Wisconsin has two Great Lake shorelines; Lake Michigan on the east, Lake Superior on the north and between them, something like 500 miles of coast. What surprised me was how different they are. Lake Michigan gives you sand dunes and clear water and beach towns. Lake Superior gives you red sandstone cliffs, sea caves, and a cold that makes the whole thing feel slightly dramatic. Both are worth your time.
Table Of Content
Bradford Beach
The beach itself is excellent 2,500 feet of sand, lifeguards in season, volleyball courts that fill up fast on weekends, a concession stand, and the whole Milwaukee skyline behind you when you turn around. It is an urban beach that would hold its own against urban beaches anywhere. The water is cold by ocean standards. The mid-60Fs in July, at best but nobody tells the kids that and they go in anyway.
Kohler-Andrae State Park
Kohler-Andrae protects one of the last remaining natural sand dune ecosystems on the western shore of Lake Michigan. It has 2.5 miles of beach backed by dunes that in some places reach 30 feet. The sand is fine and pale. The water is clearer than Bradford Beach. The Creeping Juniper Nature Trail through the dunescaping is worth the extra mile. This is one of those state parks that people in Wisconsin take for granted because it’s always been there. Visitors from outside the state consistently describe it as one of the best beaches they’ve ever seen.
Whitefish Dunes State Park
Whitefish Dunes is the best beach in Door County but it gets a fraction of the attention Ephraim and Fish Creek gets which is exactly the kind of thing this blog exists to fix.
The beach stretches for about a mile along Clark Lake before meeting Lake Michigan, with sand dunes that are the tallest in Wisconsin some reaching 93 feet. You can hike through the dunes on the Old Baldy Trail and then come down to a beach that looks, in certain afternoon light, like it belongs somewhere in the Outer Banks. The Nature Center has good exhibits on the ecosystem.
Schoolhouse Beach
There are five beaches in the world made of smooth, glacier-polished limestone rocks. One of them is on Washington Island, Wisconsin.
The water above them is so clear you can see the bottom in 10 feet of depth. It is one of the strangest and most beautiful beaches you can see anywhere in the Midwest. There’s a catch; you can’t take the rocks. They’re protected,! It’s a $250 fine if you’re caught taking the rocks. Which means the beach stays the way it is.
Meyers Beach
In summer you have two ways to reach the caves: hike the 4.3-mile Lakeshore Trail above the cliffs, or kayak directly to them from the beach. Both are worth it. The kayak route is one of the top outdoor experiences in Wisconsin, full stop. The water is aquamarine in summer a specific color that you expect from the Caribbean, not northern Wisconsin and the red sandstone walls rising out of it create a combination that doesn’t feel real until you’re inside a cave looking up through a hole in the rock at open sky.
Big Bay Beach
Madeline Island is the only Apostle Island accessible by vehicle via a 20-minute ferry from Bayfield. Big Bay State Park, on the northeastern corner of the island, holds what might be the most quietly spectacular beach in Wisconsin: two miles of Lake Superior shoreline backed by forest, with lagoons, boardwalk trails, and a stillness that makes you want to lower your voice.
The water here is clearer than anywhere I’ve swum in Wisconsin. The beach is almost never crowded — the ferry crossing filters out the casual visitor. If you want to spend a day at a genuinely remote Lake Superior beach without camping for a week in the wilderness, this is how you do it.
North Beach, Racine
Racine doesn’t get the credit it deserves as a day trip from Milwaukee. It’s 30 minutes south on the highway and North Beach is a 2,500-foot stretch of sand that would be famous if it were in a more famous city. It consistently rates as one of the cleanest beaches on Lake Michigan. It has a mobility mat for wheelchair beach access one of the longest in the country and the downtown Racine waterfront next to it has a casual energy that Bradford Beach, right next to a major festival ground, doesn’t always have.
Nicolet Bay Beach (Family beach)
Peninsula State Park is the most visited state park in Wisconsin nearly a million people a year and Nicolet Bay is the reason most of them keep coming back. The 944-foot sandy beach on Green Bay is calmer and warmer than the Lake Michigan side of Door County, which makes it genuinely excellent for swimming.
This is the family beach in Door County. The water is shallower, it warms up faster, the sand is good, and the park itself. If you’re bringing children to Door County, this is where you anchor your beach day.
Harrington Beach State Park
Harrington Beach is the one people in Milwaukee sleep on because there are closer options. That’s a mistake. The beach here is quiet- genuinely quiet, the kind of quiet that doesn’t happen at Bradford or North Beach in July. The Lake Michigan shore stretches long and uncrowded. The bluff trails above the beach are easy walking with good views.
The secret of Harrington Beach is Quarry Lake. A man-made lake formed when an old limestone quarry filled with water.
Devil’s Lake State Park
Devil’s Lake is not a Great Lakes beach. It’s an inland glacial lake in the Baraboo Hills. The swimming beach on the south shore is legitimately excellent; clear water, sand, lifeguards in season, and those bluffs rising above you on both sides. It is the most dramatic beach setting in Wisconsin, and it’s not even on one of the Great Lakes.
Devil’s Lake is the most visited state park in Wisconsin (trading places with Peninsula most years) and it shows on summer weekends. The parking lots fill before 10am from May through September. Go on a Wednesday in June.That version of Devil’s Lake is one of the best things in the Midwest.
The Great Lakes are enormous enough to give you genuine ocean energy. The sea caves on Lake Superior are genuinely otherworldly. The dunes at Kohler-Andrae and Whitefish are the real thing and even the inland options; Devil’s Lake make you feel like you went somewhere, not just somewhere nearby.
You don’t need to go to Florida. You need to buy the state park sticker and drive north.
