Activities9 min readUpdated October 21, 2026

The Most Beautiful Lakes in Wisconsin

Twenty-five lakes worth planning a trip around, from the Mississippi bluffs to Door County, with the northwest first because that’s where we live

The Short Answer

The most beautiful lakes in northwest Wisconsin are the ones with something to look at besides water: Lake Pepin under 400-foot bluffs, the Apostle Islands off Bayfield, Lake Owen and Lake Namakagon deep in the Chequamegon forest, the Chippewa Flowage’s two hundred islands, the Dalles of the St. Croix, Red Cedar Lake with its island lodge, and the quiet forest lakes around Hayward that still look the way they did in 1950. Elsewhere in the state, Devil’s Lake and Trout Lake earn their reputations. The list below says what you’ll actually see at each one.

How We Judged It

Every “most beautiful lakes” list is somebody’s opinion. Ours is an opinion with receipts. We used three things:

Water you can see into. The DNR’s volunteer monitors have lowered a Secchi disk into most of these lakes every summer for decades. The number in each entry is the long-term summer average; 10 feet is clear, 15 is rare, 20 is another kind of water.

Shoreline that’s still trees. The DNR designates a short list of lakes as Outstanding Resource Waters for exceptional water quality, and the county and national forests own long stretches of some shorelines. Where we say “Outstanding Resource Water” or “national forest shoreline,” that’s what it means: fewer docks, fewer lawns, more loons.

The setting. Bluffs, islands, a sand bar you can wade to, a view down the length of the lake at sunset. This part is ours; we’ve been on every one of these lakes.

We live in the northwest and know those lakes from the water, so they get the long entries. The rest of the state we know as visitors and from the DNR’s numbers, and we’ve kept those entries honest and short.

Northwest Wisconsin: The Lakes We Know From the Water

We live here, so these get the long entries.

Photo: Tom Fisk, Pexels

Lake Pepin, Pierce and Pepin counties.

The Mississippi widens to two miles between bluffs that rise 400 feet on both sides, with Maiden Rock, Stockholm and Pepin strung along the Wisconsin shore and the Great River Road running the length of it. Sailboats, eagles, a sunset that lights the Minnesota bluffs orange. Nothing else in the state looks like it. Twenty minutes from our Isabelle Creek Haven.

Photo: Pexels

The Apostle Islands, Bayfield County.

Lake Superior at Bayfield: 21 islands, sandstone sea caves you can kayak into, lighthouses, and water so cold and clear it reads green over the sand. Take the ferry to Madeline Island or a kayak tour to the caves at Meyers Beach. It’s a big lake, not a cabin lake, and it belongs at the top of any list of beautiful water in Wisconsin.

Photo: Amy Bayer, CC BY-ND 2.0

Lake Owen, Bayfield County.

1,250 acres almost entirely inside the Chequamegon National Forest, 25 feet of visibility, rock and sand bottom, two forest campgrounds and not much else on the shore. Outstanding Resource Water. On a still morning the pines reflect to the center of the lake.

The Chippewa Flowage, Sawyer County.

15,000 acres and roughly 200 islands, most of the shoreline owned by the tribe, the county and the state, so it still looks wild. Dawn on the Flowage with the mist coming off the bays is the Northwoods postcard, and it’s the lake where the world-record musky came from. Outstanding Resource Water.

Photo: Timothy M Koski, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Lake Namakagon, Bayfield County.

3,200 acres near Cable with islands and bays that take a week to learn, pines to the waterline, loons, musky. Outstanding Resource Water. The lake people picture when they say “Northwoods.” (the DNR spells it Namekagon)

Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0

Lake St. Croix and the Dalles, Pierce, St. Croix and Polk counties.

The St. Croix widens to a lake from Hudson to Prescott, wooded bluffs on both banks and river towns along it; upstream at St. Croix Falls, the Dalles of the St. Croix at Interstate Park are the most dramatic rock in the region, basalt cliffs over a gorge. A federal Wild and Scenic river.

Little Sissabagama Lake, Sawyer County.

Near Stone Lake: clear, private, and big enough to matter, with more channels and bays than a lake its size has any right to. Every turn opens into another piece of water with nobody on it. The lake on this list most likely to make you look at real estate. Its public cousin is next.

Windigo Lake, Sawyer County.

The same clear water and wooded shore as Little Siss, but public: a landing anyone can use. From Highway 70 you look down the west arm toward the main body of the lake, one of the few lakes in the county you can take in from the road. The easiest lake on this list to check for yourself: you’ve already driven past it.

Red Cedar Lake, Barron County.

