Visit The USA ‘Road Trip’ Crew Stops In Grand Haven

Activities

This past July we were excited to be selected by Visit The USA as a stop on their USA Road Trip of the Great Lakes to promote the area as a destination nationally and internationally. Visit The USA aka Brand USA is the USA’s destination marketing & travel organization. Other USA Road Trips included on VisitTheUSA.com are the Texas BBQ Trail, The Oregon Trail, and Coast To Coast By Rail. The Great Lakes Trip included stops in Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Grand Haven! Taking the Road Trip on behalf of Brand USA was John the tour manager, Corey the photographer & videographer, and a Chinese blogger, Jun Song.

Jun Song is a very well-traveled Chinese freelance blogger and photographer. He has worked with many well-known magazines in China, such as Voyage, Tourism Overview, Tourism World and Fellow Traveler. In 2009, he was awarded the photography award by Sina.com, one of the most influential websites in China today. Jun Song’s blog currently has over 56 million views. Yep. You read that right!

Needless to say, we felt pretty lucky to be included as a stop on this epic road trip! We had less than 24 hours to show the crew as much Grand Haven awesomeness as possible so we had to make the most of it.

After quickly dropping their bags at the Boyden House Bed & Breakfast –  John, Corey, and Jun Song joined us for a trolley tour of the area.

Once returning back to Chinook Pier after our tour, we started to make our way down the boardwalk towards Snug Harbor to have dinner.

Along the way, we came across a group of folks hanging out in hammocks and walking on slacklines at Bicentennial Park along the Grand River. So fun to watch! Corey even gave his best shot at walking on the slackline.

Arriving at Snug Harbor, we were joined by Pure Michigan’s Vice President, Dave Lorenz. We had a lovely dinner at Snug along with some Michigan craft beers while we sat on the deck overlooking the river channel. The best way to dine in the summer in Grand Haven!

After dinner, we said goodbye to Dave and made our way down the boardwalk and pier to catch the sunset. The Road Trip crew had not experienced a decent sunset on their trip yet and boy did they get a treat while here in Grand Haven – Mother Nature graced us with a stunning show that night!

We had to practically had to drag Corey and Jun Song away from the pier but we had to hightail it to the other side of the river for a special treat. We arranged for special access to the Musical Fountain so that they could see it up close during the show as well as get a tour. As the fountain played, John remarked that he is a hard person to impress…but this was way impressive.

The next morning before leaving the Grand Haven area to travel to Detroit, the USA Road Trip crew headed to Rosy Mound Natural Area. They met up with Ottawa County Parks naturalist, Kristen Hintz, for a tour of the stunning park.

It was a whirlwind of a stop for the Road Trip crew here in Grand Haven but they had a wonderful time discovering our area. We enjoyed it too!

As of last week, Jun Song wrote about his time here in Grand Haven in his blog as well as posted some stunning photos. You can check it out here. We recommend using Google Chrome to view the post so that you can use the translate option since it is written in Chinese.

Also the Great Lakes Road Trip is now live on VisitTheUSA.com and includes highlights from their trip, photos, videos, Q&A and more. Here’s one the videos highlighting the whole road trip!

Learn more about Brand USA/Visit The USA at VisitTheUSA.com

Read Jun Song’s Blog on Sina.com