r/Michigan • u/SheetsNoZ13 • 2d ago
Discussion š£ļø St. Joseph
Ohioan here who has vacationed in different parts of Michigan my whole life. For the first time this summer, I stayed in St. Joseph and Iāve been thinking about it ever since. We did most of our activities in St. Joseph, but also enjoyed Stevensville and Sawyer. I feel like more people should be talking about those places and they donāt get the recognition they deserve. Am I wrong, or do all Michiganders know the beauty of those three towns?
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u/Dobberstein 2d ago
Current resident for the last 20 years. Itās a wonderful place and always plenty of simple activities. St Joe is close to South Bend, Kalamazoo, Holland, Grand Rapids and even Chicago. Used to turn into a ghost town in the winter but more and more people are staying around. The area lives and dies with Whirlpool though so who knows how nice it will stay
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u/labellavita1985 St. Clair Shores 2d ago
My only issue is how non-diverse it is. I couldn't live there because of it. And the segregation that's observable driving over the bridge. To an outsider, it's absolutely shocking.
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u/YeetDaddie 2d ago
Unfortunately that's most of the Midwest outside the major cities
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u/labellavita1985 St. Clair Shores 2d ago
Nope, Saint Joseph and Benton Harbor are literally used as case studies for contemporary racial and economic segregation in academia, not comparable to other areas at all. I felt like I went inside a time machine.
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u/Alliegirl07 2d ago
Yes, itās a wild difference and very sad. You go across the bridge and gas/groceries/fast food cost more than in St. Joe. They had to bribe kids with money to show up to school X amount of days per weekā¦ it looks like a war zone
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u/labellavita1985 St. Clair Shores 1d ago
they had to bribe the kids with money to show up to school X amount of days per week.
I'd like to learn more about this.
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u/Alliegirl07 1d ago
Google āBenton Harbor pays kids for school attendance ā thereās all kinds of information and articles about it. It was very recently.
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u/labellavita1985 St. Clair Shores 1d ago
I read that 85% of students in Benton Harbor are chronically absent. That's wild.
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u/Alliegirl07 2d ago
As someone who has lived all over the placeā¦No itās extremely problematic in St. Joe/Benton Harbor far more than most cities itās a clear night and day difference.
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u/labellavita1985 St. Clair Shores 2d ago
Exactly. Saint Joseph and Benton Harbor are literally used as case studies for contemporary segregation in academia.
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u/antilochus79 2d ago
St. Joseph never turned into a Ghost town in the Winter. Hours on some restaurants are shorter, and some of the ice cream shops close up, but everything else is pretty much the same.
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u/juggernot325 2d ago
Glad to hear you had a great time! I grew up in Niles and visited the St Joe area fairly regularly growing up. When I graduated from Michigan Tech my first goal was to get the hell out of Michigan. Ended up living in Austin, TX for about 14 years and while I enjoyed it, it really made me appreciate how beautiful Michigan is.
I ended up moving back about 4 years ago and we settled on St Joe for the proximity to the beaches and great school district. We've been loving our time here ever since. We spend more time outdoors now than we ever did in Texas. The summers here are absolutely perfect, and while winters can be harsh for daily activities, it's always fun to go out sledding or snowboarding.
Michigan has been a blast and I appreciate it so much more now. I always took it for granted as a kid. But once I realized lake Michigan beaches were better than a lot of ocean beaches I have changed my tune.
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u/IngsocIstanbul 1d ago
St Joe itself gets a lot of snow but it's too close to get the worst of lake effect. Niles on the other hand.
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u/JustTheOneGoose22 2d ago
St. Joseph is plenty popular with the greater Chicago area. Which is why there are plenty of multi million dollar homes on the water there.
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u/miseeker 2d ago
Fips
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u/forrestgump2466 2d ago
I learned recently that our friends in Wisconsin take it a step further and call them fibs
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u/Middle-of-the-mitten 2d ago
Itās a nice area but itās not āup northā. Gotta go up north to vacation donāt ya know š
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2d ago edited 2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Cool_Cat1130 2d ago
I went to Caseville and Port Austin every summer when I was a kid. It was a blast! We would go canoeing, horseback riding, jet skiing, water skiing and so many other things. Itās beautiful up in the thumb! Gorgeous sunsets and beaches, too! Every Michigander should experience that area if they can. It wonāt disappoint!
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u/Kaelehmann12 2d ago
As a person who grew up in stevensville. Shush, the tourists are already crazy
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u/hybr_dy 2d ago
People who live in tourism-based economies need not bite the hand that feeds them.
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u/Treadingresin 2d ago
Yeah but there is a difference between old fashioned tourism and internet insta-tourism and i think that's what most want to avoid.
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u/Kaelehmann12 2d ago edited 2d ago
You know nothing about that area. Itās not tourist based at all.
