Starting your trip at Delta County Airport in Escanaba means everything around the region sits within an easy drive. Escanaba is a harbor town on Little Bay de Noc, the big sheltered arm of Lake Michigan at the base of the Upper Peninsula. It is a working town with a wide, old-fashioned main street, a lighthouse park on the water, and a Yooper sense of humor that comes with the territory.

Things to do around Escanaba: - Walk Ludington Park and climb the Sand Point Lighthouse on the bay - Browse the shops and restaurants along Ludington Street downtown - Fish for walleye on Little Bay de Noc, one of the best walleye waters in the Midwest - Visit the Delta County Historical Museum next to the lighthouse - Come for the Upper Peninsula State Fair in August, the only state fair in the UP - Drive out to Peninsula Point Lighthouse to see monarch butterflies gather in late summer - Explore the ghost town and iron furnace at Fayette Historic State Park on the Garden Peninsula

Gladstone is ten minutes north of Escanaba, and the crystal-clear spring at Kitch-iti-kipi near Manistique is about an hour east. Iron Mountain is an hour west, Marquette and the Lake Superior shore are about 75 minutes north, and the twin towns of Menominee and Marinette are about an hour south. Green Bay sits at the edge of a two-hour drive. Order a pasty, pick up a bag of Trenary Toast, and try the smoked whitefish from a roadside shop. Escanaba is calm, unhurried, and close to the water in every direction.