[JGatti]

I know it was 4th of July week, and I know the Cherry Festival is going on. But we drove over a 1000 miles round trip this past week throughout northern Mi. We went to Cadillac, Traverse City, Manistee, Filer ( by mistake) Gaylord and Mackinaw city. Also Indian river. Every city was very busy. Oddly enough except Traverse City. There were a lot of people don't get wrong just not as many as my past trips. I did talk with some people who said Saturday was much much busier than Sunday.
All in all we had a pretty good time. I had never been to Manistee and thought it was gorgeous as was the manistee national forest. Maybe the new Michigan campaign is working.

[Bydand]

Manistee has one of the best looking downtown in this entire area. They were either smart, or too poor years ago to "refurbish" downtown and get rid of the old storefronts to make way for "Modern" ones. They still have the old downtown storefronts and it makes it very nice looking. I love the Ramsdell Inn right downtown, it is one of my favorite buildings in Manistee.

[baystater]

I think the Pure Michigan Campaign is great and hopefully this will generate a good buzz which I think michigan derserves.
But let me throw this question out there for consideration.

Are the amounts of people that are visiting the areas you talking about (you think) caused by people specifically wanting to visit Michigan (moved by the pure Michigan campaign)? Or are people going to these places because of the new phenomenon of Staycations?
Honestly. In the end is a good thing for Michigan tourism. I just hope your getting a lot of folk from all over the country to come and see the beauty of the state.

Actually a couple of more questions.
If you can remember. Did you see a lot of out of states license plates the places you were at? And what states did you notice?

[Bydand]

I live by one of the tourist towns. Every single day I will see license plates from Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Florida, Texas, and usually Georgia (haven't figured that one out yet why I see Georgia every day). So far this week I have seen plates from 43 different States and most Canadian Provence's. It isn't too unusual to see that during the Summer here. The one plate that is unusual is a plate from Hawaii. I have seen 2 so far this season though.

[JGatti]

I did not look at plates while up there but did notice some out of state ones on the way home. New York, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio were some I seen.

[johnfinn]

I was in Boyne area this past week and saw many Ohio and Indiana plates. Nothing too dramatic as far as traffic, although Charlevoix was packed even during the week. I haven't seen the campaign myself so cannot comment on that aspect. To the above poster from Highland that logged 1000 miles all I can say is Wow! We drove from the Brighton/Howell area and round trip it was less than 500 miles with all side trips included.