Welcome to Claire Goes Places!

Read about my adventures near and far. I’m based in Michigan and am excited to travel more in the United States and abroad. The photo above shows the view of Lake Superior from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain in Marquette, Michigan.

Growing up in Michigan, there was never a lack of beautiful destinations to drive to for day trips, long weekends, or vacations. When school and work schedules limit my options for travel around the United States or abroad, I can always count on a trip Up North to satisfy my itch to get out and see something new. Michiganders debate what qualifies as “Up North.” I’m in the group of people who define it as the upper half of the Lower Peninsula, roughly the part of the state between Mount Pleasant and the Mackinac Bridge. My favorite spots are Sleeping Bear Dunes, Ocqueoc Falls, McGulpin Point, and Mackinac Island.

Across the Mackinac Bridge is the Upper Peninsula. If the winters weren’t so brutal I would move there in a heartbeat. You can drive for miles without seeing another car and you should definitely have a paper map as a back-up plan if you are someone who relies on navigation apps on your phone. My favorite UP trips have included The Soo Locks, Tahquamenon Falls, Pictured Rocks, and Sugarloaf Mountain.

At 24 years old, I still haven’t seen all that Michigan has to offer and am eagerly awaiting warm weather so that I can explore more of the state without freezing (I am not a winter adventurer, not yet anyway). Next on my list of Michigan trips is wine tasting in Traverse City, hiking the Porcupine Mountains, touring mines in the Keweenaw Peninsula, and exploring Isle Royale.

When I was four, my mom, my grandma, and I went to southern California to visit my great aunt. Although I remembered a few parts of the trip (the La Brea Tar Pits, San Diego Zoo, and snippets of Disneyland), I always wanted to go back and see California as an adult who would remember the whole thing. In 2019, my grandma, my mom, and I finally went back to California, this time to San Fransisco. It was my first long trip within the United States but outside of Michigan in a while. I absolutely loved wine tasting in Sonoma and Napa Valleys, shopping and eating lunch in Sausalito, and touring Alcatraz.

I have tentative trips planned for New Orleans, LA and Charlottesville, VA this year, but we’ll see how the US is doing with coronavirus.

In undergrad I majored in Linguistics and Spanish but also took a couple semesters of Russian and Polish. I knew I wanted to travel the world and use different languages as much as I could. In winter of 2018, my grandma and I went to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and visited one of her friends. As soon as I got in the cab at the airport, I knew traveling was going to be a need for the rest of my life, rather than a want. Having the opportunity to finally use a language I had practiced for years was so exciting. The best part of my trip was when a local told me that my Spanish was fantastic! Other stand-out moments from Puerto Vallarta were whale-watching and going to The Vallarta Botanical Gardens.

Before Puerto Vallarta, the only place I’d been to outside of the United States was Windsor, Canada, which is not that exciting seeing as it’s right across the border from Detroit. Later in 2018, I went to Toronto, Canada for a long weekend and had so much fun. It was my first time in a big city (it’s population is 2.9 million compared to Detroit’s 670,000) and I enjoyed the chaos more than I thought I would. I also went to my first NHL game, rode a subway for the first time, and figured out how to change my odometer from miles to kilometers per hour (a major feat for me considering I am really not tech-savvy at all). Toronto is definitely a city I want to go back to and spend more time in.

My plans to travel outside of North America in 2020 were, of course, thwarted by coronavirus. I’m hoping that in the next few years I can start to cross some countries off of my bucket list. At the top of my list are the UK, Ireland, Spain, Poland, Argentina, and Australia.

I can’t wait to share more about my future adventures to other states and countries and to see where this journey takes me. In the meantime, check back for my day trips around Michigan!