Mackinac Island is in the Upper Peninsula region of Northern Michigan.

Get around

No private motor vehicles are allowed on Mackinac Island. The primary methods of personal transportation are bicycles, horse-drawn carriages, and travel by foot.

Many day-trippers take the standardized "buggy" ride offered by Mackinac Island Carriage Tours. Leaving from near the Arnold Dock in "downtown" Mackinac Island, the MICT tour buggies (which are actually efficient, rubber-tired vehicles) carry tens of thousands of Island visitors annually to Arch Rock, Fort Mackinac, and the Surrey Hills carriage museum in the Island's interior.

Many bicyclists bring their own bikes to the Island. An extra ferryboat fare is charged. Rental bikes are also available.

Most of the historic and cultural sights on Mackinac lie within 1 mile of the ferry docks, so seeing them on foot is an attractive option for the energetic.

Mackinac Island's steep hills make travel around the island a challenge. This feature, geologically unusual in the Great Lakes region, led to one possible explanation for the Native American name of the Island: "Michilimackinac" = "great turtle." The Island's rounded back was seen as reminiscent of the shell of an aquatic reptile.

Attractions

All three of Mackinac Island's foremost sights were built during the late 1800s or are interpreted as if one was visiting them in that period. These sights form key elements in the total-immersion nature of Victorian culture and iconography on Mackinac Island.

The central "city" of Mackinac Island (the entire island has a census population of 483) consists of only two streets, Main Street and Market Street. Most of both streets are lined with shops that depend on the seasonal tourist trade. Main Street's streetscape has good examples of vernacular false-front commercial architecture of the late 1800s. Many Market Street buildings are even earlier, built during the fur-trade boom of the War of 1812 period.

On a steep hill above Main Street is Fort Mackinac. Although the stone walls of the fort were raised by the British Army in 1780-81 in a failed attempt to keep the American "rebels" from gaining control of Michigan, most of the frame buildings inside the fort were built in the 1800s. The Mackinac Island State Park currently (2005) interprets the fort to its life in the 1880s. An admission fee is charged.

Halfway up another steep hill to the north-west is Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel, a substantial 1884 summer "palace" offering upscale accommodation. Day-trippers often find the hotel to be an attractive place to appreciate a relatively complete pre-World War I environment. The 1980 movie "Somewhere in Time" is set and was filmed here. An admission fee is charged to non-guests.

The stores, fort, and hotel are open in the late spring, summer, and fall, and closed in the winter and early spring. Most of Mackinac Island's visitors come to the Island between the Lilac Festival (early June) and Labor Day.

Activities

Mackinac Island's ban on motor vehicles has created a unique style of participatory recreation, accessible to year-round residents and day trippers alike. Most Islanders get from place to place by bicycle or horse-drawn carriage, and welcome visitors who do the same thing.

Thousands of tourists bring bicycles to Mackinac Island each year. All three ferryboat lines welcome bikes, although they charge a supplemental fare for them. M-185, known locally as "Main Street" or "Lake Shore Road," the 8-mile, relatively flat paved trail around the Island, is a favorite destination. Bicycles can also be rented by the hour. Prices are relatively steep.

Few day trippers can bring horses or buggies with them. A large local firm, Mackinac Island Carriage Tours, provides a horse-drawn ride along a set route through the interior of the Island. The Grand Hotel provides guests with horse-drawn transportation from the ferry docks to the hotel by horse-drawn omnibus. Visitors can also rent saddle horses or light buggies by the hour.

A wide variety of footpaths and saddle-horse trails snake through the interior of Mackinac Island. Several of these trails have been in use for at least 150 years.

Three 9-hole golf courses have been carved out of the interior of Mackinac Island. Two, the lower "Jewel" and upper "The Woods" courses, are owned or operated by the Grand Hotel. The third course, "Wawashkamo," is independent. Wawashkamo continues to operate a links layout that took its final form in 1912.

Dining

During the 1800s, Mackinac Island was a center of the Great Lakes fishing trade, with shoals of lake trout and whitefish pulled out of the Straits of Mackinac and re-shipped to urban markets. While the Island's Arnold Line Dock and adjacent "Coal Dock" were built, in part, to serve fish shippers and remain in active use to this day, commercial fishing has ceased on Mackinac Island.

Since the 1880s, Mackinac candy makers have made and sold Mackinac Island fudge to day trippers. Much, but not quite all, of the fudge sold on Mackinac Island is made with traditional ingredients and in fealty to the traditional labor-intensive process for making this confection, which involves oxidizing, or "paddling", the fudge on a slab of marble. During the process, which traditional candy stores display to the public, the cooked fudge slowly cools and hardens into a loaf-shaped, semi-circular log.

So many tourists buy fudge that Mackinac Islanders often call day trippers "fudgies".

Drink

Mackinac Island, with a census population of less than 500 residents, has more than 20 licensed locations where alcohol is sold in packages or by the drink. While alcohol has been consumed here in large quantities since the fur-trading era, many current licenses are held by restaurants and bars operating inside the summer hotels. Two of the many drinking places of special interest are:
 • The Pink Pony, an old-fashioned street-level bar within the Chippewa Waterfront Hotel, has been dispensing beverages since the late 1930s, and possibly since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. It is a traditional gathering place for yachters who have successfully finished either one of the Great Lakes two long-distance sailboat races, the Chicago-to-Mackinac and the Port-Huron-to-Mackinac.
 • The Mustang Lounge, a small tavern of working-class appearance on tiny "Astor Street" one-half block down from the American Fur Company complex, is actually built inside a 1700's log cabin. While the logs are concealed behind modern siding, the structure's durable construction enables it to be adequately heated in winter. Unlike most Mackinac Island businesses, the "Mustang" remains open year-round. In wintertime it is one of the gathering places of the Mackinac Island community.