Lake Superior Summer Bucket List

+ a list of things i did this week

Summer feels good this year, I can already tell.

I’m busy in a way that I have a lot to look forward to. I have a lot of things figured out that I didn’t this time last year — a place I’m staying long-term. A job (or rather, a constellation of freelancing jobs) I plan to be with long-term. I’m not staring down the barrel of hundreds of guided trips and tent nights — not that that was necessarily a bad thing last summer. But I’m ready for something a little slower.

With slowing down a bit, here are some things on my Lake Superior summer bucket list I’m excited for:

1) Finding a great swim spot

One of my favorite things about Lake Superior summer is finding a really really good swim spot. I’m talking like jumping off the Devil’s Island rock shelf, or the north-facing beach in Cornucopia, Wisconsin, or the Coves in the Pictured Rocks.

The Coves, pictured above, are seriously the BEST little swimming spot. You can find them along the Lakeshore Trail (segment of the North Country Trail) and hike out to a waterfall into the lake from here. Just the nicest hidden beach and swim spot. 10/10.

READ: Best Things to do in the Pictured Rocks

2) Camping on the shores of Lake Superior

There are so many great lakefront camping options both on Lake Superior and Lake Michigan — I’m most aquatinted with the lakefront sites in the Apostle Islands where I’ve worked as a sea kayaking guide, but I’m really excited to hopefully check out some of the sites in the Porcupine Mountains this summer.

Throughout the Upper Peninsula especially you can also find really great campsites in the form of State Forest Campgrounds, both on Lake Superior but also riverfront and on smaller lakes.

READ: Best Campsites on the Great Lakes

3) Hiking the Minnesota North Shore

Minnesota’s North Shore has some great hiking! I lived both in Grand Marais, MN for a few years, and Two Harbors and while I don’t live on the North Shore anymore, the hiking and shoreline here is still on my mind a lot of the time. I’m hoping to head back for some trail time this summer!

Left: hiking Day Hill in Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. Right: Bean & Bear Overlook on the Superior Hiking Trail.

READ: Best Hiking on the North Shore, Minnesota

4) Having a waterfall picnic

I love a good waterfall. I don’t really love photographing them — they just don’t really “do it” for me like dramatic shoreline and the colors of green water — but I love the experience of them. The cold water that hits your face, the sound, the look of falling water.

One thing I want to do more this year is actually spend time enjoying the outdoors without it being about sweating. Between guiding, hiking, and photos most of my time outside is work. I’m cooking or hauling water, or moving my own body, or thinking about photo angles.

I want to spend time eating a snack by a waterfall and reading a book.

READ: Ultimate Wisconsin Waterfall Road Trip

5) Sea kayak camping in the Apostle Islands

This will be pretty easy to attain for me! I’ll be out in June with an all women’s group [four spots left, code Maddy25 for $50 off] and spend some time poking around my favorite Lake Superior islands and sea caves. I think I did nine or ten overnight trips here last summer, and it’ll definietly be less than that this year.

Even though last summer was a lot of island time and a lot of really (like, really) hard work, there are still so many special moments I really am grateful to have experienced. I thinking of sitting on the rock shelf on Sand Island beneath the lighthouse with a group of teenage girls laughing and swimming, of exploring the Bear Island sea caves with wild weather all around, of the deep cave on Manitou Island I hadn’t known was there. Overnight guiding is really hard, but it’s really worth it too.

READ: Best Things to do in the Apostle Islands

6) Exploring somewhere new :)

In easing off from overnight guiding this year (which is for sure the right choice for me), I’m a lot more open to exploring new places! This summer, I’ll be revisiting some old favorites and also trying out some fun new spots. You can expect to see a lot of that covered here on Hello Stranger.

Full archive of adventure trail guides & outdoor resources!

Guest post submissions!

It’s been a while since I ran a guest writer here! If anyone is interested in writing for Hello Stranger here are the submission guidelines. Guest writers are something I’ve really loved to run and work with in the past, but was just too busy this winter to field submissions.

All guest writers are compensated at a rate of $80 per essay (up from last time!). Primarily I’m looking for essays about the outdoors or time in the outdoors written in first person personal. New writers are especially encouraged to submit! For examples of previous guest writer pieces, check out Regret Can’t Exist Here by Emma Beans, or did i catch feelings, or did i just spend six days with a stranger in the mountains? by Laura Ng.

a list of things i did (and read) this month:

• As you’re reading this, I’m in a Wilderness First Aid class

• I worked a lot. Like a lot a lot, and I have been all spring. I’m not an idle person at all, but basically between my full-time job (which goes part-time starting tomorrow) and still maintaining Hello Stranger, a handful of freelancing projects and organizing women’s trips for the summer and social media content creation… you get the picture. June is still going to be really, really busy with a lot of back-to-back freelancing projects but I’m really looking forward to slowing down a little. Well, slowing down isn’t quite right. June will still be a lot of work but it will be a lot of different work.

• Made a really delicious chickpea potato curry and made enough to freeze for meal prep! I’m trying to get better at meal prep. This is the only real thing I cooked this month I fear. Andy does a lot of the cooking, he’s a champ.

• I started the third Crescent City book (well, audiobook) and I’m just going to say it: I think it’s Sarah J. Maas’s best series. I think the characters are more likable and the world is so interesting that I’m genuinely hooked on the plot and invested in the mystery of her little universe. Unpopular opinion, I know.

• A also read (like actually read) Tears of the Wolf by Elisabeth Wheatley and that was a five star experience for me. Great characters, elegant plot. Really loved.

• On the other hand, I also read the Peaches and Honey duology this month trying to cure my Addie LaRue hangover and it simply did not hit. It wasn’t bad, I just was never as into it and it wasn’t what I wanted it to be, and the second book felt like an afterthought.

• I’ve been paddling a lot! I haven’t been as good about weekday hikes or runs as I intended to be going into May, mostly because, well, I do things like write Substack articles after work right now. But I’ve really been using every scrap of my time this month, which is good.

• I planted some flowers and propagated some plants

• I got corrected a lot. Online, at work, in a paddling course I took. I actually have no problem with being wrong — when you say as much as I do some if it is bound to be subpar. I had a lot of flops fall on the same week and had to just like… take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m a person, and people make mistakes. The problem I have is that people don’t see online communications as made by a person — all they see is a careless mistake and assume the person behind it is also careless, or doesn’t deserve their platform or job or whatever. Mostly I’m tough about criticism and good at picking out what I’m taking and what I’m leaving. Sometimes, easier said than done.

• I read Smoke and Scar by Gretchen Powell Fox which I had very mixed feelings about. Really really loved the female main character, like one of my all time favorites. The male main character was a big flop for me. I’m a big character-driven reader, and then like interesting mystery within a complex world (Throne of Glass second half? That like scratched my book itch perfectly) and this book felt like it had one really strong character that carried the entire story single-handedly. Will still read the second book for sure when it comes out.

• That’s it. That’s literally everything I did in May. Oh! One Saturday I went to bed at 9pm and slept for 11 hours. That was pretty rad.