Boyne Falls · Boyne City · Charlevoix · Petoskey
Boyne Mountain is in Boyne Falls, six miles from downtown Boyne City and about 35 miles from the Traverse City airport. Inside that small circle: a ski hill, the largest indoor waterpark in Michigan, two championship golf courses and the third largest inland lake in the state. This site sorts out which of those your trip is really about, then hands you to the people who manage the houses.
We are a guide, not a booking engine. No inventory, no rates, no availability calendar on this site.
Most people book here for one of four reasons, and the right place to sleep is different for each one.
December to March
415 acres and 65 trails at Boyne Mountain, with The Highlands at Harbor Springs on the same pass.
Where to base yourselfAll year
Avalanche Bay runs 88,000 square feet and sits at 84 degrees in February.
Plan the rest of the dayJune to September
17,200 acres, 56 miles of shoreline, and a town at each end worth walking.
Waterfront or walkableMay to October
The Alpine and The Monument, plus a 1,200 foot suspension bridge over the valley.
Green seasonBooking a week up here tends to go the same way. You open a map, you open a calendar, and then you spend two hours cross referencing photos against a drive time you are guessing at. The listing says it sleeps ten. It does not say that ten people and one and a half bathrooms make for a rough Saturday morning, or that the house is on the south arm and dinner is a fifteen minute drive each way.
A matcher fixes the part photos cannot. Six questions, about a minute to answer, and the result is a short list from a real manager's inventory with the reasoning attached rather than a grid of thumbnails sorted by price.
It is not live yet. A matcher is only as good as the houses behind it, and those belong to Northern Michigan Escapes, which lists more than 250 vacation rentals in Northern Michigan. If you came here to book a week, the button below goes straight to their search.
Boyne Mountain keeps two 18 hole courses. The Alpine plays up to 7,045 yards at a 140 slope and is the more forgiving of the pair. The Monument runs 6,964 yards at a 141 slope, names every hole for an architect or a player, and does not forgive a loose tee shot. Both are par 72 and both sit inside the Boyne Golf collection the resort markets as Michigan's Magnificent Eleven.
The other reason to come in summer is SkyBridge Michigan, which spans 1,200 feet between its towers, hangs 118 feet above the valley and puts a 36 foot glass floor at the midpoint. The resort bills it as the world's longest timber towered suspension bridge. It takes about twenty minutes to walk, which makes it an odd thing to drive four hours for and a very good thing to do on a Tuesday when the lake is choppy.
Golfers usually want a house with a garage for clubs, a grill, and a short drive back after a late nine. That is a different house than the one a ski group wants, which is the whole argument for choosing where you sleep by the trip rather than by the photos.
Northern Michigan Escapes manages across all of these. Where you land changes the trip more than the square footage does.
The resort town. Slopeside and near slope places, a short walk or shuttle to the lifts, and almost nothing else within walking distance. Best if the mountain is the point.
Six miles from the hill and on the water at the east end of Lake Charlevoix. A real downtown with restaurants, a brewery and a grocery store, which matters more on day four than it does on day one.
About 24 miles from Boyne Falls, on the channel between Lake Charlevoix and Lake Michigan. Drawbridge traffic in July is a genuine planning input, not a joke.
The foot of the south arm. Quieter, usually cheaper per bedroom, and you will drive to dinner every night. Some people want exactly that.
North of the lake on Little Traverse Bay, with the Gaslight District for shopping and the largest concentration of restaurants in the area.
Across the bay from Petoskey and home to The Highlands, which shares a season pass with Boyne Mountain. Two mountains, one lift ticket, about an hour apart.
Boyne Mountain Resort is at 1 Boyne Mountain Road in Boyne Falls, Michigan, in Charlevoix County. The resort's own directions page puts it about 35 miles northeast of Traverse City, roughly a 45 minute drive from Cherry Capital Airport.
No. Lift tickets are sold to anyone, so plenty of people rent a house in Boyne City, Charlevoix or Petoskey and drive in. Boyne City is about six miles away. Charlevoix is about 24 miles by road. The trade off is the morning drive, which is usually fine and occasionally is not, because this is lake effect country and the snow arrives sideways.
Access to the waterpark is set by the resort, not by us and not by any rental company, and the rules have changed between seasons. Confirm it directly with Boyne Mountain before you build a day around it. We will not tell you a rental includes waterpark passes, because that is the resort's call to make.
About six miles, roughly eleven minutes on M-75. Boyne Falls sits on US-131 and Boyne City sits on the lake, and M-75 is the road between them.
For snow without the holiday crowd, late January into the first half of February. For the lake, the last week of June, before Fourth of July traffic fills every road in the county and the Charlevoix drawbridge becomes a daily event. Early October is the quietest good week of the year and almost nobody books it.
Doble AI, a bilingual AI implementation firm run by John Rounds, who lived in Northern Michigan for about twenty years. Two of his three kids were born in Petoskey. boynelodging.com is independent and is not affiliated with Boyne Resorts or with Northern Michigan Escapes. We do not manage properties or take bookings. Partnership inquiries go to john@dobleai.com.
We do not hold inventory. Northern Michigan Escapes lists more than 250 vacation rentals in Northern Michigan, from Boyne Falls and Charlevoix to Harbor Springs and Traverse City. Their search has the dates and the photos.
Northern Michigan Escapes is an independent company. We do not take bookings, hold inventory or set rates.