Adventures in Jackson Michigan

Paddling. Hiking. Eating. Downtown. Art. Foot Golf. Yea, that's right, we had a friendly competition of foot golf. We planned our visit to Jackson to incorporate some of our favorite outdoors adventures but knew we had to do something very unique that is offered in downtown Jackson, and that was to check out all of the Bright Walls murals. 

Downtown Jackson has been transformed over the past few years to now include over 40 unique murals throughout the city as part of the Bright Walls Mural Festival. Artists from all over the world have traveled to Jackson to take part in this. This is some of the best art we have witnessed and a cool thing about all of this is that it is here to stay! It is not like many art festivals or shows where the art comes in and then leaves at the end of the event. These murals are here if you go downtown today or plan on visiting in the future. In 2022 there will be a grand finale event. Check out all of the details and for a map of the art on the Bight Walls website. 

During our time in Jackson we also hit up a few places to eat that were recommended to us and they didn't disappoint! We had pizza, poutine and drinks at Grand River Brewing. Poutine is one of those foods that is not very common to find so we were excited about that! We also had burritos from Chilango's that were huge and very unique. Having another one will be a must-have during our next visit to the area. Also, if you follow along with us, we always enjoy checking out new coffee shops so we went to Jackson Coffee Company. As a bonus, the latest Bright Walls mural is right on the side of their building!

Now, lets talk about the outdoors. We did much of our planning for this by using the app from Experience Jackson. It is really cool and lets you select the type of activity you are looking to do then gives you all of the options in the area (the app also features more than just outdoor recreation). That led us to discover that there are a lot of awesome accessible lakes in this area so we did some planning and ended up going to Lime Lake. The lake is split at one point by the Falling Waters Trail so there are a couple places to access the lake. We were on the side that was totally surrounded by nature and had a great paddle on this lake to start the day. We had our fishing gear with us and were even able to catch some bass, which is always a bonus! We ended up paddling two different lakes and also hitting up some hiking trails. Check out the video below to see more!

 We also like to try new things when we can, especially if it can involve a bit of friendly competition. We decided to challenge each other to a game of foot golf, and well, you will have to watch the video below to see the results!

Overall, we had a great time in Jackson. The art makes downtown Jackson very unique and a must-see if you are into that. Check out our full video from our time in Jackson!