Why Manistee Is Cheaper Than Other Vacation Spots
The town hasn't shed its industrial past and refuses to become a fairy tale place
Manistee — It may come as a shock to learn that Manistee is so much cheaper than the other beach towns on Lake Michigan.
At a glance, it has all the trappings of an expensive Up North vacation hamlet. There’s a boardwalk downtown, a bunch of upscale restaurants and breweries, cute stores, and a white sand beach that has been named as Michigan’s best two years in a row.
So why is Manistee not a popular vacation destination? And why is it so much cheaper than the other beach towns on Lake Michigan?
To find the answer to these questions, I took a drive through Manistee. The first thing I noticed was the Rust Belt vibes. Manistee is full of infrastructure, both rusting and still operating.
A huge rail line runs through town transporting chemicals and coal to the many factories in Manistee and other nearby towns. Morton owns a salt mine in Manistee. There are manufacturing plants and a cardboard factory. The old iron works looms in the background. It feels like walking around downtown Detroit or Flint in miniature.
The difference between Manistee and everywhere else Up North is that Manistee still has the trappings of a working economy, and the detritus of a manufacturing city that hasn’t been cleared away.
The truth is, tourists don’t want a real working city, where people wake up and go to work in factories where they make something. They want the manicured towns that feel like fairy tales.
Most beach-town economies solely revolve around tourism. Everybody there either makes their money directly or indirectly from the dollars tourists bring in the summer. And that’s perfectly OK. But Manistee does more than that. They have major economic outlets that provide income and growth outside of tourism. This means that, although Manistee is an excellent beach town, and an excellent town to vacation in, it doesn’t feel like a vacation town. It’s grittier than Glen Arbor and Petoskey.
There are cute stores here, but also dirty strip malls. There are nice restaurants and cheap Chinese buffets. You can go to a fancy dispensary, but there are also ugly smoke shops selling vapes and chew. When you drive into Manistee, you’re greeted by a giant, garish casino with a sign so bright you can see it from five miles away. Manistee is a working-class town in a sea of rich vacation spots.
Ask someone from Traverse City or Charlevoix what they think of Manistee, and you’ll most likely get a glare and a snide remark. But Manistee haters are totally in the wrong. Manistee is my favorite town in Michigan for the same reasons that some people look down on it. Manistee is shunned by the ritzier places in Michigan.
But for the rest of us, Manistee is the perfect place to visit. You can find houses for under $100,000 dollars in Manistee. You can get lunch and not break the bank. It’s the perfect place to visit if you’re sick and tired of the overpriced, overhyped vacation spots in Northern Michigan.
