We visited Grand Marais as part of Big Trip #5 in September 2026. 

Grand Marais has been on our Airstreaming wishlist map since we started compiling destination ideas in 2016, and I was so excited to finally visit! When I said that to the woman checking us into our campground, she said “why’d it take you so long?” Great question. Sure, it’s really far north of our usual east-west tracks across the country, but it’s a quaint, artsy harbor town on Lake Superior with good seafood, great hiking, cute shops, and a nice campground that’s walking-distance from downtown. We loved it, but revised our two-night stay to one because after a packed day in the tiny (and very crowded) town we felt ready to move along to Duluth.

As I noted in our Thunder Bay post, getting through the US border at Grand Portage was quick and painless. If you’re traveling with a dog, be sure to fill out the CDC Dog Import Form prior to arrival, and be prepared to show a vet-signed rabies certificate and vaccination history.

Thunder Bay to Grand Marais is only a 1.5-hour drive, but it seemed even shorter because we broke it up with a lovely hike in Pigeon River Provincial Park. Our backup plans, if parking the Airstream at Pigeon River had been a problem, was to either do a similar hike just across the MN border in Grand Portage State Park, or get a dose of history at Grand Portage National Monument.

Campground

We stayed at Grand Marais Recreation Area’s RV campground and it was the ideal base for exploring town. Our site was full hookup, and while it wasn’t a coveted lakefront spot, it was across the street from an access path to a wide cobblestone beach.

I think I preferred our quiet beach to the more open harbor-facing lakefront views. And the sunrise over our section of beach… holy moly.

Hiking

Grand Marais was the last of our phenomenal Lake Superior hiking destinations, and it did not disappoint. We chose three short hikes near town:

A 4+ mile hike on the Superior Hiking Trail (which runs for 300+ miles along the Minnesota coast of Lake Superior) to Pincushion Mountain and some gorgeous lake views. The trailhead, only seven minutes from downtown, has a view of the lake and was crowded, but on the trail we only saw several people. Leashes are optional on this wonderful hike. It’s such an enjoyable and convenient hike; we kept asking each other, “where is everybody?”

A 2.5-mile loop on Oberg Mountain Trail, accessed by our friend Superior Hiking Trail. The views of Lake Superior and little Oberg Lake are incredible, and the changing fall colors on the rolling hills stretching down to the coast were glorious. Again, we were surprised at the lack of traffic on the trail. This was our favorite hike in the Grand Marais area.

This 3.5-mile out-and-back to Lake Agnes, following–you guessed it–the Superior Hiking Trail. More beautiful fall colors and pretty views of Lake Agnes.

Oberg and Agnes trailheads are short drive from each other, about 25 minutes south of Grand Marais. We fueled up with lattes from bustling Fika Coffee in tiny Lutsen, home to Minnesota’s first resort and the largest ski area in the Midwest.

Hiking options we researched but did not do this visit:

Isle Royale National Park: The shortest ferry ride to Isle Royale is from Grand Portage, MN, but even making the briefest possible stop on the island it’s still a long day away from home. When we started planning Big Trip #5, we didn’t yet have a dog again, so we thought this would be our chance to visit the dog-unfriendly national park, but now that we have Tilly we can’t leave her in the Airstream for that long.

Cascade River State Park: We’d flagged this 3-ish mile hike to Lookout Mountain just south of Grand Marais.

Bean and Bear via the Superior Hiking Trail (of course): a seven-mile hike described as the crown jewel of MN day hikes. This was high on our list but it’s an hour from Grand Marais. The internet said Oberg was a good substitute for Bean and Bear.

Sunset at Artists Point: described as the ultimate evening walk in Grand Marais. We saw lots of people were out on the peninsula and chose to focus on sunrise on our private beach instead!

Drive the Gunflint Trail: it’s a 57-mile scenic byway running from Grand Marais up into the Boundary Waters. That region is so water-based that we decided to leave this for a day when we can spend time paddling.

Judge CR Magney State Park: Devil’s Kettle Trail is a short hike to a spectacular waterfall, apparently voted best hiking trail in the US by the USA Today readers.

Eating and drinking

Our goals for eating and drinking in Grand Marais were: to eat lake fish, and check out the brewery in town. That’s basically it. We succeeded!

Drinking

Tiny Grand Marais has a brewery! Voyageur Brewing Co‘s taproom is huge and was busy when we popped in to sit at the bar. My blueberry sour was good but J was less pleased with his IPA. Mostly we enjoyed chatting with the Romanian staff members about their work-and-travel-in-America plans.

We had a drink and snack at Gunflint Tavern, a popular spot on the main drag in an old bank building, with a dog-friendly, seasonal rooftop bar overlooking the lake, and pub food, local beers, and bottle aged cocktails downstairs.

And I mentioned our lattes at Fika in Lutsen above. It’s a cool Scandinavian-feeling cafe selling yummy espresso drinks (mine was pancake-flavored?!), cool merch, and donuts from World’s Best Donuts. More on the donuts below.

Eating

The best meal we had in Grand Marais was fish tacos at Fisherman’s Daughter. We split orders of Lake Superior walleye (um that link says I shouldn’t have eaten as much LS walleye as I did, oops) and whitefish (we thought “whitefish” was a catch-all name for white fish, but it’s a species) tacos and they were delicous. I preferred the walleye and J the whitefish, what a good partnership we have! The fries were fab too (I’m particular about my french fries) and the portions were huge and reasonably-priced. The restaurant has a cute gift shop and a fish counter selling frozen local-caught fish and smoked fish dip; we bought a few items from the fish counter for Airstream consumption.

There’s a place in Grand Marais called World’s Best Donuts. How could we not go there? I haven’t had all the donuts in the world (yet) so I can’t really say if they’re the best, but they’re fantastic, especially the glazed.

We also ate dinner at the brewery our first night; J wasn’t crazy about his food, but my fish tacos were very good. Yes, I had multiple fish taco meals in Grand Marais. When in Rome, you eat the local fish, right?

Also on our to-eat list, but we did not eat: My Sister’s Place and Angry Trout Cafe for more local fish.

After doing our best tourist act in adorable and scenic Grand Marais, we took a pretty drive south along Lake Superior to Duluth, one of our favorite Airstreaming cities.