arrrrr!” Beyond regular trips to Mackinac Island, Good Fortune also sets sail on special private cruises.
Once you’ve made it down the gangplank, it’s time to rent the fam some wheels because remember, this island doesn’t allow cars. The island bike rentals have everything to outfit a family from tag-a-longs to tandems and children’s sizes. Bigger kids will love biking the 8.2 miles around the island. Littles might like an out-and-back, but everyone is going to like the trip a whole lot more if it involves taking along freshly made fudge from one of the 13 island fudge shops.
Biking is great, but a Mackinac Island Carriage Tour allows a fam to get the lay of the island in style. The fun and informative tours take you from the Surrey Hills Carriage Museum to Wings of Mackinac Butterfly Conservatory, famous Arch Rock and Fort Mackinac.
Photo by Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau
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At Fort Mackinac, costumed interpreters transport families back to 1885. Hear the wicked crack of a rifle fired by a 19th-century American soldier and quick-step to the gun platforms to catch a cannon-firing demonstration. In the kids’ quarters, littles can try on soldiers’ uniforms. Wind it all up at the Fort’s Tea Room for the thickest milkshakes you’ve ever tasted.
No vacay to the Straits is complete without a trip across the Mackinac Bridge. The Mighty Mac is a wonder of engineering that kids won’t forget. As you set out, wow them with the stats: the bridge is 5 miles long and soars 552 feet in the air, and the roadway is 199 feet above the water!
Mighty Mac drops you straight into St. Ignace, where kids can see animals from bear to deer and many others at nearby Garlyn Zoo Wildlife Park, Oswald’s Bear Ranch and Deer Ranch. Solving the gravity-defying mysteries at the Mystery Spot will keep everyone in the family busy, while surveying the Straits from the 200-foot-high Castle Rock might make them dizzy! When the day is done, head to the St. Ignace Waterfront for a slew of fun activities from nightly live music to Saturday evening fireworks.