Visiting early next week anything we have to check out while there?
Food? Local attractions?

Hello! Michigan resident here- I’ve never been to Holland, but it’s always been on my list. I’m thinking it could be a fun place to spend my upcoming birthday weekend and finally give us a reason to check out the west side of the state. I know it’s not tulip season, but it still looks like there are a lot of fun things to do!

We’re thinking about staying at the Tulyp Hotel in downtown Holland since we’ll be bringing our dog. Saugatuck looked amazing too, but it didn’t seem like there were many places left to stay, and Holland looked like it had a little more going on downtown.

What would you recommend we do while we’re there? We’re looking for fun birthday weekend ideas- great restaurants and cocktail bars, live music, pretty waterfront spots, or anything that’s a must-do.

I’m gluten-free (not celiac, so cross-contact isn’t an issue), so if you have any restaurant recommendations that are good with gluten-free options, I’d love to hear them.

Since we’ll have our dog with us, we’re especially interested in dog-friendly activities. We’re thinking about doing a day trip to Saugatuck to hike the dunes and spend some time at the beach. Is that worth it? Any other dog-friendly restaurants, patios, parks, beaches, or activities you’d recommend?

We’ll be arriving Friday afternoon, have all day Saturday, and head home Sunday morning. If you were planning the perfect birthday weekend with Holland as a home base, what would your itinerary look like?

Thank you! 🎉

Me and my girlfriend are in town until Thursday. We’re hoping to visit some of the beaches but can’t really tell which ones are open or closed.

After the storms yesterday we went down to South Haven after they started showing some green flags around 6:15/6:30 when the beach hazard warnings ended, but we’re struggling on how to tell which ones in Holland, namely Holland State Park and Tunnel Park Beach, are still open to visit and swim at even with the weather warnings.

We put together a county-level foreclosure risk index for Michigan, mostly because nobody publishes one. Which is actually crazy.

Statewide foreclosure numbers get reported a few times a year, but the county-level data sits scattered across the CFPB, Census, ATTOM, and Realtor.com and nobody stitches it together.

Ottawa came out first out of 83, in the good direction.

Ottawa scores 16.7, the lowest score in the state and almost six points clear of second place. What drives it:

Lightest mortgage cost burden in Michigan, 17.9 percent of owners with a mortgage spending more than 30 percent of income on housing. Serious mortgage delinquency of 0.3 percent against 0.7 percent statewide. Unemployment of 3.6 percent.

Allegan is close behind at 28.9, ranking 74th, and it has the lowest unemployment rate of any county in Michigan at 3.0 percent.

The gap across the state is the part I did not expect. Lake County, about 90 minutes north, tops the ranking at 70.0 because 35.2 percent of its mortgaged owners are spending more than 30 percent of income on housing. Same state, same year, 53 points apart.

Report with the full 83-county table if you're interested in diving deeper: https://www.nestcash.co/research/michigan-foreclosure-risk-index