How to Get to Milwaukee Summerfest

Sometimes a rural location for a big annual festival makes the “how do I get there?” question critical. But even if the festival you’re planning to attend is in a big city – like Milwaukee’s Summerfest – that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still ask the question, “how do I get there?”

The location for Summerfest is a 75-acre area that’s right on Lake Michigan in downtown Milwaukee. It’s thankfully very easy to reach by public transportation, which means that unless you’re flying in from an airport without good connections to Milwaukee you probably won’t even have to rent a car.

Here’s a run-down on all the different means of transport (well, the major ones, anyway!) that you can use to get to Summerfest in Milwaukee.

>> When is Summerfest in Milwaukee? In 012, it’s from June 27 – July 8 (closed Monday)

Flying to Summerfest

As you read in a recent article, there are several airports near Milwaukee you can use for Summerfest. The closest airport is definitely Milwaukee’s General Mitchell airport, but there are two airports within about an 80-mile drive and two more within about a 100-mile drive of Milwaukee – so you can certainly look at all of them to see if one offers significantly cheaper fares than another. And as long as the savings from the airfare isn’t eaten up entirely by getting from that airport to Milwaukee, you come out ahead. Note that some of the airports have better public transit connections than others, so in some cases you may have no alternative but to drive.

Driving to Summerfest

If you’re close enough to Summerfest to drive, or you’re flying into an area airport and driving in from there, here’s what you need to know. The address for the festival, which you can program into your GPS system, is:

200 North Harbor Drive
Milwaukee, WI 53202

Rather than driving all the way to the festival’s front gate, however, festival organizers suggest that you park at one of the park-and-ride lots around the city. There are different categories of park-and-ride lots, and there’s a detailed list on the official Summerfest site (click “Transportation”), but most of them have a shuttle that runs from the parking lot to the festival grounds. Schedule and fare information is also listed on the Summerfest site.

Needless to say, given the number of people who come into Milwaukee for Summerfest, carpooling is a good idea whenever possible.

Taking the Train to Summerfest

You can take Amtrak to Milwaukee on the Hiwatha line. The city’s downtown train station, Milwaukee Intermodal Station, is within easy reach of the Summerfest grounds. There’s regular service into Milwaukee on Amtrak from Chicago (among other cities), and there’s even a special midnight train on Fridays and Saturdays to certain destinations that only operates during Summerfest. Not only that, there’s a midnight train shuttle bus that runs from the festival grounds to the train station, so you’ve got no excuse to miss your train. If you want to see just how close the train station is to Summerfest, the address of the station to plug into Google is: 433 West St. Paul Avenue.

Taking the Bus to Summerfest

There are two bus lines that serve Milwaukee – Greyhound and Badger Bus.

Greyhound’s main Milwaukee station is located at 433 W. St. Paul Ave., Ste. 150, but there are five other Greyhound stops with a Milwaukee address – including the Amtrak station. These five other stops have minimal Greyhound services, and often are just pick up/drop off locations, but you can check the Wisconsin state listing on the Greyhound site for more information about each one.

The Badger Bus runs regular coach service into Milwaukee from Madison – so while it won’t be of help to you if you’re not in Madison trying to get to Milwaukee, it could make flying into Madison’s airport more of a realistic option (since you can take a Badger Bus to Milwaukee instead of renting a car). You can find out more about the schedules and fares on the Budger Bus site.

photo by AFlickion