Saugatuck and its twin village of Douglas, separated only by the Kalamazoo River, have marketed themselves as 'the Art Coast of Michigan' since the early twentieth century, when the Ox-Bow School of Art established a summer campus on the river's oxbow bend. That artistic pedigree, combined with a genuinely walkable downtown and one of the best beaches on Lake Michigan's southern shore, has made the twin towns among the most visited destinations in West Michigan.
The Chain Ferry and Mount Baldhead
A small hand-cranked chain ferry, one of the last of its kind in the country, carries pedestrians and bicycles across the Kalamazoo River to the base of Mount Baldhead, a roughly 200-foot dune that visitors climb via a long wooden staircase for a panoramic view over the river mouth and Lake Michigan beyond. The ferry's continued operation is as much a novelty as a necessity, since a road bridge exists nearby, but its old-fashioned mechanics have become part of the town's identity.
Oval Beach
Oval Beach, on the far side of Mount Baldhead, has been ranked among the best beaches in the country by multiple travel publications, its wide sand shelf and manageable dune backdrop making it more accessible than some of the steeper dune beaches further north. Summer weekends bring crowds substantial enough that parking, rather than the beach itself, becomes the day's real logistical challenge.
Ox-Bow and a Legacy of Galleries
The Ox-Bow School of Art, affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, continues to run a summer residency program on the same oxbow lagoon it settled over a century ago, and the arts influence radiates through downtown Saugatuck's dense concentration of galleries — an unusually high number for a town of roughly a thousand year-round residents. Douglas, quieter and slightly less commercial than Saugatuck proper, has become the preferred base for visitors who want the same walkable access without quite the same density of tourist foot traffic.