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When I first went to Detroit in 2013 to write a travel story, I quickly realized I couldn’t bear to be merely a chronicler of what I found there; my husband and I ended up buying a house in the city to renovate. When we shared our plans to Airbnb the place whenever we weren’t in Detroit, my Michigan mother-in-law gave me a look of gravest concern, laced with confusion: “Why would anyone vacation in Detroit?” she asked.
That was then. Now, as I perch in a glass-enclosed terrace atop the former Wurlitzer building—in a somewhat secret space available only to guests of The Siren Hotel—surveying the rewritten skyline of downtown Detroit, this city isn’t just my favorite place in the country. Travelers come from all over to soak up its architecture, music, art, food, and drink of an American city quite unlike any other.
I could have sworn tumbleweeds were rolling down the wide, empty avenues of early 2010s Detroit. Once-grand buildings and skyscrapers were crumbling in real time, forlorn at best and burned-out at worst. Still, there was a palpable sense that between grassroots revitalization efforts and deep-pocketed development, the tide was turning.
A dozen years after buying that house (no, I didn’t keep it), a raucous energy rippled through downtown. Long-abandoned historic buildings, now restored as hotels, echoed with cocktail shakers and suitcase wheels. “Why would anyone vacation in Detroit?” That, I’m glad to report, is now an archaic question. Heading to The D yourself? Here are some things to know, and my recommendations on where to stay while you’re there.
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