South Haven, Michigan

About two years ago, Alex surprised me with this amazing trip to Michigan after I begged for a beach summer trip. He found us this awesome Airbnb near Shelby where there was a public beach down the road from us that put Florida beaches to shame. So this summer I found another Airbnb in Michigan, this time by South Haven. The drive this year was shorter, only four and a half hours from Moline, which was nice. We took our time to get up in the morning on Sunday and leave by 11 am. We arrived in South Haven around 4 pm (they are one hour ahead of us). 

The Airbnb, which I neglected to take pictures of, could be summed up in one word: disappointing. The host had advertised that it was by lookout and beach, however, she implied that it was just beyond the backyard of the house. The lookout was a five-minute walk while the small private beach was a fifteen-minute walk. Whatever, not a huge deal, just misleading. What was more irritating was the cleanliness of the home. The first thing we noticed when we walked in was the smell. The rugs were supposed to be white and blue but instead were gray. The white couch (who uses a white couch in an Airbnb?!) was stained and smelled so bad! I was so grossed out. That evening we ran to Walmart so I could purchase slippers to wear in the house and we threw the extra bed comforters over the couch so we could have the illusion of cleanliness. 

The neighborhood lookout spot was beautiful!

Once we got past making the best of our rental and Alex made it clear I was demoted from choosing future Airbnb rentals, we went to explore the town of South Haven. It was about a 15-minute drive into town and we stopped to eat dinner at a restaurant called Brewpub. I ordered an impossible burger which was okay but their cocktail stole the show. I ordered two of their Shark Bite drinks which had coconut rum, blue curacao, pineapple juice, and sprite. Delicious! 

Shark Bite ooh ha ha! 

After dinner, we walked around for a bit. The town is tourist oriented so a lot of the shops were gift shops or shops oriented toward South Haven memorabilia. There were tons of options for restaurants which we loved although we weren’t planning to eat out every meal. Everything is within walking distance around the town square and if it wasn’t, it was a few minute drive away. We ended our night early since we were tired from driving and returned to the stinky Airbnb where we caught up on the latest Game of Thrones House of the Dragon episode. 

We had an uneventful Monday. We grabbed brunch in South Haven at a breakfast café called Phoenix Street Café. Since the town is more of a tourist town, a majority of breakfast/brunch places didn’t open until Wednesday. Phoenix Street Café was one of the only ones open on Monday. I ordered the eggs benedict and potatoes. My first impression when I saw how many potatoes they give you was that there weren’t enough. However, after finishing my meal, I was stuffed and found it was just enough! The eggs benedict were okay but I’m a benedict snob. Despite disliking our setting for the next week, we decided to stay inside the rest of the day since there was a huge storm set to hit by early afternoon. While the storm was rolling in on the lake, we walked to the neighborhood’s lookout and enjoyed the view of the darkening sky. The rest of the day we enjoyed the rain with the windows open and read. We cooked hot pockets (I know: glamorous, gourmet, and healthy) for dinner that night. 

I woke up Tuesday morning to Alex cooking breakfast (10/10 fiancé). We took our time to wake up, eat, and get ready and then headed to town again, this time to spend the day at the North Beach. It wasn’t as busy as we thought it would be, which was wonderful! It was, however, exceptionally windy that day so the waves were huge! I opted out of going in the water, and Alex went in up to his waist and hopped a few waves before calling it quits. We spent a few hours soaking in the sun and relaxing before grabbing dinner at the Black River Tavern. Um, delicious Caesar salad! And beer! And cocktails…honestly all of it was good. Probably one of the top places I’d recommend in South Haven. The building itself is cute and gives English pub vibes which I always appreciate. It was a peaceful place to hang out for the evening. 

Beautiful and windy beach day.

Wednesday was similar to Tuesday–we did an early lunch instead of eating breakfast. This time we stopped at a little place by the water called Captain Lou’s. The inside of the restaurant had dollars taped all over the walls and ceiling with written notes (mostly dirty jokes) on them. I thought it was an interesting and unique choice of decoration. I ordered another Caesar salad (been on a Caesar binge lately) and this one was okay. I did notice they had an impossible burger and coveted Alex’s burger and fries which looked really good. We spent the rest of the day at the beach again and ended our day with ice cream at a shop called Kilwin’s, which was yummy! 

Dollar dollar bills.

