Tony Fitzpatrick
The artist, actor, and poet, 65, on surviving a heart attack, getting sober, and being a rebel
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We Grown Now Is an Understated Homage to Chicago
Director Minhal Baig talks with Chicago about how she captured both the joy and challenges of Cabrini-Green.
Escape to the Lake
From the ideal spot for sweeping coastal views to a pastry paradise, these 12 Lake Michigan destinations are perfect for getting away from it all.
Your Happy Place Awaits (If You Can Get a Room)
Saugatuck, MichiganThe drive: 2.5 hours You know how when you’re stressed out, people say, “Think about your happy place”? When I think of mine, I imagine sitting on my yoga mat on a wide wood-planked deck overlooking Lake Michigan, listening to the waves and the birds and taking in the deep blue of the water. … Read more
A Pastry Tour of the Kringle Capital
Racine, WisconsinThe drive: 1.5 hours Among travelers whose plans center on food, I’m of a particular subset: I map out trips around baked things. And if we’re talking a hyperregional specialty, all the better. (Ask my husband, whom I’ve dragged on tours of the sfogliatelles of Naples, the bagels of Montreal, and all the clangers … Read more
As Pure as Michigan Gets
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, MichiganThe drive: 5.5 hours On a glorious late-summer day a couple of years ago, my wife, Rebecca, and I hiked the modest incline in Sleeping Bear Dunes that leads to Pyramid Point, not far from the town of Glen Arbor. We ascended 1.2 miles through the beech and maple forest … Read more
A Rustic (And Tourist-Free) Getaway in the U.P.
Garden Peninsula, MichiganThe drive: 6 hours The Garden Peninsula, which I discovered on a drive around the Great Lakes nearly 20 years ago, is out of the way even for the Upper Peninsula. Hanging off the bottom of the mother peninsula, it is a 22-mile-long knuckle of land reaching from Michigan toward Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. … Read more
A Two-Wheel Trip to Milwaukee
chicago to milwaukeeThe bike ride: 10 hours Friendships are based on two things: common interests and complaining. My friend Patryk excels at the latter. For years, he complained that I never invited him on my long-distance cycling trips around the Midwest. When I asked him to ride with my bike team, he complained about that, … Read more
An Eclectic Shopping Destination Without the Crowds
Port Washington, WisconsinThe drive: 2 hours Port Washington is a place where time stands still — the view from Franklin Street up the hill to St. Mary’s Church always postcard-perfect, the caw of seagulls in the near distance reminding you of vacations gone by. Even the music playing in the boutiques is stuck somewhere in the yacht-rock … Read more
A Drinking Tour of Harbor Country
New Buffalo and Three Oaks, MichiganThe drive: 1.5 hours I could tell you that my lifelong besties and I make an annual pilgrimage to southwest Michigan’s Harbor Country for the sunsets, which turn the sky and lake into a painter’s palette of lavender and saffron and indigo and invite us to contemplate the fleeting nature of … Read more