What is “up north” or vacation country for your state?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Spinning this from the COVID thread since it's a fun debate in all of the Lakes states.

In Minnesota I consider MN 210 to be the unofficial dividing line, but others consider traditional stopping points like Little Falls or Hinckley to be the start of "up north" .

1. MN 27 - a more literal definition, cutting the state in half from west to east. In my mind it's a little too far from the northern woods, minus the long jog on MN 65.

2. MN 210 - really the boundary between the woods to the north and farmland to the south. As mentioned this is my choice for the dividing line, possibly flipping onto US 10 where they meet going westward.

3. MN 200 - a good argument can be made for this route given it connects key tourist spots Itasca Stats Park and Leech Lake, definitely deep in the northwoods.

4. US 2 - while it fits some of the same descriptors as MN 200, it feels like you've been up north for a while before you hit this route.

5. MN 1 - only the hardcore up north folks think it's this far. 

Wisconsin, I would go with WIS 70. US 8 seems a little too far south.

[hotdogPi]

Massachusetts has a pretty clear line: the Cape Cod Canal. However, there is a lot of coastline in the state, so vacation homes can be elsewhere, too.

[NWI_Irish96]

Indiana does not have a clear delineation separating primarily residential and primarily vacation areas. 

North of IN 14 you have a lot of natural lakes with a lot of vacation properties, but you also have three population centers in this zone that aren't at all vacation country.

South of IN 44 is where the state is more rural and less flat, and you have a lot of camping and recreation activity, but not quite the volume of permanent vacation properties.

[jp the roadgeek]

In CT, it's US 1 for the shoreline.  There are also some pockets in Litchfield County around lakes. 

[triplemultiplex]

Wisconsin, I would go with WIS 70. US 8 seems a little too far south.

"Up North" is Highway 29.



That is a bias for those of us who frequent the I-39/US 51 corridor.  Once you leave Wausau and get the cool view around Brokaw, it feels like 'Up North'.  I'm sure it doesn't feel much like 'Up North' for folks in Green Bay or Hudson.  But it does include Door County; a very 'Up North' kind of place in this state.

[CtrlAltDel]

In Illinois, up north is pretty much anything on the other side of the "Cheddar Curtain," less facetiously known as the Wisconsin border.

[cwf1701]

in Michigan, its anything north of Flint/Lansing.

[ozarkman417]

In Missouri, you have the Ozark Highlands in the south (except the west-central area) and plains in the north. The Ozarks contains several large lakes, including Table Rock Lake and Lake of the Ozarks (those are the two lakes that are the most developed). Due to the Geography of the Ozarks and the layout of the state highway system, this is difficult to do with a single route.
Subdividing the state, we have:

South and east of a US-60 up to US-63 up to I-44 line for the state's most rugged areas.

Dividing the state nearly 50/50 would be.. US 50. What a coincidence.

A Route 52-17-I-44 line for "Lake Country".

Down further south, in Arkansas, you have US-67 dividing the U.S. Interior Highlands (Ozarks & Ouachita mountains) and the flat Mississippi Alluvial Plain.

[SEWIGuy]

Wisconsin, I would go with WIS 70. US 8 seems a little too far south.

"Up North" is Highway 29.



That is a bias for those of us who frequent the I-39/US 51 corridor.  Once you leave Wausau and get the cool view around Brokaw, it feels like 'Up North'.  I'm sure it doesn't feel much like 'Up North' for folks in Green Bay or Hudson.  But it does include Door County; a very 'Up North' kind of place in this state.

I've always heard the phrase "north of 64," with is basically the next highway north from WI-29.  Parts of Green Bay, Wausau and Eau Claire shouldn't be considered "up north."

Wisconsin, I would go with WIS 70. US 8 seems a little too far south.

I think US-8 is too far south.  There is plenty of "up north" south of that highway...Crivitz, Wabeno, Tomahawk....are are "up north."

[MikieTimT]

Down further south, in Arkansas, you have US-67 dividing the U.S. Interior Highlands (Ozarks & Ouachita mountains) and the flat Mississippi Alluvial Plain.

