Define navigation bar settings. Minn. One of the last places you'd expect to find tourists is that northern Midwestern Ice Belt city. Because of its Sister City relationship with Ohara, Japan, a small fishing community 90 miles south of Tokyo, Duluth is selling golfing vacations to eager Japanese duffers, albeit with a narrow window of opportunity, weatherwise. Duluth is the westernmost seaport on Lake Superior via the St. Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes. But it is Duluth's golf courses that have hit the hot button of the Japanese.
Golf is expensive in Japan, where links are crowded and reservations hard to come by.
By comparison, Duluth is a golfer's paradise, ranked by Golf Digest as the best among America's 309 small cities for access to good, affordable links. Now, if North County can't compete with Duluth for Japanese golfing tourism, we'd better close the gates and sack the clubs. The Sister Cities program was first suggested by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956. Today, there are more than 1,200 American cities, including our North County cities, participating. And, there's more than just golf opportunities.