Track 01 — Highest content value
The European-feel urban trip
It's literally what you sell. This is the one worth prioritizing — backdrops that read Italy or France without the transatlantic flight.
Auberge Saint-Antoine
The strongest "old Europe" backdrop in North America: a walled city, cobblestones, stone courtyards. A Relais & Châteaux property — design-forward and family-warm by the reviews. If the goal is content that reads Italy/France, nothing else here competes.
Hôtel William Gray
Old-Montreal cobblestones and a design-boutique hotel, with the easiest logistics of the two. Slightly more "urban design" than "old-world," but very on-brand and the simplest to pull off before September.
Track 02 — The relaxed drive
The Northern Michigan luxury-hotel trip
No flights with kids, low cost, genuinely family-flexible. Lakeside-resort looks that lean almost coastal-Mediterranean.
Inn at Bay Harbor
The sweet spot: a marina-and-Lake-Michigan resort that reads almost coastal-Mediterranean — Michigan's "Riviera." Genuinely family-flexible and cheap to reach with no flights.
Hotel Walloon
A tiny boutique on Hemingway's lake — the highest rating of the bunch. Stunning lake-morning light, but limited rooms and more boutique than resort. Gorgeous for tight, editorial frames.
Grand Hotel
The showpiece — iconic white porch, horses, bikes, no cars. Most photogenic and most of a production: higher cost and a more formal, dress-code feel that fights your "loose kids in the frame" aesthetic.
Track 03 — Do this one first
The free urban set, this week
Knock out an urban set now while you line up creators and book the bigger trips. It de-risks the whole workflow before you spend a dollar on travel.
Shinola Hotel + Book Tower
Your near-free urban shoot, already in your vest shot plan and next to Book Tower. Design-forward and walkable. Urban content for the price of a drive — and a rehearsal for everything that follows.
Soho House
On your customer's actual hotel list — urban, design-forward, lakefront. A strong alternate urban look if you want a second city set beyond Detroit.
The honest recommendation
Two trips, bracketed by the free Detroit shoot
Montreal (or Quebec City) + a Northern Michigan drive (Bay Harbor) — with the free Detroit set done immediately to start.
That gives you three distinct looks across one summer — European-urban, lakeside-resort, and gritty-design-urban — all as trips you'd half-want to take anyway. Each one also doubles as scouting for a hotel co-marketing partner; William Gray and Inn at Bay Harbor are both exactly the kind of property that says yes to a family welcome-amenity deal.
Next step, if you want it: a 4-day shot-list itinerary for whichever you pick first — mapped to the per-SKU recipes so the trip yields a complete, grid-consistent set — plus a short pitch note to that hotel about a co-marketing partnership.