Arkansas is more like 6 different regions with the Ozarks/Boston Mtns. being very different kinds of mountains than the Ouachitas, which are weird in that they run E-W and pretty much every other mountain range in the US runs N-S.  Makes for a rather difficult slog for finishing I-49 between Fort Smith and Texarkana.  They are more traditional mountains in the sense that they are up-heaved folds, whereas the Ozarks are eroded plateau, which is why people in other parts of the country don't even consider the Ozark region to contain "real" mountains.  The southern reaches of the Boston Mtns., which are the highest parts of the Ozarks, aren't that much higher than the rest of the plateau, but the valleys are really deep, which is what gives the elevation differential to consider them mountains instead of hills.  The Arkansas River makes up a region all its own in the western half of the state, dividing the 2 ranges.  The Gulf Coast Plains in the south/southwest part of the state are where most of the timberlands and paper/lumber production is, and the Delta makes up pretty much the eastern 1/3 of the state until you get down to about Pine Bluff where the timberlands get closer to the Mississippi River.  There is a huge, weird ridge called Crowley's Ridge that runs 150 miles in NorthEast Arkansas that is between 250 and 550ft. higher than the delta plains around it.  It is still being pushed up and posited that it may be related to the New Madrid fault.

I would say in Arkansas, the vacation portion of the state isn't divided north from south, but more northwest half from southeast half along US-67/I-30/Future I-57.

[Flint1979]

For Michigan it's a bit rugged. From the East it's  M-61 to M-66 then down to M-46.

Saginaw and the thumb certainly aren't up north.

[Flint1979]

in Michigan, its anything north of Flint/Lansing.

I would say that's drawing the line too far south.

[J3ebrules]

For Jerseyans who do NOT go to the shore, I'd say it's the Poconos, the Catskills, and even the Adirondacks.

[Max Rockatansky]

In California it seems to be anything north of Tejon Pass for the SoCal crowd.  For the Central part of the state the destinations seem to mostly be in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or north of the Bay Area (aside from Big Sur and Pismo Beach).  In Arizona it seemed like the Mogollon Rim to the Utah State Line was consisted "up north."    For Michigan it was always north of Lansing and Grand Rapids when I was growing up.  The Florida Keys seemed like the vacation spot for the state unless you were a theme park fiend.

[nexus73]

Oregon sees the PDX/Salem people head for the North Coast in the summer and for those who ski, the destination is Bend/Central Oregon in the winter. 

So where do we folks who live on the South Coast go?  The Valley!  Eugene/Springfield and PDX are popular destinations for enjoying Big City life.

Rick

[DTComposer]

In California it seems to be anything north of Tejon Pass for the SoCal crowd.  For the Central part of the state the destinations seem to mostly be in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or north of the Bay Area (aside from Big Sur and Pismo Beach).  In Arizona it seemed like the Mogollon Rim to the Utah State Line was consisted "up north."    For Michigan it was always north of Lansing and Grand Rapids when I was growing up.  The Florida Keys seemed like the vacation spot for the state unless you were a theme park fiend.

Assuming this is for the "get out of town" type of getaway (or where people are most likely to own/rent vacation homes):

When I lived in L.A./Long Beach, it usually meant one of three things:
-Desert: Palm Springs/Palm Desert
-Mountains: either Mammoth or Big Bear/Lake Arrowhead
-Wine Country: Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez or Paso Robles

Here in the Bay Area, it usually means:
-Mountains: Tahoe or Yosemite
-Wine Country: Napa/Sonoma
-North Coast: Redwoods/Mendocino
-Central Coast: Monterey/Big Sur

[Max Rockatansky]

In California it seems to be anything north of Tejon Pass for the SoCal crowd.  For the Central part of the state the destinations seem to mostly be in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or north of the Bay Area (aside from Big Sur and Pismo Beach).  In Arizona it seemed like the Mogollon Rim to the Utah State Line was consisted "up north."    For Michigan it was always north of Lansing and Grand Rapids when I was growing up.  The Florida Keys seemed like the vacation spot for the state unless you were a theme park fiend.

Assuming this is for the "get out of town" type of getaway (or where people are most likely to own/rent vacation homes):

When I lived in L.A./Long Beach, it usually meant one of three things:
-Desert: Palm Springs/Palm Desert
-Mountains: either Mammoth or Big Bear/Lake Arrowhead
-Wine Country: Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez or Paso Robles

Here in the Bay Area, it usually means:
-Mountains: Tahoe or Yosemite
-Wine Country: Napa/Sonoma
-North Coast: Redwoods/Mendocino
-Central Coast: Monterey/Big Sur

One I'm forgetting about with SoCal is Big Bear.  It seems most of the Big Bear crowd is either Inland Empire or Mojave Desert centric. 