While walking downtown the day before, I noticed a little candle shop called Kalamazoo Candle Company that had a candle-making sign in its window. We decided to stop in Thursday morning before lunch. The shop had two options for making your own candle: either a traditional wax one that takes an hour to cool or a sand wax option. For the convenience of time, we chose the sand candle option for $10. There weren’t as many scent options for the sand but what they had was enough, in my opinion. I chose about five different colors/scents and tried to make my candle look “beachy”. It turned out very pretty and was fun! For the rest of the week, I wanted to go back but we never ended up going for a second candle.

Alex adding the top layer of sand

After candle making, we walked to a restaurant for lunch. Thursday I searched for a while for places to eat. I was a little limited on vegetarian choices at the restaurants since I’m a little picky with what is in my salad. We ended up at Admiral Jack’s which is a barge on the water. I had read reviews about their popular burger and their spicy cheese curds. We ordered the curds as an appetizer, Alex ordered the Jack’s burger, and I ordered their Southwest salad. The curds were delicious, they definitely had a kick to them! The salad was different but I liked it. There was too much for me to finish but I was glad I branched out to try it. Alex gave the burger a high rating and said it was the best one he’d eaten downtown.

Southwest salad–yum! 

We finished our lunch and headed to the Michigan Maritime Museum for an afternoon ride on the Friends Good Will ship. I found out about the museum online and was excited to buy us tickets for a ride. The ship is an all wood replica of an 1800s ship that sailed Lake Michigan primarily to transport liquor. After a brief history lesson, they boarded our group. To say I was excited is an understatement (I was geeking out so hard). The staff of the museum has learned to man and sail the ship as the original would’ve been so everything was manually done with the lifting and dropping of the sails. It was so cool! We even got to help lower a sail!

A pirate's life for me! (Not really, I get seasick...)

Was a gorgeous day to sail! 

After our sailing excursion, we returned to Captain Lou’s for a late dinner and drinks. This time, I got the impossible burger and it satisfied my burger craving. Was SO good! They somehow managed to capture the perfect charred taste and they had a delicious seasoning on their fries (Lawry’s?). Their drinks were very strong, and Alex had high ratings for the margaritas.

On Friday, we took our time waking up and ate breakfast at the Airbnb. Then we hit the road for a day trip to Muskegon. From South Haven, Muskegon is about an hour and a half. The beach in Muskegon is huge! There is also a cute BBQ restaurant and bar directly on the beach. We spent a few hours sitting at the beach and as we were leaving grabbed ice cream cones for the ride home. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of the ice cream. I ordered a small and could barely finish half of it, there was so much. Alex mapped us a route separate from the way Google was taking us so that we could have a scenic route home. We love pointing out our favorite houses on long drives. We made it back to the Airbnb in time to walk down to the neighborhood beach for the sunset.  

Muskegon beach

Muskegon lighthouse

Back from Muskegon in time for the South Haven Sunset (and probably the coolest picture I captured on our trip).

Saturday we dedicated to visiting local breweries. Our first stop was Waypost Brewing which sits at the back of a large plot of land outside of town in a farmhouse-style building. Alex and I split a flight of 4 beers–the Sea Salt Stout, the Flora, Blueberry Basil Sour, and the Punch Bowl. I liked two out of the four (the sea salt and the flora) and he liked the punch bowl, which the blueberry sour was too sour for either of us. I recommend the flora, it was fruity and sweet–something I usually like in my beers. I’m not usually one for dark beers but the sea salt was pretty good too. They had a beautiful porch outside to enjoy the sunny weather while we sipped our drinks. 

Waypost Brewing

Three Blondes Brewing

We were wanting to visit a brewery downtown next but the holiday weekend (Labor day weekend) crowd had rolled in and parking was nonexistent. Instead, we went to Three Blondes Brewing which doesn’t sit directly in the town square but is about three minutes from it by the interstate. This was a cute bar and they offered flights of six beers with the option of pretzels and dip. Their beers were arguably even better than Waypost’s with their variation and taste. I did try their jalapeno beer and it was difficult to finish because of the spice! I recommend trying a flight at this bar! 

After a week in South Haven, we felt very relaxed and reluctant to return home! It was a quick and inexpensive trip from the Quad Cities and we didn’t have to fight a crowd for beach space. I will always recommend Michigan as a beautiful state to visit!