The Places That Call Us Back: Nostalgia Travel On The Art Coast®
Some places become more than vacation destinations. They become family traditions—places we return to year after year, sharing favorite memories with the next generation while making new ones together. For one family, that tradition began with a few words heard on the radio more than 70 years ago.
For more than three decades, celebrated Detroit radio personality J.P. McCarthy greeted Midwesterners each day with a simple “Good mornin’, world” on WJR. Along with the latest hits, he treated listeners across the Great Lakes to his trusted cultural commentary. One of those broadcasts would inspire a family tradition spanning four generations.
While milking cows on his family’s Ohio farm in the 1950s, Wayne Pepple heard McCarthy describe Saugatuck as a “dreamy, secret lakeshore paradise,” recalls Pepple’s granddaughter, Lauren Etler.
“By the time they were empty nesters in the 1980s, he’d never forgotten those words from J.P. McCarthy and decided to take my grandma,” says Etler.
A few years later, Pepple invited his children and their families to join them. “That’s when the family tradition began,” Etler explains. More than 30 years later, Pepple’s children and grandchildren still vacation in Saugatuck every summer, staying at the waterfront Ship-N-Shore Hotel.
There’s a reason people keep coming back.
Maybe it’s the way the sand feels familiar beneath your feet the moment you arrive at Oval Beach. The galleries you’ve visited so many times that the owners know your name. The way Lake Michigan looks at golden hour, as though it were painted just for you.
Saugatuck/Douglas isn’t simply a destination. It’s a feeling you carry with you throughout the year, counting down the days until you can find it again.
That desire to return to the places that shaped us is at the heart of nostalgia travel. A familiar destination can reconnect us with the places that shaped us: childhood summers, longstanding traditions and earlier chapters of our lives. Returning with the next generation makes the experience even more meaningful: We get to revisit treasured memories while watching children and grandchildren begin to create their own.
Visitors to Saugatuck/Douglas are especially fortunate. Throughout Michigan’s Art Coast, historic attractions continue to welcome travelers both old and new.
The Saugatuck Chain Ferry—the last of its kind in the United States—has been operating since 1857. The Cold War-era radar tower at the top of Mt. Baldhead Park was erected in 1956, while the Root Beer Barrel began serving hot dogs and root beer in 1952. Other local landmarks have been part of the community since the 1800s, including the Douglas Union Schoolhouse, established in 1866 and now serving as the Saugatuck-Douglas History Center; The Hotel Saugatuck, dating to 1865; the Beechwood Manor Inn, built in 1874; and The Butler restaurant, which originally opened as a grist mill in 1892.
To learn more about the history and legacy of Saugatuck/Douglas, visit here. To explore more of the historic places where you can stay, visit here.
Letting nostalgia inspire your vacation offers an opportunity to relive meaningful moments while creating new ones. A trip to Michigan’s Art Coast also keeps things simple, leaving more time to focus on what matters most: being together.
“Saugatuck is a second home to us all, and we’re honored to be a part of its story,” says Etler, whose daughter, Isla, represents the fourth generation of the Pepple family to travel to Saugatuck each year. “We can’t wait to share it with generations to come.”
