Detour #166: Escape from Detroit to the Michigan Peninsula
Escaping from the Motor City Simon Heptinstall discovers a Michigan that is a world away.
It’s just a half-day leisurely top-gear cruise on I-96 from Detroit to Saugatuck… but it feels like driving to another planet.
In just the width of the Michigan peninsular I went from expecting to be shot in the face at every intersection to giggling about sundaes under the swaying lanterns of a leafy waterfront terrace.
The beauty of a road trip around the Lower Michigan Peninsular is you get a classic taste of mid-west motoring along with the scenery of a coastal adventure – plus a glimpse of the world-famous Motor City and all its potential horrors.
Detroit is of course worth a detour for car fans because of its history as the base for the big three manufacturers Ford, GM and Chrysler. Since that heyday however Detroit’s car making, population and prosperity has plummeted.
I drove past boarded buildings and loitering street gangs in legendary urban spots like 8 Mile Drive and Woodward Avenue with doors and windows firmly locked shut. The city has long suffered one of America’s worst crime rates and sometimes tops the table of the USA’s highest homicide rate.
Yet three hours later I was parking among pastel-painted clapperboard houses and gift shops of the cutesy lakeside town of Saugatuck, discussing dessert sauces with the owner of my boutique B&B. She shrieked with joy at my English accent and took me for a drive round the lake shore in her pristine classic sixties Cadillac.
My road trip around Michigan was all about these contrasts. Away from dangerous Detroit is a surrounding state that seems full of cosy apple-pie America in comparison.
Along Highway 31, up the peninsular’s west coast for example, I drove past the Sleeping Bear Dunes. They are up to 500ft high, stretch along 35 miles of lakeshore and once won the title ‘The Most Beautiful Place in America’ on the TV show Good Morning America.
Photo Mark Olsen / Unsplash
I drove through the sleepy streets of Traverse City, the self-proclaimed ‘cherry capital of the world’ –a title which contrasts grimly with Detroit’s oft-pronounced nickname ‘murder capital of the world’. The next day I took roads through flat farmland to the rocky shore at the tip of the peninsular then boarded a ferry to Mackinac Island in Lake Huron.
This pretty wooded island is another highly-rated spot. I had coffee on the Grand Hotel’s terrace, listed by CN Traveler as one of the ‘Best Places to Stay in the Whole World’. In the mid-West you soon get used to superlatives, and it’s no surprise to find the hotel has the world’s largest porch (660ft long) and was the location for the first-ever public demo of Edison’s newly invented record player.
Photo Grand Hotel
Much of my Michigan drive involved relaxed cruising on flat straight roads punctuated by red wooden barns and settlements built around 90-degree road intersections. But it’s never boring. One small town’s main street was closed for a parade of pets in fancy dress. At another dead straight main street locals gathered round to take selfies with this out-of-towner, calling me ‘Prince Charles’ because of my accent.
Apart from Alaska, Michigan is the US state with the longest shoreline, involving the lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior. There are also 11,037 inland lakes in the state – meaning that wherever you drive no road in Michigan is more than six miles from water. All that liquid means Michigan has some of the busiest waterways in the world. It’s serious water with serious weather too and I stopped to see many of the extraordinary 150 lighthouses along the Michigan shore.
I drove on down the east side of the peninsular, with highlights at the wooded shores of Presque Isle State Park, the water lapping the edge of the carriageway at Squaw Bay and the long sandy beach at Oscada. I followed I-75 through Bay City and Saginaw, charming leafy places with more antique shops than even the most touristy Cotswold town.
The looping detour brought me back into Detroit, which didn’t feel as threatening second time around. I even braved its unmissable highlights: Motown’s Hitsville and the Ford Museum.
Finally I took one short extraordinary drive. Cross the Detroit River on Ambassador Bridge from the downtown of murder city… to Windsor, Ontario. It’s one of the USA’s busiest international border posts – but the switch into Canadian culture is immediate. You leave Detroit’s atmosphere of deadly danger and drive into an adjoining Canadian city that is like entering a quiet part of Switzerland.
Homicides are almost unknown and the tree-lined streets of Windsor have one of the lowest crime rates in all of well-behaved Canada. From scary to sleepy in a few hundred yards – it’s a recommended short drive that is one of the world’s weirdest border transformations.
Words Simon Heptinstall Twitter | Instagram
Photography Shutterstock
