Experience the best of Frankfort

Frankfort sits at the mouth of Betsie Lake on the Lake Michigan shore of Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula, a small town of brick shops and wooden houses climbing a low hill from the harbour. A long pier reaches out to the Frankfort North Breakwater Light, a lighthouse of 1912, and the town beach is a wide strip of sand backed by dunes.

Point Betsie Lighthouse, a white tower of 1858 on a sandy point a few kilometres north, is one of the best-known on Lake Michigan. Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where sand bluffs rise more than a hundred metres above the water, begins to the north, and Crystal Lake lies inland. Traverse City, in cherry country, is a drive to the north-east.

Smoked whitefish, tart cherry pie and Michigan wines make up the local table, and the harbour has ice cream stands and small cafés. Summers are short and warm, the autumn colour is bright, and winters bring heavy lake-effect snow.