Door County, Wisconsin

Thursday, September 11 through September 13, 2025

Door County, Wisconsin, is located on a picturesque peninsula located between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. The county is known for its “Cape Cod of the Midwest” nickname, extensive parklands, charming coastal towns, local wineries and breweries, fish boils, and fruit orchards, especially cherries corn fields, hay fields and cow farms (hey, we are in cheesehead country.. 

The county seat is Sturgeon Bay (10,000 souls) and its attractions include the state’s five state parks, such as Peninsula State Park, and other coastal parks and natural areas offering waterfront activities and scenic beauty.  

Door County is a peninsula extending into the waters of Green Bay to the west and Lake Michigan to the east, providing a diverse range of water-based activities and scenic waterfront views. 

The county’s name, “Door,” is believed to come from the dangerous channel between the mainland and Washington Island, a perilous strait known as “Death’s Door”.  The county is famous for those five state parks, including Peninsula State Park with its Nicolet Beach and Newport State Park, a wilderness park. 

 The picturesque villages such as Sister Bay, Fish Creek, Egg Harbor, and Ephraim, offering unique shopping, dining, and local culture are very popular. The region is famous for fruit orchards, especially for cherries, and local wines and beers from the area’s many wineries and breweries. 

 Many people enjoy boating, kayaking, and water sports on the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan. Traditional Door County fish boils are a popular and unique local dining tradition. The county’s natural beauty, including its parks, beaches, and long shoreline, is its most valuable asset.

The above are excerpts from the internet that explains the Door County Peninsula much better than I’m able.

We stayed at Geitner Homestead Equestrian Campground located 9 miles north of Sturgeon Bay in Carlsville. When searching the internet for a nice quiet place to spend a few days in Door County I came across Geitner Homestead Equestrian Campground.

The campground closest to the farm road is for campers without horses and the one behind the office is set up for horses that include a small corral for each campsite. All the horse niceties such as road apples and flies don’t affect the front campground. The horse campground is much more popular than the non horse campground. For four days the non horse campground had only two RV’s while the horse campground had at least four times that many.

While there we were treated to a horse competition where individual horses and riders worked their way through an obstacle course of sorts, the horse with the fastest time won the competition. Some of the obstacles obviously upset the horses and some did better than others. The riders were very supportive of one another and all seemed to have a good time.

Besides returning to a beautiful and interesting area in Wisconsin we wanted to once again visit the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion WI. The Shrine is the only one recognized by the Catholic Church in the U.S.. Thousands of people participate in the Walk to Mary pilgrimage every year. Please take the time to read about the shrine here: https://championshrine.org/our-story/.

The Shrine is located in Champion, a very small farming community. Farms lie to both sides and rear. In fact most anywhere one goes on this peninsula will find themselves in farm land. The exception is the extreme west and east coast where the bulk of tourism and boating takes place.

The Village of Egg Harbor (1194 souls) has a tourist driven economy. Folks enjoy boating and shopping in the art galleries in this attractive little town.

Fish Creek’s population is listed as “a few hundred”. We did a little snooping, then continued north.

Excerpt from City of Ephraim website: No community embodies its heritage like Ephraim. Embedded in the harbor with a panoramic view of Peninsula State Park’s Eagle Bluff lighthouse and Horseshoe Island, Ephraim has preserved its Norwegian and Moravian roots by making them a part of its modern life.

A historic logging pier finds new life as an art gallery, an impossible fire station becomes a museum, and log cabins are reborn as coffee shops and storefronts. Each June the town hosts its annual Fyr Bal festival, a tribute to Norway’s Midsummer’s Eve. 

The Village Sisters Bay (886 souls) is a lovely town on the Unsalt Ocean. The term “unsalt ocean is a local term for Lake Superior. Since Lake Superior drains into Lake Michigan and the rest of the Great Lake and St. Lawrence River I take the liberty of naming the whole kit and kaboodle The Unsalt Ocean. As is true about all the towns in Door County, Sisters Bay’s economy is tourist drive.

Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant is overflowing with customers. It has goats on the roof of the restaurant.

We drove to the tip of the peninsula to Gill’s Rock. It as well as the communities of Ellison Bay, North Bay, Northport and Rowley’s Bay are in the town. Combined the population is 2096 souls. Northport has the ferry service to Washington Island.

Bailey’s Harbor

We also visited a few towns on the eastern shore of the peninsula. These towns are not as accessible as those on Green Bay as a continuous shoreline road does not exist . Bailey’s Harbor (1300 souls) is named after a ship’s captain whose ship got caught in an unexpected storm and took refuge in the harbor.

Algoma (32oo souls) is a really nice town that faces Lake Michigan as does Bailey’s Harbor. At one time the Algoma was home of the largest commercial fishing fleet on Lake Michigan.

And now words of wisdom: