White Birch Lodge — Hotel in Elk Rapids Township

Do you ever get jealous of your kids going away to camp and wish there was a place for YOU to go do fun things!? Do you ever get home from your family vacation and need a vacation from lugging your kids' stuff around? Well, White Birch Lodge is a little like camp and a LOT like a relaxing vacation! WBL is the perfect family destination! Our kids LOVE it so much that they would choose a week at WBL over Disney or a week at the ocean or a week pretty much ANYWHERE else. We use this week as a family reunion (4 families) where everyone has their own cabin or accommodation, but we meet for meals together in the dining hall and can go off on our own or see each other as much as we like.||||All inclusive means more than your 3 square meals a day (which a professional cook provides so you don't have to shop, cook, or clean!). Also included are water sports (ski, tube, wakeboard, paddle board, kayak, sail boats), sports (tennis courts, bocce courts, a basketball court, a soccer field, beach volleyball), and a rec hall for indoor table tennis and foosball. The staff is comprised of college students who do your dishes, drive your ski boat, entertain you with a ski show, provide a nightly bonfire for s'mores, and make your week as easy on YOU as possible.||||AND... the staff will care for young children at "kid's camp" where they can spend 2 hours each morning and/or afternoon doing crafts, activities, sandcastle competitions, and play at the park. Parents can take a ski run knowing that their children are having fun while safely being entertained! ||||Monday night there is a friendly "sports night" where the staff take on the guests in various sporting events! Tuesday there is an old fashioned square dance (including some line dancing just for kicks). Wednesday night is an adult buffet (so you can have a date night) while the kids have a party on the basketball court, and Thursday there is a ski show full of tricks and laughter.||||Staff (with the help of your kids) ring a bell and it's meal time! Meals are delicious with plenty of choices for young and old and everyone in between! ||||You can choose accommodation from a cozy condo with amenities to a rustic cabin. We stay in a cabin (#14) which has 2 separate rooms, 1 full bath (including a tub), and 3 queen beds. EVERY room is within 50 ft of Elk Lake and the beach area! This is our 12th year vacationing here! (My husband's family has been coming up for 25+ years!)||||The Lodge provides it all. They have the skis, the lifejackets to fit all sizes, the picnic tables, the beach chairs, the beach toys.... The setting is picture-perfect with stunning, crystal clear water. Most people say the water is as beautiful as the caribbean! It may be a lake, but it is clean and clear. Don't know how to ski? That's ok. They will teach you! (Recommended age is 7 for kids to begin.) Don't know how to sail? They will teach you! Forget how to sit on a beach chair and read a book? It will come back to you! I promise!||||Give this place a try! You will love it! It is only a 9 week season so be sure to book in! We have made lasting friendships because we go back the same...

When I Googled "Top 10 Family Lake Vacations", I was debating between Minnesota and Michigan (we've never visited or vacationed in either state). I was reminiscing about a roadtrip to visit family in Iowa and Chicago when I was between my 10yo daughter and 7yo son's ages and wanted to recreate the great American Heartland roadtrip for my kids. Plus, my husband is English and the closest he's ever been to a good, old-fashioned roadtrip was watching National Lampoon's Vacation (the original) as a kid. I saw the review for WBL on Trip Advisor that said it was like vacationing on the set of Dirty Dancing (throwback to the 1950s, family-style dining, screened in porches, daytime water sports, evening activities), and I knew I wanted to try it. This was going to be great for all of us.||After my first trip there, I am hooked and already made reservations to bring back three generations of my family next year. Plenty of other resorts have water activities on turquoise lakes, delicious food, and kids programs with fancier accommodation. We're coming back to WBL because it is on the right side of the Haimish Line.||The Haimish Line is a fantastic piece David Brooks from the NY Times wrote in his column about his families' recent vacation, depicting the various places they had visited that summer. His family found that they connected more with other guests and had more fun at the simpler camps than the did at the more private luxury camps: "I know only one word to describe what the simpler camps had and the more luxurious camps lacked: haimish. It’s a Yiddish word that suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality." Brooks went on to describe how his family began avoiding camps that crossed the invisible "Haimish Line" into more posh, stuffy camps that they could afford so they would have more fun at the unpretentious, convivial camps. WBL is the most haimish resort where I have ever spent a week.||Maybe it because WBL is a 3-generation family-owned business since 1958. Maybe it is because the owners have always made their profession out of teaching or instructing sports and a number of their loyal returning guests also seem to have education in common. Maybe it is because the 20-something college kids that run around and staff your visit are without exception the most polite, well-trained, friendly, welcoming staff I have encountered. It's the Midwest turned up to Eleven.||Thank you Conrad Family and WBL Staff. You gave this West Coast family everything I knew we needed, but also something I didn't know we needed in this age of connected devices and high-tech: good old-fashioned, face-to-face connection with wonderful people.||"When we’re shopping for a vacation we’re primarily thinking about Where. The travel companies offer brochures showing private beaches and phenomenal sights. But when you come back from vacation, you primarily treasure the memories of Who — the people you met from faraway places, and the lives you came in...

White Birch Lodge (WBL) is an amazing family vacation experience, like no other! We take other vacations (in addition to our annual trip to WBL) and we own our own lake house...No other place compares to being at WBL.

Although the accommodations are very rustic (think of the movie "Dirty Dancing"), they actually add to the charm. You don't go to WBL to feel fancy...YOU GO TO RELAX! There are no TVs in the rooms and the kids forget that they own electronics (so do the adults). Instead, the kids are beyond excited to go to the planned kids activities or to learn how to water ski/wakeboard. They try paddle boarding or kayaking while the adults are sitting on the beach reading, playing tennis or just taking a nap.

The staff is amazing and is made up of mostly college-aged kids who grew up vacationing at WBL. They know how magical the place was for them and work with great attention to make sure that everyone (young and old) has the same experience. The guests typically vacation the same week each year and since you can't just try WBL once, they usually end up coming every year for generations.

The meals are all served family style and are served each day at 9:00, 1:00 and 6:00. Instead of haggling with the rest of the family about when we are going to eat, where we are going to go, how we are going to get there, what we are going to wear, etc. (like other vacations), we roll off the beach, find our flip flops and stroll up to our table. No hassle, no mess, nothing to think about!

We were talked into trying WBL (when our oldest child was just an infant) by a friend who grew up going there for their annual family vacation. We had NO INTENTION of our first trip to WBL to be anything other than a one time vacation to Northern Michigan...Fast forward 15 years and we haven't missed a year. Our kids look forward to this vacation more than they do every other vacation and holliday combined (including Christmas and their birthday). Most kids have a countdown clock to Christmas; every year when we leave, there isn't a dry eye in the car and our kids start the countdown clock to the next year @ WBL, with holidays coming and going in between.

I will always owe a debt of gratitude to the Conrad Family (who have become friends) for the memories that their resort has given us. They could sell their land for millions and walk away. Instead - the third generation of Conrads (Mike) is now running the resort and works incredibly hard to make a decent living so the rest of us can make the best family memories of our lives!

On the way up this year, my 12 year old said "Dad - We aren't really going on a vacation; we're kind of just going home." ...