I live in Traverse City and find the occassional Garter Snake, some salamanders, Bullfrogs, Leopard Frogs, sometimes treefrogs..........
Every once in a while we stumble upon something in the back yard, but usually we find the snakes and amphibians when we're hiking in the woods (usually along the Boardman River somewhere or another).
That said, I'm really not sure the best place/areas in the state to go field herping.......
This is an old thread but I am bumping cause I was going to post pretty much the same thing. There is Orion Oaks park near me which is a decent size park full of paths. They have one part where it's frogs galores. Heres this website! http://www.oakgov.com/parksrec/ppark/orion.html
They also just recently added the bark park for dogs ^^
So I was at my camp in the UP over the 4th weekend, and encountered some unexpected visitors. I saw 2 or 3 Eastern Garter Snakes, 2 Smooth Green Snakes, and 1 Northern Red-Bellied Snake. :main_no: I grabed these pictures from michiganherps.webs.com.