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Friday, October 25, 2013

Culinary Tours: The Most Delicious Way to Visit West Michigan

You've heard of taking a fall color tour around West Michigan, driving around to look at all the beautiful colors that go on display around this time of year. You may have even been a tourist in your home town, traveling around to visit the museums and well-known landmarks near by. But have you ever considered going on a Culinary Tour

Whether exploring new culinary experiences in your hometown or taking a culinary tour to taste a new town’s offerings, culinary tours can be focused on whatever your preference is! Want to find the best pulled-pork sandwich in town? Looking to get to know an area by sampling all of its local brews? A culinary tour is the way to go! You can plan the trip yourself by picking out restaurants that look appealing to you, or you can sign up for an established tour, and walk or drive around a town to hit all of the culinary highlights!

We've picked some of the best ways to get out and explore the culinary richness of West Michigan below. Why not take an afternoon or a weekend and tempt your taste buds on a culinary tour?


Tasty Morsel Culinary Excursions

West Michigan Culinary Tour Ideas:

San Chez Bistro, located in the heart of Grand Rapids, is a great stop on your culinary tour of the area! Take a break from fast food with breakfast and lunch by San Chez CafĂ©, made with the finest local ingredients, and prepared to order fresh seven days a week. San Chez Bistro offers a blend of authentic European and Mediterranean cuisine in a fun, laid-back, and artful atmosphere. Along with consuming delicious food, San Chez is offering a few opportunities for you to learn more! Sign up for their “Perfect Pairings” class 11/14 to learn how to pair beer & wine with your dinner, a knife skills class on 11/20, or “Effortless Entertaining” on 11/18 to become the best chef for your holidays parties you’ll be hosting.

Hudsonville Ice Cream, based out of our very own Hudsonville, MI, has a few limited edition flavors to celebrate the deliciousness of fall! The new “Pure Michigan Double Berry Pie” flavor combines blueberries and strawberries with pie crust pieces in Original Vanilla ice cream, and was even created by a Michigan native, Linda Ann Stewart from Taylor, MI! They will also be bringing back “Pure Michigan Caramel Apple,” which is a lightly flavored apple ice cream with apple and caramel throughout, and tastes just like fall should!

Promote Michigan is excited to announce the 6th Annual Grand Rapids International Wine, Beer, and Food Festival, taking place November 21-23 at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids. The festival features over one hundred wineries from around the world, offering samples of an many as 1,200 assorted wines. Chefs from some of the area’s top restaurants will be preparing and serving small plates of their culinary specialties, as well as partnering with wineries and breweries for special pairing meals. You’ll be able to attend seminars, demonstrations, and workshops at the festival, as well as sampling many of the finest beer, wine, and food offerings from the region.


Hungry Village Tours

Looking for a bit of mystery to spice up your culinary tour of West Michigan? Stop by St. Julian Winery in Paw Paw on November 2nd and enjoy a five-course dinner paired with locally made wines, but keep your eye out for the murder in the winery! Who knows, you might even be the killer! 

There are two culinary tours available daily from May through December through Hungry Village Tours. One is a walking tour, exploring Saugatuck's and Douglas’ culinary secrets behind their Saugatuck storefronts with history, demonstrations, and tastings. The second option is a Delicious Drive, featuring a tour of the lakeshore’s producers including farms, orchards, blueberry patches, vintners, creameries, and smokehouses. Both tours depart from the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, and offer extraordinary culinary adventures exploring the lakeshore’s plate! 

If you’re in the Traverse City area, make sure you sign up for one of the Tasty Morsel Culinary Excursions! You can choose to participate in a walking tour down Front Street or take the Tasty Morsel van to enjoy the best of the Leelanau Peninsula. With stops along the way including places like an organic winery, hydroponic farm, chocolate shop, fish market, cheese production facility, specialty herb and spice shop, bakery, distillery and more, this is a delicious way to spend a day!

San Chez Bistro

When visiting the Petosky Area, they offer a culinary tour with a printable download (http://www.petoskeyarea.com/culinary-trail-131/) so you can keep track of the delicious area restaurants you have yet to visit! 

Friday, October 18, 2013

Fall Camping (and Beyond!) in West Michigan

As summer fades into a few glorious weeks of fall here in West Michigan, it’s the perfect chance to take a weekend camping trip to get out and really experience all that fall encompasses. Pack up the tent or RV, some cozy sleeping bags to keep warm, & hit the road for one of the many campgrounds along the west side of the state. Whether you’re looking to camp right along the shores of Lake Michigan, deep in the woods far away from civilization, or as an easy access route into a nearby town, we’ve got you covered!



Campgrounds such as Twin Oaks Campground & Cabins are open year-round, for those of you brave enough for some cold-weather camping! Twin Oaks is located in the Manistee National Forest, and offers everything from rustic & group sites to full hook-up RV sites. They provide fun holiday activities, including hayrides and kids activities to help keep your kids entertained. Twin Oaks also caters to the snowmobiler crowd, with direct access to trails for lots of riding. With nearby activities including canoeing & fishing the Pine & Big Manistee Rivers, spring steelhead and fall salmon runs, the Big M Trail for mountain biking, morel mushrooming, and ORV/ATV trails, you could visit any time of year & not worry about running out of fun activities to do!



Take advantage of an Autumn Color Tour while you’re on the road by picking out one (or more!) of our 26 driving routes through West Michigan that we’ve designed with the best views of the color in mind. Make sure you check our weekly Fall Color Updates before you hit the road though; the fall colors can be here and gone before you know it, so we’re here to help you not miss any of it this season! If you’re looking for new places to get out and explore while camping, we’ve got you covered. With activities ranging from history to adventure sports, and culinary tours to “mancations,” you’re sure to create your perfect trip through West Michigan.

Where's your favorite camping spot in West Michigan? Let us know in the comments!





See below for a list of campgrounds & RV parks in West Michigan. Please check with the property for seasonal dates of operation.