#45 best destination in the world

The Henry Ford, Dearborn

Best time to travel: May-Sept
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $

  • History museum complex in Dearborn, whose collection contains the presidential limousine of John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln’s chair from Ford’s Theatre, Thomas Edison’s laboratory, the Wright Brothers’ bicycle shop, the Rosa Parks bus, and many other historical exhibits
  • It is the largest indoor–outdoor museum complex in the United States

Detroit Institute of Arts

Best time to travel: June-Oct
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $

  • Located in Midtown Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States
  • With over 100 galleries, The DIA collection has an encyclopedic collection which spans the globe from ancient Egyptian and European works to contemporary art
  • The museum’s first painting was donated in 1883 and its collection consists of over 65,000 works

Rock Harbor, Isle Royale National Park

Best time to travel: mid April-Oct
Ease of travel: Hard
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $

  • Main access point for visitors landing on Isle Royale in northern Lake Superior, the whole of which is protected as Isle Royale National Park
  • Travel to Rock Harbor from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is by the Ranger III park service ferry, operating from Houghton, Michigan, the Isle Royale Queen IV out of Copper Harbor, and seaplane service
  • The ferry boats land at Snug Harbor, which also has berths for private watercraft, a campground, the visitor center, and a lodge that predates the national park
  • Although there is no permanent population, the area includes the Rock Harbor Lodge, restaurant, resorts, several boat docks, and campgrounds

Heidelberg Project, Detroit

Best time to travel: April-June, Sept
Ease of travel: Moderate
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $

  • Outdoor art project in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on Detroit’s east side, just north of the city’s historically African-American Black Bottom area
  • It was created in 1986 by the artist Tyree Guyton, who was assisted by his wife, Karen, and grandfather Sam Mackey
  • The Heidelberg Project is in part a political protest, as Tyree Guyton’s childhood neighborhood began to deteriorate after the 1967 riots
  • At first, the project consisted of his painting a series of houses on Detroit’s Heidelberg Street with bright dots of many colors and attaching salvaged items to the houses
  • Despite the area being characterized by high levels of blight and poverty, the evolving art work grew Tyree Guyton worked on the Heidelberg Project daily with the children on the block
  • His main goal is to develop the Heidelberg Project into the city’s first indoor and outdoor museum, complete with an artists’ colony, creative art center, community garden, amphitheater, and more

Mosquito Falls and Chapel Falls via Chapel Loop, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Best time to travel: Sept-Oct
Walk difficulty: Moderate
Ease of travel: Moderate
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $

  • Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is located in the Upper Peninsula, and extends along the shore of Lake Superior
  • The park has extensive views of the hilly shoreline with picturesque rock formations, waterfalls, and sand dunes
  • Pictured Rocks derives its name from the 15 miles of colorful sandstone cliffs northeast of Munising
  • The cliffs have been naturally sculptured into a variety of shallow caves, arches, and formations resembling castle turrets and human profiles

Empire Bluff Trail, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Best time to travel: May-Aug
Walk difficulty: Moderate
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $

  • United States National Lakeshore located along the northwest coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan in Leelanau and Benzie counties
  • The park was established primarily because of its outstanding natural features, including forests, beaches, dune formations, and ancient glacial phenomena
  • The lakeshore also contains many cultural features including the 1871 South Manitou Island Lighthouse, three former stations of the Coast Guard and an extensive rural historic farm district

Mackinac Island Outer Loop, Lake Huron

Best time to travel: April-June, Sept-Oct
Walk difficulty: Easy
Ease of travel: Easy
Cost ($-$$-$$$): $$

  • City in Mackinac County established as an important fur trading center in the eighteenth century
  • Since 1898, a local ordinance prohibits the use of any motor vehicles on the island
  • Today the most common means of travel is either by foot, bicycle, horse or horse-drawn carriage, with exceptions such as city emergency vehicles
  • Mackinac Island is home to the Grand Hotel, built during the nineteenth century when the island started to be a summer destination
  • Mackinac Island is noted for its many fudge shops, the island has a large craft industry devoted to making fudge in a traditional manner, creating portions on cold marble slabs