There is a certain kind of place that Chicagoans keep to themselves — not out of selfishness, exactly, but something closer to protectiveness. New Buffalo, Michigan (and the surrounding beach towns) is one of those places.

I moved to Chicago in 2010 and it didn't take long before someone mentioned New Buffalo and the surrounding Harbor country as “the Hamptons of Chicago,” and I was immediately intrigued. I dragged my husband there for our first vacation as a couple where we stayed in a shabby chic cottage in Sawyer that we agreed was slightly too rustic for our creature comforts, did the tasting room at Journeyman Distillery and came home with sunburns and a Stray Dog sweatshirt. Flash forward to my bachelorette party there (we rented out an absurdly beautiful and enormous beach house and tasted too much cherry wine) and we've taken our girls every summer since they were born. Over the years we've made friends lucky enough to have homes there, and nothing beats crashing with them for a week and feeling like a local. It has become part of the fabric of our family — woven into some of our favorite memories.

And even after returning every summer for over a decade, we have barely scratched the surface discovering all the gems of New Buffalo and the surrounding Harbor country. After years of trial and error we tend to stick to our same spots, our same neighborhood, our same restaurants — but every year we try to explore a little more. This guide is for the families who have never been, and for the ones who keep coming back and can maybe add something new to their list on the next visit.

*Some spots in this guide are marked with an asterisk — these come highly recommended but I haven't personally visited.