The list keeps growing. The picks stay opinionated.
5 picks from Minneapolis.
Two hours north of Chicago by car, Lake Geneva is the Midwest town that figured out how to be a resort without turning into one. Stone mansions from when the Wrigleys summered here, a public path that loops the entire lake, and a Friday-night fish fry that costs $18 and comes with three sides.
An hour east of Minneapolis, the St. Croix River runs through a town that figured out Main Street before Main Streets became a thing. One night at a Victorian inn, dinner at a restaurant that doesn't feel like it's trying, breakfast at a bakery that opens at 6am for the fishermen.
A two-street town on Lake Superior where the ferries to the Apostle Islands leave from the same dock where the fishing boats unload. Three nights gets you a kayak morning, a fish boil at sunset, and the kind of bookstore browsing that only works when there's nothing else competing for the afternoon.
A peninsula two states over that Wisconsin has been keeping to itself. Cherry orchards in June, fish boils year-round, and a coastline where the sun sets over water that looks like Michigan but isn't. Three nights gets you past the fudge shops in Sister Bay and into the version of Door County where the pie comes from an actual farm.
A port city on the north shore of the world's biggest lake. Grain elevators against black water, a brewpub in a century-old warehouse, a morning hike that ends at a waterfall you can walk behind. Two nights gets you past the Aerial Lift Bridge selfie and into the version of Duluth that locals defend.