The Mammoth crowd is absolutely brutal aside from a couple stray months where you can get to Devil's Post Pile relatively unabated.  That crowd drives up the hotel prices in Lone Pine and Bishop even...usually I tried to camp or just do a day trip from Fresno by way of Sherman Pass/Tioga Pass. 

Most of the Fresno Crowd is big on the Sierras.  The beach crowd prefers Pismo for some reason over places like Big Sur, San Simeon, Monterey, and Moro Bay.  For some reason Santa Cruz is a big draw from carnivals, it seems like a lot of people like to stop in Casa de Fruita. 

I'm really not sure who the Tahoe crowd is but there is always a ton of people up there I the summer.  I'm assuming that's mostly Sacramento and Reno folks. 

[thenetwork]

Colorado is pretty easy: 

The "up-north" moniker is pretty much everything north of I-70.

The "Vacationland" moniker is pretty much everything about 10-20 miles west of I-25 as soon as you hit the foothills of the Rockies.

[webny99]

For Jerseyans who do NOT go to the shore, I'd say it's the Poconos, the Catskills, and even the Adirondacks.

Some friends of ours ran into some Jerseyans on Keuka Lake one time.. which is a good 3-1/2 to 4 hours even from the nearest parts of Jersey, and more west than north.

[bing101]

In California it seems to be anything north of Tejon Pass for the SoCal crowd.  For the Central part of the state the destinations seem to mostly be in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or north of the Bay Area (aside from Big Sur and Pismo Beach).  In Arizona it seemed like the Mogollon Rim to the Utah State Line was consisted "up north."    For Michigan it was always north of Lansing and Grand Rapids when I was growing up.  The Florida Keys seemed like the vacation spot for the state unless you were a theme park fiend.

Assuming this is for the "get out of town" type of getaway (or where people are most likely to own/rent vacation homes):

When I lived in L.A./Long Beach, it usually meant one of three things:
-Desert: Palm Springs/Palm Desert
-Mountains: either Mammoth or Big Bear/Lake Arrowhead
-Wine Country: Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez or Paso Robles

Here in the Bay Area, it usually means:
-Mountains: Tahoe or Yosemite
-Wine Country: Napa/Sonoma
-North Coast: Redwoods/Mendocino
-Central Coast: Monterey/Big Sur

In the Sacramento area "get out of town" type of getaway its the same as the Bay Area though


But with a few additions such as going to Reno and going to the Mount Shasta region.

[Bruce]

The San Juan Islands, which have seen an influx of "refugees" despite having no hospital and only a small grocer. The islanders are not pleased.

[tdindy88]

Indiana does not have a clear delineation separating primarily residential and primarily vacation areas. 

North of IN 14 you have a lot of natural lakes with a lot of vacation properties, but you also have three population centers in this zone that aren't at all vacation country.

South of IN 44 is where the state is more rural and less flat, and you have a lot of camping and recreation activity, but not quite the volume of permanent vacation properties.

Specifically, at least for the Indianapolis crowd, Brown County in southern Indiana usually gets a special mention in terms of a destination. A good number of cabins and campsites make it quite popular for a weekend trip from the city.

[webny99]

it's a fun debate in all of the Lakes states.

Might as well include New York as a Lakes state... why not?
There's no hard and fast line, but anything east of NY 12 and north of NY 29 is definitely "North Country".
You also get a lot of vacationing/summer travel in the Finger Lakes and Catskills.

As far as routes that connect population centers to vacation destinations, the Thruway is the big collector-distributor statewide. I-87 (the Northway) north of Albany is probably the most famous as far as having a direct seasonal tie in to congestion. NY 332 is the big one for the Rochester area, and NY 104 to a lesser extent (but still enough to make the 2-lane portion a frustrating drive). There's not a lot of clear cut ones other than that. US 20/NY 5 and NY 14, maybe a bit. Honestly not really sure for Syracuse and Buffalo. They don't have a single route to the Finger Lakes like Rochester does. Maybe US 219 between Buffalo and the Chautauqua-Allegany region? NY 481 between Syracuse and the Lake Ontario beaches? Now I'm really stretching it... 

[webny99]

In Minnesota I consider MN 210 to be the unofficial dividing line, but others consider traditional stopping points like Little Falls or Hinckley to be the start of "up north" .

Personally, I actually think I-94 does a pretty good job dividing MN between forest/lake country (north) and farm country (south).
If you use both I-94 and MN 210, you're left with a triangle that has some characteristics of the true north, but just isn't quite there yet. 

[Roadgeekteen]

Cape Cod, the Islands, the Berkshires, and to a lesser extent the North Shore/South Shore.