A Sweet and Savory Road Trip in Northern Michigan

Ask any Michigander to define 'Up North,' a colloquial term for Northern Michigan, and you'll find the answer varies widely. For the past 40 years, my family has defined it as the greater Grand Traverse Bay — an arm of Lake Michigan where miles of white sand beaches and towering dunes stretch alongside freshwater lakes so vast they resemble oceans. Here, wildflower meadows bloom, cherry orchards thrive, rolling farmlands unfold and nowhere else do we eat as well.
Over the years, we've learned that the best way to experience the flavors of the land and the lakes is by visiting local farm stands, orchards, wineries and fisheries to gather the region's bounty at the source.
Canada
10 miles
Traverse City
Lake Michigan
Minn.
michIGAN
31
Idyll Farms
Michigan
Grand
Traverse
Bay
Lakeview Hill Farm & Market
Carlson's Fishery
Bellaire
Smokehouse
Loma Farm
Old Mission
Peninsula
Farm Club
22
West Arm
Grand Traverse
Bay
Leelanau Cheese
Bos Wine
Elk Rapids
Leelanau
Peninsula
Interwater Farms
72
Taproot Cider House
The Cooks' House
S2S Sugar to Salt
Traverse City
131
31
31
2 miles
Canada
10 miles
Traverse City
michIGAN
Michigan
Idyll Farms
31
Grand
Traverse
Bay
Carlson's Fishery
Bellaire
Smokehouse
Leelanau Cheese
Bos Wine
Elk Rapids
Interwater Farms
Lakeview Hill
Loma Farm
Farm Club
Taproot Cider House
The Cooks' House
72
S2S Sugar to Salt
Traverse City
131
By The New York Times
A tour beginning in Traverse City, either venturing west to the villages of Suttons Bay, Leland and Northport, or east to Elk Rapids, Williamsburg and Eastport, could have your vehicle, by day's end, brimming with organic fruit and vegetables, freshly caught whitefish, bottles of Riesling, creamy cheese, baked goods and more.
Each stop on this sweet and savory tour offers a taste of a region as diverse as it is delicious. As the season starts, farmers are planting their crops and preparing for the busy summer months, when the region welcomes more than eight million tourists between now and Labor Day.
A Different Way of Farming
Just seven miles from downtown Traverse City lies Farm Club, a restaurant, bakery, brewery, market and fermentation project that has quickly become a cornerstone of the region's food scene. The restaurant offers a true farm-to-table experience (minus any pretension), while the market overflows with fresh produce, wines, East Coast Pale Ale beer ($13 for a six-pack), sea salt chocolate rye cookies ($3 each), stone-milled heirloom cornmeal ($7 a bag) and five-pound brown bags of flour milled on-site ($12). Coolers are stocked with housemade pickles ($10) and sauerkraut ($12) fermented on-site, a vibrant snapshot of what the farm — two acres at Farm Club and an additional eight acres down the road at their main farm, Loma Farm — has to offer.
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