Experience the best of Mackinaw City

Mackinaw City stands at the northern tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan meet in the Straits of Mackinac. The Mackinac Bridge, a suspension bridge about eight kilometres long opened in 1957, leaps from here to St Ignace in the Upper Peninsula. Colonial Michilimackinac, a reconstructed French fur-trading fort of the 1700s, stands on the shore beside the bridge, with archaeologists often at work.

Ferries cross to Mackinac Island, where cars are banned and horses and bicycles carry everything, and an old fort and a Victorian village wait on the other side. The Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse of 1892 stands near the fort, and the Headlands International Dark Sky Park, a stretch of forest and shore, is a place for stargazing. The town's name is spelled Mackinaw, while the straits and island are spelled Mackinac, but all are pronounced the same way.

Fudge is the region's best-known sweet, sold by the slab in shops in town and on the island, and whitefish and Upper Peninsula pasties are on many menus. The summer season is short and busy, and winter brings heavy snow and ice on the straits.