Customer Reviews

Michigan Off the Beaten Path, 9th (Off the Beaten Path Series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book had too many random snippets of information that were not well organized. I would read about a place but then could not find the name of the place on any map or list in the book to see exactly where in the Michigan region it was. I brought the book with me on a recent trip to the the Lake Michigan Coast but did not end up using it at all. The author's hiking book is much more useful.

It has been helpful to plan some daytrips for my senior residents.! Thank you.

A great guide to plan your trip to Michigan and see exciting places and things that the locals miss out on.

I always buy a few travel books when planning a vacation and I like to buy the "Off the Beaten Path" type with hidden gems you wouldn't normally find. It was hard to find good books for Michigan when planning a Mackinac/Fall Color tour. This one had a few interesting side trip items that we definitely did enjoy (the Ironton Ferry, for example) but it seemed disorganized and confusing. I had to do a lot of flipping back and forth to find things in the same area and the routes mentioned were confusing, occasionally wrong (checked by google maps), and took a lot more planning on my part outside of the book. It doesn't do a good job of mentioning how long certain drives might take. In the end, I probably got my money's worth in the tips for the trip but it took a lot more work on my part than simply buying this book.

Excellent delivery time, excellent condition, it's a gift so I haven't read it, but I looked through it and it looks like a really good book for us, we're always looking for drives to take on our days off.

This book is targeted for the upper middle class types who view northern Michigan as a "quaint" extension of their shopping-based suburban existance. Most of the sites described are not at all "off the beaten path". One classic example will suffice, and I quote from page 146: "While Dad is out on the links, the kids are making a splash in 88,000 square feet of spraying gushers, falling water, splash pools, and wild rides." I'm not sure about you, but places like Avalanche Bay, the new water park at the VERY pricey Boyne Mountain ski resort, are NOT my idea of getting "off the beaten path". It is false advertising to name this book thus. And puh-leeze, Mr. DuFrense, stow the long-winded description of your forced march walk with your spouse to the summit of Avalanche Peak. You'd think you had scaled Everest!! Maybe it wouldn't have been so grueling if you hadn't slammed those two bottles of Lake Trout Stout at the Boyne City Brewing Company beforehand!! Let the buyer beware...