By Michigan’s Mackinac Island has long built a reputation for its offerings. And visitors from across the country are taking note when planning their vacations.
USA Today has released its 10Best Reader’s Choice Awards, and for “10 best summer travel destinations across the US for 2024,” readers selected the spot No. 1.
Mackinac beat out other locales such as Space Coast, Florida (No. 10), Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama (No. 6) and Ocean City, New Jersey (No. 2). The initial nominees were selected by a panel of experts.
The top 10 list noted Mackinac’s “local natural beauty, including the stunning limestone Arch Rock.”
Mackinac officials are hopeful for a big turnout in summer visitors this year after the ranking, which followed another first-place finish in 2023.
“We’re very proud,” Steve Brisson, director for Mackinac State Historic Parks, told The Detroit News. “I think our 70 miles of roads and trails, many of them interpretive, contributed greatly to making Mackinac such a great place and receiving this honor.”
The state park’s facilities include educational signage and history lessons explaining the island’s legacy as home to indigenous Odawa communities, a site of early European colonization and the location of the British Fort Mackinac settlers constructed during the American Revolutionary War.
The park was also designated as the second national park in the U.S. in 1875 and Michigan’s first state park.
According to its website, Mackinac Island welcomes as many as one million visitors each year.
