Being recently retired, we are learning to embrace spontenaity, my wife and I took a week and spent time in 3 lakes Wisconsin, and Ashland/Bayfield Wisconsin.

3 Lakes. We started our week in a friends Lake house in 3 lakes, spent a quiet 3 days and enjoyed some boat time. Love this area as there are many historic and vintage homes and boat houses.

Great Area here in Wisconsin if you have never been.  Located on the chain of lakes in the area and close to Eagle River.  We have a great place to stay as a friend has a beautiful home on the water that he lets us use.  Time here is spent on the boat and “running the Chain” This refers to boating or watersports on the Eagle River Chain of Lakes, which is the world’s largest chain of freshwater lakes. This chain includes 28 interconnected lakes spanning from just east of Three Lakes to west of Eagle River.  We start in 3 lakes and boat through all 28 lakes to Eagle River, It’s and all day trip with plenty of sites including the Burnt Rollway hoist.  It connects the Eagle River and Three Lakes chains of lakes using a unique boat lift, it is a very cool little stop on the tour.  Check it out here: https://www.wvic.com/Content/Burnt_Rollways_Boat_Hoist.cfm

Ashland Wi

After a Few days in 3 Lakes we took off for the Apostle Island area and we stayed in Ashland at neat Airbnb called 2^nd Wind Country Inn,  https://secondwindcountryinn.com/ Loved this place, it was quiet, a little off the beaten path and on 55 acres with horse and Donkeys.  It was awesome.  The Owners were incredibly welcoming.  Highly recommended.  Ashland is fairly small, we visited the downtown area and did the Mural Walk, which is very cool.  If your there check it out, we had dinner at the Landing and were pleased with the great food and good service.

Bayfield Wi

Madeline Island, the biggest island of the Apostle Island chain, but not officially part of them.  We took a 20 minute ferry ride to the island and spent half the day.  La Point is the main town there and it has a small business area with Shops, Unique sites and restaurants.  We did the Casper trail hike, the Madeline Island  museum, https://madelineislandmuseum.wisconsinhistory.org/  and lunch at the Beach Club featuring great views of Lake Superior.  I think a half a day is really all you need to explore this area, but if inclined you can head to the other end of the island and Big Bay State Park with a great beach and many hiking trails.

The second part of our day we headed back to Bayfield and stopped for a Beer at the Pickled Herring, highly recommended the Bent Paddle Hazy IPA!  After a quick stop we hopped on our second tour of the day, a 2.5 hour boat trip through the Apostle Islands. I highly recommend this as this was a great historical guided tour of the Islands, to include many sea caves.  (The visit to the Madeline Island Museum was very helpful to see many things he spoke about) If you had time I would fit this in!

This was a great trip overall, and if you are traveling through this area would be a great place to stop and see!  Next time we will spend more time Kayaking and Hiking for our second time around