Golf along Lake Michigan is the main attraction at Destination Kohler, but there are plenty of other activities.
Besides golf I mean!
I’m saving my review of the four courses for the next and final post. Today I talk about the myriad other things you can do at Destination Kohler.
As you saw when I talked about dining last post, this is a big time resort. You could theoretically play all the golf in 2 days if you hustled, but you need 5 just to scratch the surface of the whole shebang. I never liked the name Destination Kohler but today it is growing on me, because this is what the travel industry means when they say “destination resort.”
Besides the dozen restaurants, four courses and three hotels, you can keep busy at:
Sports Core: A huge dedicated health club that puts hotel “fitness rooms,” to shame, more something you would find in NYC or LA. There is a huge dedicated tennis program, fitness activities of all kinds for adults and children, it sits on a lake and has a beach, it has personal training, classes, a café and so on. It also operates a separate yoga studio, Yoga by the Lake, a few doors down in the shops at Woodlake.
Shops at Woodlake: a large open air mall with restaurants, bars, shops and more. Paths around the place are lined with sculptress made through the Kohler factory’s artist in residence program. Worth a stroll!
River Wildlife: How many golf resorts have something like this!!! It is hard to believe but this was one of the very first components of the resort, opened by Herb Kohler back in the Seventies when he bought a few hundred acres of pristine Wisconsin wilderness. Today you can hike, mountain bike, shoot trap skeet and 5-stand (the small version) sporting clays, fish for trout and salmon, ride horses, canoe or kayak, try archery, go full fledge hunting or even rent the wilderness cabin, hike in and spend a night! It also has a great log cabin restaurant for lunch and dinner.
Tour the Kohler Factory: Want to find out why when you buy a high quality enameled bathtub the finish never comes off? Go way behind the scenes with this 3-hour free tour, offered every weekday at 8:30.
Kohler Design Center: This is my favorite! A museum quality three story all glass building houses dozens of finished and elaborate kitchens and bathrooms showing how you can use Kohler products in your home design, plus a floor displaying just about every plumbing fixture they make. Interior designers and architects come from around the world to explore this free activity and you should not miss it, just a block from the American Club.
Kohler Waters Spa: This is the resort’s flagship, combining a first class spa with all the fancy plumbing stuff Kohler makes. It has a penthouse pool and solarium, various plunge pools, saunas, etc, plus a huge array of treatments. They have a sister Waters Spa at their Old Course Hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland.
That should do for today. Next stop, the four golf courses!
