Don't Pick a Weekend
Your Guide to Fall Up North
Northern Michigan's fall festival season runs from mid-September through Halloween. Here's the whole run, in order.
Fall up here isn't a one-weekend thing. It's almost two months.
From mid-September through Halloween, the towns around Boyne Falls run a sprint of harvest festivals, apple fests, wine trails, and street parties.
You don't have to pick. You just have to stay somewhere central.
September
Petoskey Wine Region Harvest Showcase
Fourteen wineries, one weekend, one ticket. Thirty dollars gets you a glass of wine paired with a small plate at every participating stop across the region, from Petoskey, Charlevoix, Harbor Springs, Alanson, and south into Antrim County.
Visits happen during regular winery hours, so you set the pace.
Pond Hill Farm | Fall Fest Weekend
Every Saturday and Sunday, 11am to 6pm. Hayrides, a pumpkin patch that takes the giant-gourd thing seriously, apple cannons, pumpkin bowling down the vineyard hill, brick-oven pizza, and a wine and craft beer tent for the adults who have earned it.
Boyne City Harvest Festival
The farmers market takes over Lake and Main, joined by thirty-plus craft vendors, live music, and kids' games. It's the closing act of the outdoor market season and the most local-feeling event of the fall.
Downtown Day | Petoskey
Downtown Petoskey Gaslight District sidewalks, shop specials, and the sort of afternoon that ends with more bags than you planned on.
Harbor Princess Fall Cruises
Afternoon color tours and sunset cruises run most days for three weeks. Lake shoreline hills turn later than the inland stuff, and seeing them from the water is a totally different experience than seeing them from the car.
October
Skitoberfest
Seventeen years in, and it's still the weekend that defines fall here.
Friday night is the warm-up: tokens go on sale, passholders pick up their steins, and Jelly Roll Blues Band plays the Bier Hall on the Mountain Grand Lodge lawn from 6 to 9.
Saturday is the main event. The keg trailer and Bier Hall open at noon. Bavarian plates come out of the food tent. Somewhere in there you will watch grown adults hoist steins until their arms shake, throw kegs across a lawn, carry their spouses in a race, and eat pie without using their hands.
The Winter Expo takes over Village Lane with next season's gear from Rossignol, Atomic, K2, Völkl and a dozen others.
At 4:55pm everything stops for the Pray for Snow Bonfire. Then the after-party runs to midnight at the Snowflake Lounge.
Kids get their own zone — inflatables, face painting, pumpkin smashing, a fall photo booth — on an all-access wristband.
Harbor Springs Fall Fest
A short, sweet, one-morning affair on the waterfront. Worth pairing with a drive up the Tunnel of Trees, which is about twenty minutes from peak at this point in the season.
Charlevoix Apple Fest
Forty-seven years running, always the second full weekend of October, and the closest thing northern Michigan has to a mandatory fall event.
East Park and Mason Street fill with orchards selling the actual harvest alongside a juried art and craft show, live music, kids' activities, and a farmers' market. Friday and Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 10am to 4pm.
Skitoberdays at Boyne Mountain
Two weekends built around the best fall color view in the state.
SkyBridge Michigan puts you above the canopy at the top of the mountain, which is a different thing entirely from looking at fall color through a windshield. Live music plays on the bridge both days each weekend. Kids get free wristband access to inflatables, henna, caricatures, balloon twisting, and a bubble station with any youth SkyBridge ticket.
Halloween Up North
A morning trick-or-treat through the Gaslight District, which is a genuinely good idea for families with small kids who won't make it to dark.
The parade lines up on Lake Street and ends at a trunk-or-treat, with door-to-door trick-or-treating around town after.
Color peaks, a storm blows through, and the maples that were on fire Tuesday are bare by Sunday. You get about three good weekends, and you don't find out which three until they're gone.
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