Minnesota Cabin Experience

Having moved to Minnesota from Chicago a few years ago, I was interested in experiencing cabin life like a true Minnesotan. We have enjoyed being home in the Twin Cities during the summer because the weekends are so quiet around town. People leave on Thursdays or Fridays and come home Sunday night. Our local public pool has lots of empty chairs for lounging. No line at Lunds. Plenty of available seats at the movies. Summer is great here! Why leave?

But I wanted to see what all the fuss was about cabins. We did not have a Minnesota cabin in the family so we decided to check out VRBO.com, Vacation Rental by Owner. This company has been around awhile and I had heard of it many years ago from a friend who rents out her vacation home on the website.

My criteria: 2 hours or less from our home in the Twin Cities. Near water for my daughter to fish or enjoy water fun, attractions of any kind were a plus.

VRBO is a fun site to navigate and very intuitive if you spend time looking at dream homes on the real estate sites or any travel-booking websites.

I came up with a cabin midway between Alexandria (I had never been there) and Brainard (I also had never been there). The cabin was not directly on the lake but only a very short walk to the dock.

Cue the Andy Griffith theme song.

Over 50 fish were caught and released back after a tasty bite of worm. Smaller fish like Sunfish, Bluegill, and Bass were easy to catch.

Most were about this size or smaller. Note how we reuse baby washcloths!

I saw loons for the first time! They can really swim underwater for a long time!

I will write about some of our stops in other posts.

Overall, it was a wonderful and relaxing experience and we will definitely visit other cabins and locations in the future.

I did not receive anything from VRBO for this post but I highly recommend it!