For those who seek a more unique experience when travelling a Wisconsin Bed & Breakfast will be sure to fit the bill. We all know Wisconsin’s Bed and Breakfasts are well known for their personalized service and scrumptious breakfast. But did you know innkeepers are knowledgeable on the local activities and history of their community? The innkeeper will be able to fill you in on the local lore and legends of the area and provide stories that will inform and inspire you. When is a B&B more than just a bed and a breakfast? When it's a microbrewery, a lighthouse, a celebrity hangout, a farm, a golf course or an art studio. Themed B&Bs are big on talk-value with your buddies and huge on enjoyment for you. Take the Inn at Windmill Farm in Door County, with its studio and gallery where one of the hosts, Ed, leads watercolor classes. He has been an artist for over 35 years and teaches at the Kansas City Art Institute Ed’s work can be seen at Windmill Farm in the Morning Mist Studio/Gallery in the historic barn. Your other host, Frank, has a great background in fine antiques and has great pieces for sale at Lupine Antiques at Windmill Farm in the historic barn.  In addition, he brings to the Inn an extensive knowledge of landscape design. The Silver Star B&B Inn near Spring Green has rooms themed to famous photographers such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, John Szarkowski, Monor White, and Julia Margaret Cameron. The photographers honored had a significant impact on the industry, contributing to the development of photography as an artistic medium. Visitors will find original fine art and photography displayed throughout the inn, reflecting the passion of the owner. The Silver Star B&B Inn is also located less than 10 miles from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin and the House on the Rock. There's Brewery Creek Inn in Mineral Point with its own on-site craft brewery. A three story lime stone building on Commerce Street, there are five rooms located above the Brewpub Restaurant.  Two on the second floor and three on the third.  The Brewery Creek Brewpub is an intimate space with exposed stone walls, hand hewn timbers and beams, supporting posts and a beautiful bar. The BrewPub is closed by 10:00 pm, which guarantees quiet for the guests lodging in the rooms above. They brew all of their own beer in their own brewery.  Jeff focuses on European style ales, both modern and antique.     Door County Lighthouse Inn is just that, an inn with architecture that mimics the storied lighthouses of the region. Each room is tastefully decorated with a nautical theme which reflects the rich maritime and navigational history of the area. Each of these lighthouses are located a short distance from the Inn and are great places to explore. Door County’s lighthouses, many of which were built in the 1800s, have saved countless lives as they guided ships to safety. Today, they stir hearts as symbols of strength and protection.       Lake Orchard Farm Retreat in Sheboygan is a working farm but it also has a golf course and clubhouse.  Located near Sheboygan, Wisconsin, our operating farm has rolling fields, natural woods, fruit orchards and a Lake Michigan view. If that isn’t enough to entice you to visit, they have a 9-hole golf course with a clubhouse they provide for guests to use at no additional charge.  When the weather isn’t nice enough to play outdoors, they have a lounge area with a pool table where guests can gather and spend time.   The The Livingston Inn in Madison is the place where prominent filmmakers stay during the annual Wisconsin Film Festival in April and the innkeepers have the inside track on tickets for their guests. The Wisconsin Film Festival is presented by the UW-Madison Arts Institute in association with the Department of Communication Arts. Founded in 1999, the Festival presents an average of 150 film screenings over 8 days every spring, making it the largest university-produced film festival in the nation. So you could say the overarching theme here is to try something different the next time you travel.

In this year’s travel trends forecast from TripAdvisor.com, one of the top trips being planned by respondents for 2012 is a cultural trip, meaning a getaway built around a visit to a museum or historic site.  They even gave this category of travelers a catchy name – “culture vultures.”  This is a trend that Wisconsin B&Bs can really get behind.  After all, 26 of our member inns are National Historic Register properties, so a visit to one of them is already a cultural trip in and of itself.    If you’re interested in Wisconsin Historic Sites, there are 10 of them, from the Madeline Island Museum in the northernmost tip of the state to the First Capitol in Belmont in the southwest corner of Wisconsin.  The Wisconsin Historical Museum   is located on the Capitol Square in Madison and it’s full of wonderful information about the state’s rich history. We recommend the exhibit “Wisconsin innovations: From the Iconic to the Unexpected” which runs through August. [caption id="attachment_459" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Strawberry Lace Inn in Sparta is an opulent Italianate Victorian built in 1875 by a Major in the Civil War. Innkeepers Elsie and Jack searched the entire country for the home to complement their antiques."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_461" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Four Gables B&B in LaCrosse is a 1906 Queen Anne home built by the Munstocks made their money, at the time, from strawberries. It remained in the Munstock family until 1981 when the present innkeepers, Jerry & Nancy, saw the potential for a B&B."][/caption] [caption id="attachment_460" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Rochester Inn in Sheboygan Falls, the first general store and post office in the county, was built in 1848 - the same year Wisconsin became a state - and is the 2nd oldest building in Sheboygan County."][/caption]