Detroit, Michigan is the go-to destination for families with young toddlers! Detroit is known as the Motor City, and that’s a fitting name, for if you take your child there you’ll be motoring around finding things to do all day long. They aren’t as hard to find as you would imagine, either. Here are just some of the places we checked out:
Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center
There’s nowhere else quite like it! Marriott hotels always offer high-quality service and luxury, and the Renaissance Center offers both, a convenient location, fantastic views, and a perfect setting for families. Rooms at the top let you get a gorgeous vista of the Detroit skyline and river, and the Canadian city just across the water, Windsor, Ontario.
Our suite was toddler friendly as well and has a layout that lent itself well to imitating our home setup. The blackout curtains allowed a completely dark room to encourage our little one to nod off, and the living space and bedroom with ensuite bath were separated by a set of double doors. This permitted us to not worry about turning on lights, talking, showering, or watching TV after putting her to bed.
Downstairs was a whole other world of fun. An in-lobby restaurant is available for all three meals of the day, with a great variety of menu options and all the TVs you could ever need. Want to chomp on breakfast while enjoying the morning news? Chow on dinner with four different sports games on simultaneously? All that and everything in between, you’re covered. Further downstairs is the GM Renaissance Center, which offers several shops and restaurants to scope out if you wish. Best of all, if your child is a car fanatic, in the lower level of the Center, GM Motors has a variety of new cars on display, right at your fingertips!
Michigan Science Center
Whether your little one can walk or still need a tow, the first stop on your list should be the Michigan Science Center. Three floors of educational, family-friendly fun await all visitors. The bottom floor has an area for smaller tots to play, with appealing activities like a drawing station, prisms for light experiments, and musical instruments. Along the way you’ll see visual eye-catchers like the Space Gallery, showing off giant replicas of NASA spacecraft, and the Motion Gallery, featuring big playground-style contraptions that you and your kids and test physics principles with.
The second floor has a whole extra variety of galleries, like the Roads, Bridges, and Tunnels area, with a centerpiece of a giant miniature replica of the epic Mackinac Bridge. Continue further and you’ll stumble upon the Fun Factory, where you can learn about how materials are mixed and heated in industrial environments through an interactive, jungle gym-style exhibit. Double back and you’ll find the Planetarium, which shows a variety of educational films. We saw One World, Big Sky featuring Big Bird and Elmo from Sesame Street, who voyage to the moon and discover different constellations in the stars! The top floor is home to the Science Centers’ revolving exhibits.
Greenfield Village
If you’re up for a trek, The Henry Ford is worth a whole day to explore. The centerpiece is the Greenfield Village, an outdoor living museum. What makes it striking is the replication of living conditions from the pre-industrial era, as the buildings and props are all faithful recreations of life in the 1800s. Appropriately dressed tour guides are on hand to explain to you the context of where you are, and which building was home to what.
Many of the buildings are real historical places that were moved from their original location to this village, just to add to the authenticity. Some of the areas are real farms, so animals like horses and sheep are easy to spot. A plethora of restaurants and boutiques dot the landscape as well, so there’s never a moment where you’re looking for food or drink.
And if that’s not enough, if you’re uninterested in walking, you can ride through the village on recreated Ford Model T automobiles, or a vintage 1873 steam locomotive. The kids especially love the train, which is both fun to ride and awe to look at. To top it off, in the center of the village there’s a play area just for children and designed to suit all ages. An excellent spot for the kids to have fun and make new friends while the adults rest!
Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation
The village alone is a whole world to explore, but you shouldn’t miss out on the Museum of American Innovation next door. It’s an indoor attraction to contrast with the outdoor village and has plenty of its own planes, trains, automobiles, and history to match and surpass.
Originally begun from Henry Ford’s personal collection of historic artifacts, today it offers a host of different exhibits to display the evolution of home living, transportation, and pop culture over the last century. A gigantic parade of automobiles includes everything from the first horseless carriages to modern race cars and even President John Kennedy’s car in which he was killed.
An impressive collection of airplanes rivals the popular northwest Museum of Flight in its scale, including replicas of important planes like the Wright Flyer, and the Spirit of St. Louis. In the history section, you can check out the chair President Abraham Lincoln was shot in, and the Montgomery, Alabama bus that Rosa Parks refused to move in.
Much more can be found in the proud city of Detroit, but these are some sites that are sure to be a hit with your child. They’ll be sure to have a good time, and even get educated along the way!
*Thanks to Visit Detroit for hosting us and allowing our family to explore all your diverse city has to offer.