“Some people describe this as the Key West of the North or the Provincetown of the Midwest,” our driver told us, as she drove my husband and me around the Saugatuck Douglas region.
We were on a two-week trip crisscrossing Western Michigan wine country with queer-owned Coastal Tours. When we reached Michigan Wine Co. in the afternoon, we shared a flight, mystified by the sheer number of same-sex couples in the tasting room. Later, we would stroll rainbow crosswalks in downtown Saugatuck, queue for maple lattes at queer-owned Woosah Outfitters, and attend a gay car show at Dunes Resort, one of the largest LGBTQ+ resorts in the country.
It was easy to see why this part of the state, known as the “Art Coast of Michigan,” was a Midwest haven for LGBTQ+ travelers such as ourselves.
Yet the Saugatuck Douglas area along Lake Michigan’s sandy shores—comprising the towns Saugatuck, Douglas, and Fennville, with a year-round population of barely 2,000—is not as unabashedly eccentric as Key West or Palm Springs, nor as clamorous as Provincetown or Fire Island. This region has become its own relaxing kind of queer oasis. As with so many havens, it all started with art.
Since the late 19th century, Saugatuck Douglas has been a destination of pastoral farmland, some of which has been transformed into wineries and apple orchards, and dune-strewn beaches. The region has been a draw for plein air artists in particular, ever since the Ox-Bow School of Art was founded in Saugatuck in 1910. According to Ashley Siebelink, Saugatuck native and executive director at the Saugatuck/Douglas Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, the visitors seamlessly transitioned from those outdoor painters to LGBTQ+ travelers.
“We’ve been welcoming to all types of people from an early time,” says Siebelink, pointing to Michigan’s first gay bar (the bygone Blue Tempo), which opened in Saugatuck in the ‘60s, and the Dunes Resort, founded in 1981 in Douglas. The latter is the largest lodging facility in Saugatuck Douglas and draws LGBTQ+ guests from throughout the Midwest for its pools, nightclub, and diverse events, from trans pool parties to a lumberjack tea dance.
LGBTQ+ culture in Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids used to lean conservative, but it’s become more purple as LGBTQ businesses and events like Pride grow.
Photo by AVES Films for Experience GR
As the LGBTQ+ community in this area grew, it started to pour over into once-conservative Grand Rapids, a half-an-hour drive away. City dwellers flocked to the beach, and travelers sought more urban amenities and lodging options, and a cultural exchange began between the two locations.
Grand Rapids welcomed its own queer-owned businesses, plus a Pride Center and a trans foundation paving the way for progress in a historically purple city. There’s also a Pride festival that—according to Jordoun Eatman, vice president of engagement and inclusion with the city’s tourism board—has grown from 500 attendees to 10,000 since its inception in 1988. Though the Blue Tempo closed in the ‘70s, the Apartment Lounge downtown reigns as Michigan’s oldest continuously operating gay bar.
The Grand Rapids Chamber runs OutPro, an LGBTQ+ group designed to promote a welcoming culture in Western Michigan, and Eatman explains that there are efforts to start a standalone LGBTQ+ chamber of commerce—as well as talks of opening a lesbian-owned bar.
“Diversity drives business,” Eatman explains. “It drives sales, and it brings about various attributes that enrich the culture.”
Things to do on the Art Coast and in Grand Rapids
See sculptures amid nature at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.
Photo by Eric Prouzet/Pexels
Today at Ox-Bow, visitors can attend seasonal dinner series, take guided tours, and meet artists during summertime Friday Night Open Studios. Other artsy destinations include Grand Rapids’ Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, the Saugatuck Center for the Arts for theater and music, and queer-owned galleries such as Amazwi Contemporary Art and Ruth Crowe Artist Studio. The Saugatuck-Douglas History Center also has an ongoing, long-term exhibition, Century of Progress, highlighting the region’s LGBTQ+ history.
Outdoors, the north end of Oval Beach is Saugatuck’s unofficial gay beach, and travelers can hike at Saugatuck Dunes State Park or rent their own retro boat to cruise the Kalamazoo. For an LGBTQ+-focused summertime itinerary, queer-owned Coastal Tours hosts private brewery and winery outings, Grand Rapids Pride takes place in mid-to-late June (June 20 to 21 this year), right outside City Hall, and Pride Week in Saugatuck (around the first week of June) includes a Putt-Putt tournament and paddle cruises.
Best queer-owned restaurants in the Art Coast and Grand Rapids
Queer-owned eateries and bars abound. Keep your vacation healthy at Good Judys Market & Juice Bar, which serves smoothies packed with berries or peanut butter and avocado toasts with vegan bacon or everything-bagel seasoning. Or get beer and free popcorn at the Apartment Lounge, served in a pub-like atmosphere. And I highly recommend the brown-butter skate wing at Saugatuck’s Coast 236, which my husband and I shared on the leafy outdoor patio. At the Southerner, an allied Saugatuck restaurant that regularly hosts drag brunch, the Appalachian-meets-Southern fare—like mac and cheese with brown-butter crumbs or a deviled crab po’boy—is made using recipes handed down from chef Matt Millar’s grandmother.
Where to stay for queer-positive vibes
The Dunes Resort is one of the largest LGBTQ+ resorts in the U.S.
Photo by Julien Capmeil
The Dunes Resort is the region’s main LGBTQ+ attraction, with motel rooms, cottages, poolside cabanas, a bar and nightclub, and seasonal events. Campit Outdoor Resort, surrounded by 10 forested acres, is another LGBTQ+ go-to near Saugatuck, with sites for tents and RVs, cabins, and a pool. Eatman notes that many Grand Rapids hotels are LGBTQ+ friendly, citing Marriott properties—such as the JW Marriott, which celebrates Pride Month with specialty cocktails benefiting the Grand Rapids Pride Center—as particularly inclusive.
