Where is Best Lodging Location/Experience Along Upper Missisippi River?
 

Where is Best Lodging Location/Experience along Upper Missisippi River? (my family of 4 w/2 teen girls) I would like to take them to a place that more or less overlooks the Mississippi river. In the summer to do a whole lot of nothing. But attractive / interesting nothing. Where is that place? Along the upper Mississippi - Lower Minnesota /Iowa / Wisconsin to upper Illinois. I prefer to avoid popular crowded campground like environments. But camping is an option. City or country is an option. Thanks

Wow Sobolik, so many good places to choose from!

One area we like is the village of Trempealeau, in Trempealeau County, WI, just north of LaCrosse. Great vistas of the Mississippi, wild life refuge, miles of bike trails (non-auto), good wildflowers, abundant water sports. Near Onalaska and LaCrosse if you want more variety for dinner or a movie. Two web sites for more information.

http://www.trempealeaucountytourism.com/

http://www.trempealeau.net/

There is camping available, but we stayed in a cottage on the property of this hotel and really liked it:

http://trempealeauhotel.com/

Good luck and hope you get many good suggestions. SusanEva

My guy is from Red Wing, Minnesota. It is a gorgeous small town on the banks of the river with a nice hotel (The St. James)good restaurants, antique shops, etc...You can drive across the high bridge and be in Wisconsin in 10 minutes and you can head up river toother small towns and St. Paul (Minneapolis) is only an hour away.

After I posted last night I realized another wonderful option for you...the headwaters of the Mississippi are located in Itasca State Park in Minnesota (near small town of Park Rapids). It is a beautiful park with camping, lodge rooms or cozy cabins available. (book early) You can literally cross the headwaters in 2 minutes by walking across some rocks where a lake empties in the stream-like beginnings of the river. It is fun to float on your back or hike the first 1/2 mile or so down the river as well. The park has a sandy swimming beach as well. It can be crowded at times but moast people just visit the headwaters and leave during the height of the day so when I stay in the park I find it peaceful in the morning or evening. My extended family rented 3 cabins near the campground and they were log cabins with bathroom and kitchnette...spotlessly clean and charming. We had a tiny porch and a fire pit and it was June so the showy pink ladyslipper flowers were blooming. We saw lots of them. There is poisin ivy in the park so that would be worth looking out for. Park Rapids nearby is a typical up north tourist town with ice cream, fudge and t-shirt shops if you get a rainy day. I think they have info on the web.

Wabasha, Minnesota which is on the Mississippi, has the oldest operating hotel in the state, called the Anderson House. It has a cute room full of cats, each in a bed in a little cubby hole. You can choose to have one of the cats to sleep in your room at night if you want (but get a mellow one. I once did this, actually got two cats, and they chased each other around the room and across my friend and I in our beds, in circles. Wild! It was too late to put them back in their room, so we managed to get them to calm down and go to sleep finally). The hotel food is very good here also. If you have a car, you can cross the river to Wisconsin and go up to Stockholm and Pepin where it is very scenic along the river there.

I forgot to add that close to Wabasha, MN is Lark Toys in Kellogg, with an incredible hand carved carousel. See the websites: www.larktoys.com and historicandersonhouse.com. In Pepin,Wisconsin the Harbor View restaurant is fantastic. Look at www.mississippi-river.org for ideas, and in July is the Stockholm, WI art fair. So there is enough to do for a mellow relaxing vacation in the area.

Thanks! Wabasha is a very neat option for my kitty fanatic kids and some stuff for me too.