Mackinac Without a Car, Obviously

Mackinac Island asks you to leave the car on the mainland, which sounds like an inconvenience until you realize it is the whole point. The island banned automobiles in 1898 and has run on horses, bicycles, and its own two feet ever since, so the trip requires a little more planning than most American getaways and repays every minute of it. Everything below assumes a stay of two nights, which is the minimum for the island to stop feeling like an excursion and start feeling like a place.

Two ferry lines make the crossing from Mackinaw City and St. Ignace, and both are owned by the same company these days, so the choice is more about schedule than loyalty. Shepler's runs the fast catamarans and has been at it since 1945, while Arnold Transit is the old name on the water, tracing its line back to 1878, with classic boats for anyone who wants the crossing to last a little longer. The season runs from late April to the end of October, the crossing takes about twenty minutes, and some departures detour under the Mackinac Bridge at no charge, which is worth planning around. Arrive an hour early, hand your luggage to the dock crew, and it will find its way to your hotel by carriage while you find your way on foot.

The Grand Hotel is the reason many families have been coming for a century, with the longest porch in the world out front and dinner still an occasion, and the same weeks book out year after year to the same names. It is a splurge and makes no apology for it. Mission Point Resort, on the island's quieter eastern shore, spreads its lawn down to the water and takes a more relaxed line on most things, while the inns along the harbor put you closest to the ferry docks and the fudge shops of Main Street. Wherever you land, book far earlier than feels reasonable, since the island's whole inventory is spoken for on summer weekends.

Rent bicycles for the length of the stay rather than the hour, since the island opens up on two wheels. The shore road, M-185, runs a little over eight miles around the island's edge and is the only state highway in America that has never seen a car, with the water on one side the entire way. It takes a leisurely morning with stops. Inland, the roads climb through the woods to Arch Rock and the old fort, and the hills are honest, so gear accordingly and reward yourself with fudge on the way down.

Fort Mackinac has stood over the harbor since the Revolution and its cannon still fires on schedule, which the whole island hears and nobody minds. The butterfly house pleases children and unhurried adults in equal measure, the carriage tours cover the island's history at a horse's pace, and the porches were built for the hours in between. October brings a quieter island with the trees turning, and the regulars will tell you the shoulder weeks are the ones worth having, right up until the ferries stop for the winter.

The island works because nothing about it has needed to change, and the families who return every summer are not nostalgic so much as correct. Take the early ferry over, let the luggage go on ahead, and give it two nights before you decide whether you are a Mackinac person. Most people already know by the first evening.