Nelson Family Blog: Duluth Trip 2025

The weekend after Labor Day, we took a family trip to Duluth. We planned this trip while my dad was still alive, so it was very bittersweet to go on this trip without my dad, who was so excited and looking forward to going to Duluth. We reserved an Airbnb over a year ago. It was a big beautiful house with a large wrap around porch, a fire pit, a hiking trail, a pond, and a stream. It had 8 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge kitchen, indoor fireplace, and more. We couldn't have asked for a nicer place. But, we could have asked for nicer weather. It was cold, rainy, and windy basically the entire time we were there. We wore hoodies, and pants the whole time, and we couldn't even enjoy our beautiful deck.

We pulled the kids out of school on Thursday and Friday. We headed to my mom's house on Wednesday night, and then we headed for Duluth on Thursday morning. Ryan and Emily took mom in their car, and then the 4 of us rode in our car. We made good time, and ended up in Duluth around 1:00pm for a late lunch. Then, we headed down to Canal Park to see the lift bridge, walk around the museum, explore some shops and breweries, and just do touristy things. After all that, we stopped for groceries, and then headed to our Airbnb. We got unpacked, settled in, and then made some supper. While we were playing some pool in the basement, Rachel, Carlos and Elena arrived. We all ended up in the kitchen, having some drinks and visiting. Then, we headed to bed. Our family slept upstairs, Ryan and Emily took the master on the main floor, Mom had a bedroom on the main floor, and then Rachel and Carlos took the basement.

On Friday, we did some exploring. We went to Split Rock Lighthouse, Gooseberry Falls, Betty's Pies, and the lookout tower in Duluth. We had some cloudy, chilly weather, but overall it wasn't bad for hiking. We saw some beautiful waterfalls, ate some delicious pie, and just enjoyed a laid back day of exploring. We also stopped at Castle Danger Brewery, but that was very crowded and cold and rainy, so we did not have the best experience. But the beer was good. By late afternoon, we were back at our house ready to make some supper and hang out. It was once again too cold and rainy to be on the deck, so we hung out in the kitchen and visited with some beverages.

On Saturday, we did some more exploring. We went to Tettegouche State Park and did some more intense hiking and exploring. Ryan, Emily, Emma, John and I went because we were more of the hiking/adventerous crew, and the others stayed behind and went to the Duluth Aquarium and did some things in downtown Duluth. After all the hiking, we did a little brewery tour. We went to Bent Paddle, Ursa Minor, and Warrior Brewery. It was fun to explore all of those, but I felt bad dragging Emma to all of those breweries. Then, we met up with the rest of the party at a BBQ place for supper. The food was a little underwhelming, but it was a fun experience. Then, we headed back to the house for our last night.

On Sunday morning, we had a big breakfast, and then we all started packing up and got ready for the long trip home. And we had had enough family time for one weekend. Everyone headed out around 9:00am. We actually ended up going to Canal Park one last time, and we timed it perfectly to see a Laker Ship come into port. It is always so cool to see those large ships come into port and the kids really enjoyed that. That basically made the whole trip for us. After spending some time in Canal Park, we decided on a whim to go to Spirit Mountain Adventure Park. We had such a blast at this park. We did all the rides. We did the ski lift scenic ride which gave us a gorgeous view of the Duluth skyline and Lake Superior. There were also Mountain Bike riders riding around and they were really fun to watch. Then, we did the Apline Coaster ride, which was really fun. When you ride in this coaster, you can control how fast you go with the brake, and the kids enjoyed just flying around the track. We also did the zip line, which was also really fun. We also found some weird loophole, and the workers were not asking for tickets in the beginning, so we rode all of the rides for basically free, multiple times, until they started asking for tickets. It was a really fun capper to our vacation weekend.

Then, we actually had to drive the 6 hours home. It was a long drive, but we made it. We are definitely planning on going back to Duluth someday. It is such a beautiful, fun place to visit.