1,900 acres near Birchwood, Outstanding Resource Water, and the only lake on this list with a hundred-year-old lodge on its own island: Stout’s Island, reached by launch, where you eat dinner looking back at the mainland.

Teal Lake and Lost Land Lake, Sawyer County.

Two connected lakes east of Hayward, 2,300 acres together, Outstanding Resource Waters, with long stretches of undeveloped shore and a quiet that the big lakes lost decades ago. The lakes for a cabin week where you don’t hear another boat.

Pipe Lake, Polk County.

Pipe and North Pipe, joined by a channel, an hour from the Twin Cities, with steep wooded shoreline that keeps the lake feeling smaller and wilder than its neighbors. Outstanding Resource Water. The prettiest lake in a county full of them.

Shell Lake, Washburn County.

2,500 acres, spring-fed with no inlet or outlet, sand bottom nearly everywhere and 13 feet of visibility, with a public beach and a town you can walk to from the water. Flatter country than the lakes above it, which is why it’s last here; clearer water than most of them, which is why it’s on the list. Our Little Minnow is here.

Vilas and Oneida Counties

The north-central lake country has more lakes per square mile than anywhere in the state, and the famous chains (Minocqua, Eagle River, Three Lakes) are beautiful and busy. These six are the ones with the water and the shoreline to match the list above. We know them as visitors; the clarity numbers are the DNR’s.

Trout Lake, Vilas County.

3,900 acres in the Northern Highland state forest, home to a University of Wisconsin research station that has measured it for a century. Among the clearest big lakes in the state, with forest on most of the shore. Outstanding Resource Water.

Crystal Lake, Vilas County.

Small, sand-bottomed, and routinely cited as the clearest lake in Wisconsin, with visibility past 20 feet. A walk-in beach in the state forest and no motors to speak of.

Black Oak Lake, Vilas County.

560 acres near Land O’ Lakes, Outstanding Resource Water, and one of the three or four clearest lakes in the state; locals will tell you it’s the clearest. Deep, cold, and blue in a way most Wisconsin lakes aren’t.

Plum Lake, Vilas County.

1,000 acres by Sayner, Outstanding Resource Water, clear water and a wooded shoreline with the state forest on much of it.

Lac Vieux Desert, Vilas County.

4,400 acres on the Michigan line and the headwaters of the Wisconsin River. Shallow, wild, and the lake for a loon-at-dawn kind of morning. Outstanding Resource Water.

Willow Flowage, Oneida County.

4,200 acres southwest of Minocqua with almost no development, the wildest big water in the north-central counties. Outstanding Resource Water.

The Great Lakes Shore

Lake Michigan at Door County.

Cave Point’s limestone cliffs with the lake breaking into the caves below, Whitefish Dunes next door, and the quiet bay side at Ephraim. The Apostle Islands’ only rival for drama in the state.

Lake Michigan at Kohler-Andrae.

Two miles of dunes and beach south of Sheboygan, the closest thing Wisconsin has to an ocean beach.

South and Central

Devil’s Lake, Sauk County.

Quartzite bluffs 500 feet over a spring-fed lake with no inlet or outlet. The most visited state park in Wisconsin, for a reason. Go on a weekday. Outstanding Resource Water.

Green Lake, Green Lake County.

The deepest inland lake in Wisconsin at 237 feet, in the east-central part of the state. Big and blue; not the clearest, whatever the old lists say.

What is the most beautiful lake in Wisconsin?↓

It depends what you mean. For clear water inside a national forest, Lake Owen. For islands and wild shoreline, the Chippewa Flowage or Lake Namakagon. For drama, Devil’s Lake’s bluffs or the Apostle Islands. For a cabin week with a beach and a town, Shell Lake.

Which Wisconsin lakes have the clearest water?↓

Among lakes the DNR monitors in the northwest, Lake Owen, Round Lake and Grindstone near Hayward, and Sand Lake in Burnett County all average 20 feet or more of visibility in summer; our clearest-lakes guide ranks them. Statewide, Crystal Lake and Trout Lake in Vilas County are in the same class. Our Lake Finder can filter every monitored lake by clarity.

Which lakes have sandy beaches?↓

Shell Lake (a public beach in town and sand nearly everywhere), Big Sand Lake and Sand Lake near Webster, and Round Lake’s wading flats near Hayward. The DNR records bottom type for most lakes; look for “sand” on the lake’s page.

Are the beautiful lakes crowded?↓

The big ones near Hayward get weekend boat traffic in July and August. Teal, Lost Land and Pipe Lake rarely do, and the Flowage is big enough to lose a crowd in. September is the month to have any of them nearly to yourself.