Detroit

America's "Motor City" and the birthplace of Motown, where The Henry Ford, the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Riverwalk tell a story of industrial rise, decline and urban revival.

Detroit sits in southeastern Michigan on the west bank of the Detroit River, facing Windsor, Canada, across the water. It's the "Motor City" and the birthplace of Motown music. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler rose here in the 20th century, leaving the city full of Art Deco skyscrapers; after decades of decline and a 2013 bankruptcy, Downtown, Midtown and Corktown have seen a striking revival in recent years. The city breaks down into four areas: the Downtown riverfront (the Riverwalk, the Renaissance Center, Campus Martius Park and the Guardian Building, best reached on the free People Mover loop); the Midtown cultural district (the Rivera murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Detroit Historical Museum); the east side (Eastern Market, the Dequindre Cut greenway, Belle Isle and the Heidelberg Project); and, in the western suburb of Dearborn, The Henry Ford museum, Greenfield Village and the Ford Rouge Factory Tour, which need at least a full day. The Motown Museum requires advance tickets. The best time to visit is June–September, when riverfront events are in full swing and Belle Isle and Greenfield Village are fully open; winters are cold and snowy, though the museums are unaffected. Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW) is about 30 minutes' drive from downtown. Downtown and Midtown are served by the QLine streetcar and the People Mover; suburban sights require a car. Allow 3 days, and take care at night, as some neighborhoods are deserted after dark.

Top sights

• Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation – One of America’s most important museums of technology and industrial history. It holds the car JFK was riding in when he was assassinated a…
• Greenfield Village – An open-air museum of nearly 100 historic buildings that Henry Ford moved here, including Edison’s laboratory and the Wright brothers’ bicy…
• Detroit Institute of Arts – One of America’s top art museums. Its treasure is Diego Rivera’s huge mural *Detroit Industry*.
• Motown Museum (Hitsville U.S.A.) – The birthplace of Motown Records. This small house, known as “Hitsville U.S.A.,” has Studio A, where stars such as Stevie Wonder recorded.
• Detroit RiverWalk – A riverside greenway stretching about 5 km along the Detroit River. It has repeatedly been named America’s best riverfront walk, and Windso…
• Eastern Market – A historic open-air market in operation since 1891, one of America’s largest. On Saturdays it has hundreds of stalls and a district of mura…
• Ford Rouge Factory Tour – Take a shuttle from The Henry Ford museum into Ford’s largest plant, then watch F-150 pickups being assembled from a skywalk overhead.
• Belle Isle Park – An island park in the Detroit River, partly planned by the designer of New York’s Central Park, with a conservatory, an aquarium, and fount…
• Guardian Building – A 1929 Art Deco skyscraper whose orange-brick walls and multicolored tile-vaulted lobby earned it the nickname “Cathedral of Finance.”
• Renaissance Center – A Detroit skyline landmark made of seven glass towers, once the headquarters of General Motors, with an auto show hall and riverside restau…
• Campus Martius Park – Downtown Detroit’s “living room” plaza, with a man-made beach in summer and an ice rink and giant Christmas tree in winter.
• Fox Theatre – A luxurious 5,000-seat theater opened in 1928, with interiors blending Eastern and Siamese styles, still hosting Broadway shows and concert…
• Detroit People Mover – A free elevated driverless loop of about 4.7 km around downtown, with public art in each of its 13 stations.
• Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History – One of the world’s largest museums of African American history, whose core exhibition “And Still We Rise” traces the journey from Africa to…
• Detroit Historical Museum – A free city history museum with a reconstructed 19th-century street, an auto assembly line display, and Great Lakes shipping exhibits.
• Michigan Central Station – A Beaux-Arts station once seen as a symbol of Detroit’s decline, restored by Ford and reopened in 2024.
• Corktown – Detroit’s oldest neighborhood, settled by Irish immigrants, now full of craft beer bars, restaurants, and Victorian houses.
• Fisher Building – A 1928 Art Deco building whose three-story arcade is covered with murals, mosaics, and marble, known as “Detroit’s greatest work of art.”
• Heidelberg Project – Outdoor installation art by artist Tyree Guyton, who transformed an entire street with discarded objects. It is best known for its polka-do…
• Dequindre Cut – A roughly 3 km greenway built in a sunken railway cut, lined with graffiti, linking the riverfront with the Eastern Market.
• Ford Piquette Avenue Plant – The birthplace of the Model T and one of the oldest surviving purpose-built car factories, with early Ford cars displayed in its wood-floor…
• Greektown – A Greek restaurant district on Monroe Street downtown, famous for flaming saganaki and a casino, and liveliest in the evening.
• Comerica Park – Home of the Detroit Tigers, with a baseball-themed Ferris wheel and tiger sculptures, where seats look out toward the downtown skyline.
• Michigan Science Center – An interactive science museum in Midtown with a planetarium, IMAX theater, and plenty of hands-on exhibits, ideal for families with kids.
• Detroit Zoo – A large zoo covering about 50 hectares, famous for its underwater viewing tunnel for polar bears and its penguin center.
• Cranbrook Educational Community – A Saarinen-designed art academy campus, often called one of America’s most beautiful, with an art museum, science museum, and gardens.
• Edsel & Eleanor Ford House – The lakeside English Cotswold-style estate of Henry Ford’s son, with an art collection and waterfront gardens.
• University of Michigan, Ann Arbor – A top public university with a Gothic law quadrangle, a central Diag, and the “Big House” stadium, about 50 minutes from Detroit.
• Ambassador Bridge – A 1929 suspension bridge linking Detroit with Windsor, Canada. It is one of North America’s busiest land border crossings and a classic riv…

Where to eat

• Lafayette Coney Island – A century-old downtown institution and a leading source of Detroit coney dogs. It's the famous rival of neighboring Ame…
• Buddy's Pizza (Conant Street Original) – The original Detroit-style square pizza spot, opened in 1946 and still operating at its original location.
• Al-Ameer Lebanese Restaurant (Dearborn) – A long-running Lebanese restaurant founded in 1989, honored with a James Beard American Classics award in 2016.
• Selden Standard – A wood-fired restaurant in Midtown serving seasonal sharing plates, and a semifinalist for the James Beard Award for Ou…
• Supino Pizzeria – A popular thin-crust pizzeria beside Eastern Market, which many locals consider one of Detroit's best pizzas.
• Grey Ghost – A meat-focused contemporary restaurant in Brush Park, known for craft cocktails and cheeseburgers.

Itineraries

• Detroit, Lake Erie & Southern Ohio – Travel east from the Motor City along Lake Erie, through the Rock Capital to the Hocking Hills gorges.