Skip the touristy spots & dine where the locals eat out while on vacation

 When you enter a town known as a vacation destination it can be easy to bust your family's budget on meals with hyped up prices from restaurants looking to cash in on visiting tourists.  If you want to enjoy dining out while on vacation but also need to be a budget conscious traveler consider skipping the touristy spots and find out the establishments the locals frequent.  These diners, restaurants, and taverns will often provide you a taste of what makes the community appealing to the people who live there and a menu that's priced more down to earth to be affordable to the locals who make an average living servicing all the tourists who are in town.  Plus often times you may just find something delicious and unique to eat or drink as these establishments provide something produced locally or that caters to local tastes.

So where do you find out where the locals hang out?  Well you don't want to find out through the visitor magazines and pamphlets that promote a town because those tend to be all sponsored editorials and ads where you'll most likely find some of that advertising expense added into the cost of your dinner tab.  Also beware that often times hotels and resorts get commissions or have referral deals with local establishments looking to cash in on visiting tourists.  One way I often get tips on the best places to eat while on vacation is by picking up some postcards and taking them to the local post office to mail to friends and family.  Instead of just throwing the post cards in a mail box or slot though, I go up to the counter to buy some stamps and strike up a conversation with the person working the counter about interesting things to do and best places to eat at while in town.  I always get great suggestions that help filter out which places are truly worth while to visit and which ones are primarily tourist traps.  Another good spot to get some honest advice of what the locals think about area restaurants is to swing by a grocery store to pick up some snacks.  While you are doing your shopping ask some of the staff where they frequent and which restaurants they'd recommend to their friends and family.  Speaking of friends and family, post online through social media that you are thinking of visiting a particular place and ask if anyone has been there or knows people there that could give you some recommendations.  Then Yelp their suggestions.  Just don't post when you are actually going because you don't want to worry about who knows who seeing that information and returning home to find your house cleared out by some robbers who knew you were out of town.

During a family vacation to Traverse City which has a reputation for being a premiere Michigan summer travel destination, we decided to look into where the locals go to eat out.  We found that a lot of the places where diners or taverns because these have traditionally been the places that stayed up all year long rather than reducing hours or closing up in the winter when the tourists are primarily gone.  If you happen to head that way for a Michigan Up North adventure, check out these fine places:

The Jolly Pumpkin

With its housemade white fish dip for an appetizer and bison sloppy joes for a lunch or dinner this restaurant has a unique menu that for being part of a brewery is very family friendly.  The barn like decor of the building gives visitors a Sleepy Hollow vibe as they enjoy their meals.  The atmosphere and food make this a delightful spot to enjoy a memorable meal.  The restaurant is tied to a brewery which provides some great beer selections to enjoy during a meal but I'd suggest giving their hard cider a taste which is brewed from apples harvested from an on-site orchard.  I'd also note that during our visit we had exceptional service and they even went out of their way to make something special for my picky eater son when he didn't particularly care for anything on the menu.

The Jolly Pumpkin is a bit out of the way from many of the normal tourist spots as it located mid-way up Old Mission Peninsula in a rural spot that is somewhat of a haul to get to from where most of the downtown and beach activities are at.  It is a scenic drive to The Jolly Pumpkin with some great views of Grand Traverse Bay and a nice way to unwind while you are on a vacation getaway by taking the drive over there.  The quickest route is to take M-37 straight there from downtown Traverse City but I'd highly recommend meandering along Peninsula Drive enjoying the wonderful scenery along this path instead.

The Cottage

This casual and comfortable diner is located along M-31 just west of the Traverse City State Park. The Cottage's specialty is All You Can Eat Freshwater Perch which it has been serving for more than 20 years. It caught our attention because it seemed to be the place a lot of seniors were going to eat which normally means good food at affordable prices.  We weren't disappointed!

They have great deals when it comes to Kids Meals which range in price from $3 to $5 dollars.  My kids received generous portions and really devoured their meals which they only do when what they are eating is really good.  So this was a really great deal when it comes to families with kids looking to eat out.  It just wasn't the kids who enjoyed their meals though.  I ordered the meatloaf which The Cottage brags is based on a family recipe.  It was loaded with mashed potatoes, gravy and fried onions and I literally was licking my plate off as I finished off my meal it was that good.

