Traveler: Field Of Dreams
Glamping arrives to the Midwest at The Fields, near South Haven, Michigan. Courtesy The Fields
A cozy tent that you didn’t have to pitch. Chef-prepared dinners instead of whitefish you caught and cleaned. S’mores by the campfire, but with handmade marshmallows smacking of champagne or peach cobbler.
Glamping has finally arrived in the Midwest, and it is at The Fields (from $329/night). Nestled within a working blueberry farm in South Haven, Michigan, The Fields, which opened in June, is like a mashup of family camping trips and the Waldorf Astoria, run by a former event planner in Chicago.
After wending your way through the back roads of South Haven—known more for its broad beaches than for camping—you’ll park where there’s a clearing in the thicket of blueberry bushes. Your carriage awaits in the form of an ’81 Ford truck, which whisks you through the berry patch and up to the luxuriously soaring pergola that serves as The Fields’s open-air check-in desk, dining room, and lobby. If owner Irene Wood is on the property—and she probably is, arranging peonies or circulating glasses of Riesling crafted nearby—the hostess will welcome you to her dream come true: a luxury glamp-site tucked into the sweeping countryside where she grew up.
Count on a firepit and some sweet local treats.Courtesy The Fields
Then it’s off to your “tent,” which hardly seems the right term for the structure—a rustic getaway cloaked in creamy, stout cloth held up by sturdy tree branches. Each of the nine dwellings on site has a different name and theme, so you might find old Girl Scout sashes and Campfire Girl hardcovers in “Spruce Shadows,” for instance. Wherever you’re bunking, no need for a cot or sleeping bag here. The cushy king-size mattress is sheathed in elegant cotton and dressed up with cute pillows. Come nightfall, you’ll find your wood-burning stove in the corner already lit, keeping chilly Michigan air at bay. A chic and comfy seating area stocked with books and a reading light beckons. Did you even have to ask if there’s a “toilette” and shower with fluffy towels? Each tent has a private, fully plumbed en suite bathroom. “I knew glamping would come to the Midwest soon,” says Wood, “and I wanted to be the one to do it right.”
DRINK
Virtue Cider is one of several farms in southwest Michigan trying to make the term “Cider Coast” happen. The “rosé” is made with heirloom fruit aged in French oak barrels.
SAIL
Can you say you’ve been to Michigan if you don’t make it onto the water? The Michigan Maritime Museum offers excursions on both historic ships and replica vessels.
