Daytripping in the new and improved Detroit

Type	City
Mode	Walking
Lodging	"Lovely brick mansions" downtown
Distance & Duration	6 miles
Difficulty	Easy
Highlights	Streetlife and architecture

To many people the idea of visiting in Detroit sounds like the punch line of an old comedy routine. “First prize, an all-expense-paid one-week vacation in Detroit.  Second prize, two weeks in Detroit!” Ha-ha.

But for those of us who love cities in all their giddy gritty glory, the Motor City is no joke.  Although struggling in recent decades Detroit still offers experiences you expect from a world-class city: heartstopping architecture, a bustling waterfront, topnotch art, convivial nightlife, great food, picturesque city squares, a jam-packed public market and, most of all, memorable strolls.

How's a Bayou?

Type	Rural, Small Town
Mode	Paddling
Lodging	Historic Inns and B&Bs
Distance & Duration	Up to 120 miles/3-7 days
Difficulty	Moderate to Strenuous
Highlights	Food, Music, Architecture, Wildlife

There are all sorts of places you can transport yourself into a different experience, but a bayou has to be among the oldest, tastiest, and most Spanish-moss bedraped places do it. Slow moving water deep in the delta has nurtured a distinctive ecosystem and culture for a long time. Stir it with a paddle and you’ll get your roux.

Reposted from the Classic Journeys Catalog:

 

It's amazing. An adobe wall changes colors constantly…amber at dawn, fiery at sunset, powder gray in moonlight. That trick of light and nature drew Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams and generations of other artists to New Mexico. But it’s just one of the reasons we love it here. Every view seems to have a backdrop of mountains.

No, not that one – not the Al Capone, John Dillinger, bootleg liquor and ladies in red version of the underground. These days, Chicago's underground is the very cool, or I guess I should say- shelter-from-the-elements Pedway. The Pedway is a series of heated (or cool in summer) walkways, passages and tunnels, (and some overhead bridges) that link more than 50 skyscrapers, hotels, train stations around 40 blocks of the  central part of the city.

I took a tour of the Pedway with Amanda Scotese, of Chicago Detours. Not only does the Pedway have its own interesting history (and it helps to have a guide to orient you), you can use it to stay warm and visit some of the landmark Chicago buildings up on sidewalk level. An architectural walking tour of Chicago would otherwise be pretty brutal in February, when I went.

Detours, who are supposedly the only tour outfit using iPads to show videos, archival photos and old brochures, prides themselves on "exploring stories and places even the locals don't know about."

Aside from our Pedway background, we did an "Inside the Loop" tour that included going into a landmark Marshall Field's store. We craned our necks at the beautiful ceiling, and she explained the psychology of shopping and how it informed design;  we got a lot more out of it than a description of cornices and dentil moulding. (I, for one, got free theatre tickets, when I won an on-the-spot trivia contest about the "shop girls" who used to mind the counters at Marshall Fields.)

...