Tour Groups

Each route each day will have 20–25 cars in rotating tours. The Red Group begins with Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. The White Group commences with the Mackinac Island trip. The Green Group heads to Charlevoix and the Old Mission Peninsula. Everyone will drive and see everything, but on different days.

There will be your choice of a traditional printed map or a Rallista route app to guide you.

Sleeping Bear Dunes Tour

This is the longest day and drive, so have an early breakfast and leave by 8:30 AM. The entire day will cover almost 250 miles. Frankly, it’s a bit too long, so there is a shorter-day option, but all but one car of our test groups opted to drive the full route, and everyone voted to keep it intact.

Please fill your tank the night before this trip. Gas stations are near both hotels, plus here is a link to ethanol-free gas stations in Michigan: https://www.pure-gas.org/MI

We will pass through Petoskey, Charlevoix (with its unpredictable drawbridge) and Traverse City (locally known as Traffic City) before heading to Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. It is best to have a navigator. We will have a “Sweep” at the back of the pack and phone numbers in case you become lost or your car develops issues. A master mechanic who owns and works on Alfas is a convention staff member, and we have a restoration shop available.

It is 65 miles to Traverse City, then we will partially wrap around Grand Traverse Bay and head west to Glen Arbor and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Shoreline.

Three ‘rally’ points are located along the route so the group can stay together (in theory). How long we stay at each ‘rally’ point will be a judgment call made on the fly. We will do our best to let everyone catch up. The first rally point is The World’s Largest Cherry Pie, south of Charlevoix.

The first point of interest is a stop at the Phillip A. Hart Visitor Center in Empire for its real restrooms. You will see a lot of white sand shore. The sand continues 50 miles to the north and 250 miles south.

Next comes Pierce Stocking Drive, a winding, one-lane blacktop road atop the dunes (requires a National Park Pass or obtaining a one-week pass) with scenic stops.

The National Park Service no longer takes cash. Please have your pass in hand before we enter Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, or else the added time will negate any of your group's being able to view much of anything at the dunes. The fee for 7 days is $25. There is also a senior discount for the 7-day pass. These passes can only be purchased in person. Please purchase your Park Pass at the Hart Visitor Center. Another option is to purchase an annual Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore Pass for $45. This can be done online: https://www.pay.gov/public/form/start/49010983. The BEST choice is to have a National Park Service Annual Pass ( $80 online. Good at all National Parks and Recreational Areas: Be sure to get the 2024 issue (not 2023) or a Senior Lifetime Pass. https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm. The National Park Service provides free entrance to all national parks for veterans and their families. The Interagency Military Pass covers entrance fees and standard amenity fees (day use fees) at national parks and other public lands. For purposes of this program, a veteran is identified as an individual who has served in the U.S. armed forces, including the National Guard and Reserve. If you file online at store.usgs.gov/militarypass, a one-time $10 processing and handling fee will be charged to get your pass.

You may also obtain your pass with no fee by requesting it in person at the Phillip A. Hart Visitor Center in Empire.

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive is a beautiful, wooded, 7.4-mile meander through the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore. There are multiple turn outs for viewing with interpretative signs. Then it is over to the Dune Climb for a very brief photo-op, not a 320-foot vertical expedition (and 50 miles climbing back up the sand) to discover who will be the last member standing.

After lunch at Boone Docks in Glen Arbor, relax by sailing across Grand Traverse Bay aboard the 114-foot Manitou. Sailing sloops and schooners proliferate in the protected bay. There is an option for leaving for your hotel after sailing for those who do not want to drive at night.

The group will wrap up the day at the Old State Psychiatric Hospital for dinner at Trattoria Stella. The food at Stella is fresh locally sourced, so anticipate sitting and chatting over dinner past sunset. The old asylum has large botanical gardens and is now home to boutique shops. The hospital and grounds were constructed over a hundred years ago with what was then a new and novel theory: that mental patients did better in beautiful surroundings. And they are.

Notes

We will be treated to local ice cream aboard the schooner (if you are dairy intolerant, let us know ahead and we can substitute sorbet, but only with advance notice). If you do not want to drive in the dark or do not trust vintage headlights, there is an option to depart back to the hotel after sailing. We should disembark around 5:45 PM. Please let us know ahead because we will want to reserve the correct number for dinner. Directions for returning to either hotel from this point are fairly simple: turn onto US 31 and head for your hotel on US 31. It takes approximately 70 minutes. We’ll provide a list of restaurants on or near the highway and the hotels for anyone leaving early.