Skip the Interstate, Let’s Fly to Detroit

Motor City is undergoing its own Renaissance, offering nature, music and more attractions than can fit into one weekend to travelers.

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Travel

If you accept the negative stereotypes of Detroit, you’ll likely steer clear of Michigan’s largest city. And that leaves the city open to the heartier few who also know that Detroit is undergoing its own Renaissance, with young artistic types moving in and renovating houses they purchased for a song, building communities that see Detroit not for what the city has lost, but in the light of where it can go from here.

You can drive to the Motor City, but there’s a better option. Multiple airlines travel nonstop from Mitchell International Airport (MKE) to Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) with more being added daily. As a Delta Air Lines hub, the airline has many flights to and from the city. Starting June 13, Spirit Airlines will also fly from Milwaukee to the Motor City on Mondays and Fridays, offering introductory fares as low as $37 each way. Click here to see current flights.

Free Stuff

What you’ll find when you do arrive in Detroit are many of the activities associated with a large urban center, attractions that can easily fill a weekend and then some.

One thing the city boasts about are all the free activities, including free admission for locals to the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. The Detroit International RiverWalk, which travels three miles along the Detroit River from Rosa Parks Blvd. to the Belle Isle Bridge, hosts a multitude of free activities on any given weekend, with a clear view of Windsor, Ontario, on the other side of the river and connected to Detroit by both bridge and tunnel.

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Detroit also has seen more wildlife in its streets lately, and not of the criminal type. At any given time, you may cross paths with deer, foxes, beavers, pheasants and even bald eagles. As in many urban locations nature has begun to reclaim portions of the city.

And Then There’s Music

Music continues to be an overwhelming Detroit presence with Motown as one of its key exports. In fact, the Motown Museum at 2648 W. Grand Blvd. stands in legacy of one of America’s most popular music genres. It’s the home of Hitsville U.S.A. Studio A and a host of memorabilia from performers like Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Supremes and a host of others who in their day changed the face of contemporary music.

But the trend continues, and the city also is considered the home of Detroit techno music, a genre of electronic dance music developed in the 1980s and characterized by its fusion of electro, industrial, and Chicago house music.

Automotively Speaking

But chances are cars are the reason you chose to visit Detroit and share in the city’s automotive legacy. There are many museums and attractions to fill your time, including:

  • The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and its permanent exhibit “Driving America”, which focuses on people who drive cars rather than the cars themselves. But there are still more than 100 vehicles on display, including John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Limo and the bus on which Rosa Parks made civil rights history.
  • Next door to Henry Ford, the Automotive Hall of Fame celebrates the pioneers and innovators who helped build America’s automotive industry.
  • The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant Museum takes visitors inside the process of building the first Model T Fords.

And that’s just for starters.

Beyond City Limits

If you want to get out of the city, travel 43 miles west to Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan (“Go Blue”) and the Michigan Stadium, nicknamed “The Big House,” where as many as107,601 college football fans can gather to cheer on the Michigan Wolverines. Although larger, Ann Arbor has a distinctly Madison vibe, but with a healthy dose of car culture included.

And if you do end up with a car, you can head north along Lake Michigan’s eastern shore toward Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park and other scenic treasures to the north. Such a trip is made possible by the automobile, and that’s a legacy about which Detroit can feel proud.