Pangea's Pizza

Located on Front Street in the heart of Traverse City this wonderful pizzeria creates pizza pies from its own housemade dough and locally supplied ingredients that is a perfect meal for a hungry family on vacation.  They still hand-toss the pizzas as they get the dough ready for the oven and each one is handcrafted with sauce and toppings.  No pulling a ready made pizza out of the freezer and throwing it in the oven here.  The restaurant has a great downtown vibe to it and is a fun place to hang out while enjoying a meal.  It does have limited seating though and is a popular place that tends to have a line and crowd to get in.  If you don't feel like eating at Pangea's they offer carry out so you can order ahead and just pick it up to eat at the beach or the place you are staying.  We enjoyed the pizza so much that we went back the day our family was leaving town to bring one back with us to eat when we got home as a final reminder of our great Up North trip to Traverse City, Michigan.

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We weren't able to hit everyplace that locals recommended we go to during our vacation but here are a few more places we want to visit the next time we make it to Traverse City:

Sleder's Family Tavern

Built in 1882 by a Bohemian wheelwright named Vencil Sleder this is the oldest continually operated restaurant in the state of Michigan.   Among the hunting trophies and stuffed animals that decorate the place is a moose named Randolph and it is a local tradition to KISS THE MOOSE FOR LUCK.  With a tin ceiling, hardwood floors and more than a century old mahogany bar  this place seems like it will really take you back in time to the lumberjack days gone by of the region during a visit.  In fact the tavern is located in a neighborhood called Slabtown which is an old working class district of the city where the houses were built with slabs of scrap wood salvaged from the local sawmills.

Little Bohemia

This tavern the locals call Lil Bo's started off as a hot dog stand that was the cover for a secret speakeasy during Prohibition.  The second oldest tavern in Traverse City after Sleder's it was named in honor of the Bohemian community that settled in this part of the state.  The place is know for its great "sammiches" , olive burgers, eggplant, gnocchi and lasagna plus some Bohemian recipe house specials.

Round's

Is a breakfast joint that locals praise for its homemade hash.  Hash, hash, hash when someone speaks about Round's that is about all that comes out of their smiling mouths.  If you enjoy a good breakfast it appears that Round's is the place to go and is a popular hang out spot of the local residents.  My insider's tip is to order the Red Velvet Hash Omelet but I've head lots of good things about almost everything else on the menu too especially from the helpful lady I spoke to at the post office.  Only downside is that it appears to be a small space and not always easy to get a seat.

Ham-Bonz 

Talk about a tiny, quaint place to eat, Ham-Bonz serves up smoked ham, turkey, beef and pulled pork for enormous omelets and sandwiches cooked up from a backyard pit grill.  I've been told this is the closest thing to pure Southern BBQ you'll find outside of the Mississippi Delta.  My wife and I love pulled pork so we absolutely have to get around to checking this place out.

Great Wolf Lodge - Traverse City

Our family took a summer road trip to Traverse City, which is about a four hour drive from Detroit located in the northwest corner of Michigan's lower peninsula (or the top of the pinky finger of the mitten if you use your hand to describe a location in the state like us Michiganders are known to do), to enjoy a few days at the Great Wolf Lodge.  While this resort has a rustic wilderness theme to it we found its amenities and staff service to be first class providing for a comfortable and enjoyable stay.

We reserved a standard room and found it to be very spacious for our family of four and conveniently equipped with a fridge, microwave, coffee maker, pull-out sleeper couch, two queen size beds and a dinner table suitable for our whole family to sit at.  The best part of the room though had to be the mattresses ... they were so comfy!  Seriously, these beds were more comfortable than many I've slept at while staying at some really highly-rated "luxury" hotels. I wasn't expecting this at a family-focused resort and it was a really pleasant surprise.  Throughout our stay I consistently had a great night's sleep thanks to those beds being so comfortable.  My wife and kids even remarked to me about how comfortable the beds were so I know it wasn't just me being tuckered out from all our vacation's activities.

