Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Review: Lost in Michigan's Upper Peninsula by Mike Sonnenberg

Since I spend every summer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I picked this book up with the thought that I might find new places to visit around me and across the UP. Disappointingly I'm not entirely certain I found exactly what I was looking for though.

The locations highlighted here are arranged by general area in the UP and give not only street addresses but also geographical coordinates. Each place is followed by a short history of the attraction and recommendations of things to do (for example to bring jugs to fill up at a certain spring). The tone of the writing is folksy and conversational but I have to question Sonnenberg's enthusiasm for many of the sites he highlights, especially when it takes a good long time to reach a particular location and all a visitor can do is park their car and gaze at abandoned ruins. He misses including interesting information about some of the highlighted sites (at least in my area), such as unique geological features or the potential to see endangered flora. I'd have loved to see more quirky things included like the troll in Germfask (although Benny the Beard Fisher might be too new to be included in this edition, this gives a sense of the kinds of hidden gems I was hoping to find) rather than including little towns that he's deemed to be good places to get gas, sandwiches, and cell service. Honestly, reading through this didn't make me want to travel throughout the UP, which is a real shame and the exact opposite of what this book was striving to do.

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