Midwest road trip

[Stephanei_7706]

Me and my fiance want to go on a 4 day road trip starting monday. We will leave from the twin cities, MN and we don't care where we go, yet we want to have some structure. Does anyone have any ideas of fun cute places for us to go? any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you ;)

[Mark Sedenquist]

Me and my fiance want to go on a 4 day road trip starting monday.

Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum! I love that you are destination agnostic. Weather has been mighty peculiar in the last 24 hours and I am reluctant to offer many ideas until I look at the weather outlooks. Would you rather travel a long ways on a couple of days or short distances or just hole-up someplace fun? What kinds of places would match your definition of cute?

Badlands is pretty cool -- but again, I got to check the weather.

Mark

[Midwest Michael]

A trip to the Mackinaw/Sault Ste Marie area of northern Michigan might be nice. It's certainly off-seaon up there, but the Mackinaw area certainly has a large degree of cuteness. I know the ski resorts in the UP are also still open, if that is something you might be interested in. I don't believe any major snowstorms are expected this week, and I'd guess temps would be in the upper-20's, there, but you'll probably want to double check that.

4 days might also give you enough time to do a full loop around Lake Superior. Or, the Apostle Islands also could be fun. A couple I know went up there for a long weekend last winter and had a great time. And I also know a lot of people who think Door County, Wisconsin is very cute.

I bet you could also have a real nice time working your way south following the Mississippi along the Great River Road. You could probably spend your first three days exploring the small towns along the way, and then then hit the freeway for your trip home.

If any of those ideas are helpful, I can probably give you some more specifics of things to check out along the way.

[Mark Sedenquist]

Does anyone have any ideas of fun cute places for us to go?

I knew Michael would have some good ideas to get this thread rolling. I have a destination in mind that I bet you have never heard of... It is the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale, Mississippi. It is little changed from the days when it housed the workers on a southern plantation and it is in the heart of the birthplace of the blues. It is about 978 miles from St. Paul, so it might be a bit far...

A lot closer, but still a lot of fun are the B&Bs you can find in old town St. Charles near St. Louis. If you go there -- you must stop by Vivian's and sample Friar Tuck's 2nd Best Margarita in the World.

Mark

[Midwest Michael]

I'm guessing they've already left, but turns out I was way off thinking they wouldn't see any snowstorms this week. Turns out they are expecting about a foot of snow on a line from Minneapolis to the UP today.

Oops!

However, I did just read a nice article about why spring is a great time to tour small towns along the Great River Road from a travel writer in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

[Stephanei_7706]

Origanally we were going to leave today for a roadtrip, but with our work schedules we wern't able to leave. Next saturday I have my collage entry exams, and we have booked a hotel for friday and saturday night in River falls, does anyone know of any fun attractions within and hour drive of river falls, we need stuff to do for fri, sat and sunday, also we were thinking of stopping somewhere on sunday night, on the way back to the cities, any ideas? Oh and you were right, lots and lots of snow. Thanks for any advice/ideas you can give me.

[Midwest Michael]

I can think of lots of fun things to do within an hour of River Falls, However, most of them are in St. Paul or Minneapolis and I'm guessing that's not what you are looking for.

Prescott is a nice nearby little river town with a few pretty decent restaurants along the riverfront. You might also head down to Red Wing and check out the St. James Hotel or the Pottery Place. The travel article I linked to above also had more ideas for things to do in that area.

[RoadDog]

There are great sights to be seen and small towns on both sides of the Mississippi. With a couple days, you could get to perhaps LaCrosse, Wisconsin. One day there, one day back should cover it. RoadDog