It’s the quintessential weekend escape, yet let’s make it a lazy, spiritual-battery-recharging week, which makes eminently more sense. If possible, try to schedule your arrival during the preternaturally lovely blossom season (generally beginning in very late April or very early May) or during an open-lighthouse period (generally concurrent with the blossoms)—wow!
Choose one place as a base of operations—Sturgeon Bay, for less driving time when leaving, or Fish Creek, for its centricity and because it’s so darn cute. The county is also set up so that you go up one side and return along the other. (This author prefers to go up the more congested bay side and return along the more subdued lake side.) And please, don’t forgo the somewhat forgotten county sibling—Washington Island, which itself leads to must-see Rock Island.