Unlike Metro Detroit, the U.P. has just a few major arteries or confusing intersections where you can get lost. It’s the perfect place to turn off directions apps and go back to paper maps, the way your parents once did.
To prove it’s possible you can thrive without the impersonal, female voice telling you where to turn, I went all over the state’s upper arm this summer without using Google or Apple Maps. In fact, like a growing number of young people, I don’t even have a smartphone.
Turns out, there are several key benefits to ditching your device (or your vehicle’s built-in screen) and focusing more on the open road.
Perhaps the greatest freedom comes from having no estimated time of arrival. Not only are you more likely to stop when you see a roadside attraction, but when your kids ask how much longer it will be, you can honestly answer: “I have no idea.”
Eventually, they stop asking. Three- and 5-year-olds don’t understand what 20 miles means and resign themselves to their books or looking at the great trees outside their windows.
And when you don’t have the glittering distraction box in the windshield, you also pay more attention to the terrain. You have to find the landmarks: quaint shops, road signs warning you about a scenic overlook, a town to the right.
In the Keweenaw, there’s a delightful street called Amygdaloid Street between Calumet and Copper City. The word comes from the Greek for almond. It’s how the part of the brain got its name, but it also describes the kind of copper ore you want to find under the earth.
Pure copper doesn’t blow up well, but the amygdaloidal stuff is great, because you can use dynamite to take it out of the ground and then refine the ore out.
When you look at the street names, you can see the marks of the people who live in the place you’re visiting or what was important to those who founded it. You get a deeper sense of connection to the land you’re driving over.
You’re also able to better understand locals who are used to talking about taking a right or a left instead of just putting an address in an app and following it blindly.
You can tell your parents which highway you took home or talk to the attendant at the gas station about which way you’re thinking and ask if there are any places to stop along the way.
It does require more of the passenger (or more planning from the driver, if there’s no one riding shotgun).
Checking a paper map to make sure the car is still hurdling down the right highway requires looking at the surroundings and lining it up with a static representation in real time.
It takes a bit more effort and fumbling around with fan-folded physical illustrations of the state’s major roads. But it’s worth it for the irreplaceable feeling of relying on the open road and your own wits.
The U.P. is the perfect place to learn how to live without a tether to technology. Seek a pleasant peninsula by looking about you instead of at the glittering screen fixed inside your car.
Brendan Clarey is deputy editor of Michigan Enjoyer.