The big highlight of a stay at Great Wolf Lodge is it's indoor water park.  It is filled with a variety of water slides, splash pads, and pools that can provide countless hours of family fun with a variety of features that cater to children of various ages.  The central feature is Fort Mackenzie which a huge interactive tree house located on a splash pad.  Since there is no standing water, there are no age or height restrictions so anyone from a toddler to grandpa can play here.  Fort Mackenzie is full of suspension bridges, swinging cargo net ladders, spray cannons, and water features.  Some of the water features are great for getting yourself wet while others are meant for targeting other people who may be in your proximity.  The biggest, and probably the most popular, part of Fort Mackenzie is a huge bucket located at the top of the tree house that pours down a 1,000 gallons of water every 5 minutes.  Make sure you have your swim suit tied up tight because one unlucky guy standing next to me during one of the downpours had his pulled down to his knees by the water and that was something no one wanted to see.  Ooops...thank goodness that wasn't me!

At the back end of the tree house there are two water slides called the Totem Towers that can be slid down to get back to the ground level.  It is really fun to pair up with someone and race to the bottom.  I had a few races against my son and daughter which I always won ... I think weight played a factor there but hey a win is a win.  A nice thing about these water slides is that you end up in a zero depth chute rather than a pool.  So if you have a child who can't swim they can still have tons of fun playing at the interactive tree house and riding the water slides without the worry of them drowning.  Plus there are a few lifeguards stationed at this attraction too just to be on the safe side.

 

In addition to the Totem Towers water slides there are also two other ones at the rear of the park.  There is the Alberta Falls which is a four story fast-paced water slide full of twists and turns which you can ride down on a single tube by yourself or on a double tube with a friend or family member.  You have to be 48" tall to ride this by yourself and my kids are 46" so I had to ride down it with them all the time.  It was a really fun ride but after constantly lugging the inner tubes and climbing four stories of stairs for each ride my legs were pretty sore on the car ride home.  I wasn't going to take my iPhone on this ride but here's a video from the resort's website highlight a trip down Alberta Falls:



The other big water slide is the River Canyon Run where you can have up to 3 people jump aboard one huge raft to that hurls its way down a four story curvy chute.  Again the minimum height for this ride is 48" so my wife and I had to ride this with our kids.  Since they were just a smidgen too short the next time we take a vacation to Great Wolf Lodge they should be all set to go on these by themselves. Note too that children shorter than 42" can't ride either the Alberta Falls or River Canyon Run even with an adult accompanying them.

Great Wolf Lodge's lazy river is called the  Crooked Creek and is a 132,000 gallon stream that you can ride a tube around in as it is pushed along a course by a gentle current.  It is about 3 feet deep and they let kids who are too short or may not be comfortable in the water to wear life vests.  My kids really enjoyed the Crooked Creek and spent a lot of time in it, but they didn't want to use the tubes they just wanted to run and swim along with the current.  In fact a lot of the kids there were like that and that must be fine because the life guards didn't seem to be bothered.  I was somewhat disappointed with the Crooked Creek as while it was fine for younger kids, it was very short and seemed squeezed between Fort Mackenzie and the rear water slides so it wasn't very nice for just grabbing a tube and trying to relax on.

There is also an area called Cubs Paw Pool that is meant for children 48" and shorter that features a toddler-friendly pool with zero depth entry and maximum depth of one and a half feet at its deepest level filled with a bunch of spray devices and interactive water toys plus a couple of water slides just for little ones that provide a super safe experience for preschoolers and parents to enjoy together.  If your kids are at an age where they can swim there are a couple of deeper level pools they'll have fun in.  The Big Foot Pass has lily pads that kids must jump across to get from one side to the other.   Note the water is more than four feet deep here and my kids couldn't touch the bottom but they also can swim and had parental supervision.  This was the one area of the water park as a parent I was a little nervous about with my kids because of the depth of the pool versus my kids height and the hectic atmosphere that had numerous kids jumping all about. There is also another pool next to this one filled with basketball hoops and we spent quite a bit of time playing catch and shooting baskets there. Plus there is an outdoor pool with a big splash pad next to it if you want to get some fresh air and sunlight during a visit to this resort during the summer months.

