Weekend in Northern Wisconsin

Since international travel has been indefinitely put on hold, this is the best time to plan ROAD TRIPS! We recently went on a weekend trip to Northern Wisconsin. It was a 3 day get away Monday thru Friday, so I added stops along the way to make the drive a bit more entertaining.

For starters, we rented a cabin in Ladysmith Wisconsin– AirBNB was pretty booked out and we ended up 6 hours north because we wanted a house with a hot tub. We happened to find exactly what we were looking for through Vrbo, click here for a link to the property we stayed at- I highly recommend it! It was super cute and remote- we didn’t even have cell phone service while we were out there, but the house had internet.

On the way up to Ladysmith we stopped at Devil’s Lake State Park, for a hike. We hiked up to the Devil’s Doorway and it was absolutely stunning. You have to purchase a parking pass before you go to the state park and print it out to leave on your dashboard- click here to get your parking sticker- good news is the sticker is good for 1 year. We did the East Bluff / Ice Age Trail, when you get on the trail head you want to go RIGHT to take a more adventurous path to the doorway, then coming back down we took the regular gravel path all the way. We hiked for a total of about 2.5 hours. The views were absolutely beautiful! There are longer hikes at the park if you have more time.

When we were done with the hike, we did a quick outfit change in the car. We then headed to a local winery in the area. The winery allows outside food, so we packed a lunch before leaving home in the morning and brought it along. We went to Baraboo Bluff Winery. The views were absolutely amazing!

We spend a good hour or so at the winery before continuing our 3 hour journey up north! We stopped an hour before our Vrbo in Eau Claire to grab pizza to bring to the house. We got the the house around 7pm, started up the hot tub and enjoyed the rest of the evening at home! The next morning was relaxing, the air was nice and cool and it was perfect weather to make some pancakes. After breakfast and some morning hot tub time we decided to explore the area and do other hike! Some of the Blue Hill Trails were within a 30 minute drive from the house, We decided to check our the Ice Age Trail. It was definitely a great hike BUT we only got about 15-20 mins in before we were eaten alive by mosquitoes- pro tip: BRING BUG SPRAY!

We decided to go back to the house after the traumatic mosquito situation! The house does have a beautifulbonfire pit but we didn’t use it- we even brought starters and s’mores stuff! We had a little family photo shoot at the house that evening- we even brought matching outfits!

The next morning was a lazy morning, the check out wasn’t until 11am so we relaxed and took our time getting out of there. We started the drive back to Chicago, but we had to stop and get Culver’s along the way! The last stop about an hour and half away from home was a sunflower maze at Von Bergen’s Country Market. Unfortunately it rained while we were headed there, so they were closing down right as we arrived! It was still the most beautiful thing!