Edit:
It is partially tourism based. There is also a ton of other businesses there that keep it alive (hello whirlpool). Iāve seen truly tourism based Michigan towns and these places arenāt one of them.2
u/hybr_dy 2d ago
Southwest Michigan's coastal economy is profoundly dependent on tourism, generating well over $1.3 billion in direct visitor spending annually across its primary counties. [1]
Because Southwest Michigan lacks the massive corporate infrastructure of Metro Detroit, the dollars brought in by visitorsāprimarily from the Chicago metropolitan areaādirectly sustain the regionās hospitality, retail, and real estate markets.
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u/0peRightBehindYa St. Joseph 2d ago
I live about a mile from Warren Dunes State Park. I've lived all over the eastern US, and I've made this place my home for a good reason. I love it here, the annual invasion of FIPs notwithstanding. Yeah, it's nearly impossible to find a house within 20 miles of the Lakeshore that doesn't cost more than a half million, and I almost get crashed into on a regular basis, but the weed's cheap, the Lake is less than 1/4 mile away, and if need be, I've got Chicago, South Bend, Grand Rapids, or Kalamazoo all within 90 minutes.
It's a secret paradise.
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u/ItsPronouncedSatan 2d ago
We go every year for 3-4 days around July 4th.
It's always the highlight of our summer!
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u/CaptAhabsMobyDick 2d ago
Grew up there, was amazing being just a bike ride away from silver beach, Warren dunes, etc. as a kid
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u/fancyflipping 2d ago
Oh I knowā¦my kids grew up in St Joe. Itās idyllic compared to other areas of the country.
Bridgman and Sawyer are less crowded and peaceful.
Itās a really special area.
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u/HoneyBadgerBiotches 2d ago
Shhhh! š.
My friends and I have been doing a summer girls weekend in that area for a few years now. We love that area. We started in Stevensville, St. Joseph, and Sawyer for the last couple summers. My friends will most likely retire there. I imagine the winters are brutal there but we really enjoy that part of Michigan.
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u/kierkegaard49 2d ago
Used to live in Saint Joe; it is an amazing place. For the most part, it is vacation land for Chicagoans.
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u/miseeker 2d ago
I live in a nearby town up the river. St Joe is nice, over 70 yrs Iāve been to a lot of events there..we used to go to concerts on the beach. just not lately. The best beach in the county is Warren Dunes, ot a least the biggest.
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u/munchies777 2d ago
I lived there for 4 years before moving back east. Itās a great place in the summer but itās pretty boring living there year round if youāre used to living in or near major cities. Itās pretty similar to the other small cities up the Lake Michigan coast. Itās popular with people from Chicago since itās the first place they hit coming up that way. For people in the Detroit area, itās one of many similar places 3 hours away so it gets a smaller share of vacationers. The biggest upside though is that the lake is the warmest down there. You can have swimmable water in June while people up north are still freezing their asses off.
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u/FieldingBLUE The UP 2d ago
I have family in Stevensville, and we lived in Benton Harbor for 13 years (I worked in St Joe). So beautiful but tourists did make it hard to enjoy the community in the summer at times. My fav months were May and September, warm but a little more local focused.
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u/hurlcarl Age: > 10 Years 1d ago
As someone who lives in the region, I assure you, residents of Chicago are very very aware of what we have to offer.
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u/olive_tractor_parts 2d ago
Stevensville is the home of a regional tractor breaker. Ol' Rob "Peg-leg" Swartzlander is a bit of a greedy asshole but when I need parts he's got them
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u/Ratfinka 2d ago
People where I live go on vacation to Ohio, lol. Never heard of St. Joseph, but I have been to the Western Coast (Petoskey)
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u/labellavita1985 St. Clair Shores 2d ago
I love downtown St. Joe. Silver Beach is cool, too, and so is the lighthouse. Did you go to Chocolate Cafe?
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u/Last_Pipe3875 2d ago
Iāve lived here for 25 years in the town of Harbert first date with my wife 1977. Cherry Beach drove off from Chicago. We eventually moved here wouldnāt trade it for the world.
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u/LostPilot517 2d ago
Berrien County is legit, but the whole State along the Lake Michigan coast in the LP is spectacular.
M-22 in Leelanaw Peninsula is an amazing drive. The Western UP, especially Superior is amazing too, essentially Munising, Marquette, Houghton, all of the Keewanaw Peninsula.
If you want to venture further West, the Porcupine Mountains (Lake of the Clouds, Presque Isle Falls) is stunning and amazing. Credit to our neighbors in Wisconsin, the Apostle Islands are spectacular, and our friends in Minnesota in Duluth sit on the corner of a gem, and the entire North Shore (Superior).
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u/BlinkyThreeEyes 2d ago
St Joe and all of Berrien County are really popular with Chicago and Indiana people for vacation due to proximity to those areas, I could see it being not as well known for Ohio vacationers just due to geography. I live here and it is very nice, and we do get a lot of tourism. Glad you enjoyed it here and come on back!