It really does come down to it that this water park is for family's with young children.  My kids loved it and they were still a little too small to fully enjoy it.  If you have children between preschool and middle school age A Geek Daddy gives Great Wolf Lodge a nod of approval for being an incredibly nice family friendly resort that will keep the kids and parents who want to play with them entertained.  On the other hand, it is my impression that teens would get quickly bored and you absolutely wouldn't want to go there for a romantic getaway with your special someone.  The ideal age range for this resort is probably 3 to 10 years old from our experiences and observations.  So Great Wolf Lodge is a great choice for a family vacation when you have young children living in your home and we'll absolutely be going back again with our kids sometime in the future.

In addition to the water park there are a variety of activities you can do at the resort that don't involve getting wet.  The most popular is called MagiQuest.  This is a game where you are provided riddles to answer that with the aid of a magic wand can reward you with runes and gold coins to complete quests.  There are props, animated features, and computerized screens that are activated by waving your wand at them to trigger special effects or to confirm you've found the right location in the riddle you are trying to solve.

Once you've found all the locations hidden in the clues of your quest's riddle there is a stage where you get to interact with a character like a fairy or princess on a large video screen.  Once you've reached the last stage of the last quest there is an intricate video game confrontation you battle out with an impressive dragon simulation that really thrilled the people who got that far ... we didn't make it there ourselves though only reaching some of the middle quests that involved interacting with the princess character to get runes and rewards to help us keep moving forward in the game.

The is a large store at the resort filled with MagiQuest wands, accessories, clothing and gear.  A basic wand and game play package is $30 but with add ons, accessories and multiple children a parent could quickly find themselves spending more than a hundred dollars equipping a family for this experience.  I'd recommend just buying one of the basic wands for $15 and the game access for $15.  A family can have just as much fun playing together with one wand as if you purchased one for everyone.  To be honest it isn't like the game's props and features are that amazing that your kids will be disappointed if they don't have their own wand to trigger the MagiQuest special effects.  The fun in the game is more in enjoying family time together wandering around the resort solving the puzzles to gain runes and gold coins to move forward with new quests. Don't throw away your wand after your trip is over because the next time you visit you can use it again - you just need to pay the $15 fee to activate a new game during your stay.

Additionally, Great Wolf Lodge has some other fun options to entertain kids during their stay.  There is the Howl in One Mini Golf course which has 18 challenging holes filled with tricky shots, giant animals and golf ball eating fish.  The Ten Paw Alley is a hoot with its half-length lanes, built-in bumpers and five-pound balls that lets you bowl without having to change your shoes.  There's a huge arcade that is like Vegas for Kids emitting bright neon lights and exciting sounds filled with games of skill and chance where kids can earn tickets to win prizes.  I wasn't that impressed with the arcade because it wasn't really filled with many games or video simulators but rather was all focused on kids spending money to earn tickets to win trinkets.  There also was a Kids Spa with an ice cream theme where mommies and daughters can spend some girl time together getting Mommy & Me manicures and pedicures.  We spent all our time enjoying the water park, outdoor pool and MagiQuest during our stay and didn't get a chance to try out the mini golf, bowling alley, arcade or the kids spa ourselves.

We did make sure though to take in the Great Clock Tower show which is a performance by animatronic animals and trees that take takes place during the evening in the Grand Lobby.  These "northwoods" themed shows filled with stories and songs featuring Great Wolf Lodge's cast of animal mascots were a great treat during a Michigan "Up North" vacation.

Don't miss the nightly bed time story in the Grand Lobby either where one of the resort's Ambassadors of Fun and either Wiley or Violet the Wolf Kids read the story of how the wood's wild animals came together to create the Great Wolf Lodge.  This is really a nice ending for a fun-filled day.

We really had an enjoyable time and left with plenty of memorable moments to share with friends and family on our return home.  If you are looking for a great spot to go for a family vacation that won't bust your household budget definitely keep Great Wolf Lodge in mind.  If Traverse City might not be a convenient road trip for your family there are 12 other locations spread across the USA and Canada including in Ontario near the scenic Niagara Falls, in Virginia near Colonial Williamsburg, and in Sandusky Ohio near the amazing Cedar Point Amusement Park so you can easily incorporate a Great Wolf Lodge stay within a larger stay to various touristy destinations. For more information, visit GreatWolf.com.

** Our Great Wolf Lodge visit was paid for entirely at our own expense without any special perks or benefits from the resort. Opinions expressed are my own **