Planning post: Michigan

Next weekend a group of friends and I are renting a house in South Haven, Michigan for the weekend. Unfortunately because my schedule is that of a crazy travel-obsessed person, I was out of town both times they all got together to discuss the trip. However, I was tasked with figuring out what to do in a town I've never been to with not as much information to go on than I'd like.

Which, let's be real, is right in my wheelhouse.

I meant to do research at lunch yesterday and then my workday blew up. I meant to do it this evening and then got busy doing things around the apartment. Then before I shut down my computer for the night I remembered that I still had to do this, and an hour later I'm still online, researching.

Recently I was asked how I find things to do, and that's going to be a much bigger post, but here's what I'm doing now. I don't have the address to the house yet, but I have the link to its rental site, and therefore found the cross streets. I enter that in Google Maps and start checking around to see if there's anything I can see nearby, since it's a small town and I expect things to be close. Which they are. We're not far at all from the beaches, and all the big stuff to do tends to be around the coast of Lake Michigan. I'm not sure how many people will be around, but I know there'll be kids and know the ages of all of them even if some of them don't come, so I can check for things for them. I also know we'll have at least two guys there, so I can try to look for something they might be into that isn't "watch the kids while the girls go to the winery," even though as I'm looking it might come down to "watch the kids while the girls go to the winery." I also asked in group text if there was anything specific people wanted me to check into, so I have a starting point.

So I Google, which is the absolute best tool for this kind of stuff. It'll always bring me to Trip Advisor, but also to other sites that might be helpful, like the official town site, which lists things like weekend events and gives some pertinent information in a little box so I don't have to go searching through a whole site trying to find any parking fees or whatever. I was asked to look into the beaches, where they are and if there's a cost. So I looked up the two beaches, got their addresses and plugged them into Google Maps to see what the drive is like, and as I start doing this for more stuff I get a relative idea of where things are located in relation to each other. Sometimes sites (Trip Advisor is usually good for this but I found it on the official site this time) will give you lists of things you can do in town if you only have a certain amount of time. If something sounds good to you, look it up.

After an hour I have a pretty good idea of the layout of the area, am pretty sure I can give directions to certain places, and have a pretty decent list of directions, addresses, and prices on my phone so I can list it off or screengrab something if anyone needs the info. And to be completely honest, there doesn't seem to be a ton to do. But there are cheap vineyards and a park for kids and if we didn't all enjoy each other's company we wouldn't be going.

But seriously, bed now.