Best Summer Ever: Explore Michigan Art, History, Adventure and More
Julie Bitely
| 2 min read
It’s the season Michiganders long for during cold, gray winters and wet, dreary springs. Ahhh, summer, shine your light and warmth on us!
If you’re making weekend or vacation plans, you should know about the Michigan Activity Pass program, which allows library card holders statewide to get free or discounted access to hundreds of Michigan’s state parks, historic sites, cultural attractions, campgrounds and recreation areas.
We poured over more than 400 places throughout the state that participate in the program and made our MAP bucket lists for adventure, art and history. Explore all the participating destinations here.
Get Your Adventure On
- Zip-line above majestic trees at The Adventure Park in West Bloomfield.
- Want to experience the thrill of jumping out of a plane? Go for it at Skydive Tecumseh in Napoleon.
- Fly down Michigan’s only Alpine Slide, the Crystal Coaster, at Crystal Mountain Resort in Thompsonville.
- Time travel to the 16th century at the annual Michigan Renaissance Festival in Holly.
Experience Art
If you’re an art lover, there’s a MAP destination for you in almost every corner of the state. These are some of our favorites:
- DeVos Art Museum in Marquette
- Dennos Museum Center in Traverse City
- Art Experience in Pontiac
- Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills
- Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts in Grand Rapids
Learn About Michigan’s History
- Learn about the state’s earliest people through the late 20th century at the Michigan History Museum in Lansing.
- Michigan’s only known rock carvings made by Native Americans can be discovered at the Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic Site in Cass City.
- Over 47,000 artifacts are on display at the Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan in Alpena, where you can also find and keep Devonian period fossils from the LaFarge Fossil Park exhibit.
- Provocative exhibits use “objects of intolerance to teach tolerance and promote social justice at the Jim Crow Museum in Big Rapids.
- Learn about a once-bustling industrial community at the Fayette Historic Townsite.
- Learn more about Holland’s Dutch heritage at Nelis’ Dutch Village.
Learn more about the MAP program here. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan is a sponsor.
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Photo credit: jgagnon
