Detroit: Music, Art, and Riverfront

Detroit offers several clear themes to consider when planning a trip: Belle Isle, an island park; the Detroit Riverwalk; and music, art, and ceramic crafts. If you’re looking for a hotel in Detroit, you can first decide which of these facets you want to shape your visit. This lets you plan your trip around specific interests: nature and activity by the water offer a different focus from music history or a large art collection. The following places illustrate these differences with concrete examples.

Belle Isle and the Detroit Riverfront

Belle Isle Park is a 985-acre island park in the Detroit River, near downtown Detroit. The park is home to the Belle Isle Aquarium, North America’s oldest aquarium. It displays freshwater fish from the Great Lakes and rivers around the world. Together, the island and river landscape and the freshwater fish take center stage here. The aquarium adds a specific collection to Belle Isle’s natural setting; the park and aquarium offer a different thematic experience from a route along the riverfront.

The Detroit Riverwalk currently stretches almost five miles from Gabriel Richard Park in the east to Ralph Wilson Park west of downtown. Visitors can walk, bike, roller skate, and get around using other non-motorized forms of transportation. There are bird-watching stations with spotting scopes along the Detroit Riverfront. Several non-motorized ways to get around and an opportunity for bird-watching are thus in focus by the water. While Belle Isle Park and the aquarium offer a thematic pairing of an island park and aquatic life, the Riverwalk foregrounds the route and its different ways to get around.

Music, Art, and Craftsmanship

The Motown Museum is located on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. It is home to Hitsville U.S.A., Studio A, and an extensive collection of Motown artifacts, photographs, clothing, and memorabilia. Guided tours have featured curated exhibits, Berry Gordy’s former apartment, original recording equipment, and the legendary Studio A. Tours have been on hold since January 20, 2026, because of construction work; their resumption is planned for spring 2027. If you plan to make a guided tour a fixed part of your itinerary, keep this pause and the planned timeframe in mind.

The Detroit Institute of Arts owns more than 65,000 works of art, spanning from the earliest civilizations to the present day. The collection thus covers a broad sweep of time and offers a distinct focus for visitors interested in art from different eras. Pewabic Pottery also adds a craft tradition to the picture of Detroit’s culture: a tour of its second-floor museum offers insight into more than 120 years of handcrafted Pewabic pottery and tile production.

Comparing Cultural Highlights

The differences between these places can help you decide which theme interests you most: music and memorabilia are at the heart of the Motown Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts houses a collection spanning many eras, and Pewabic Pottery focuses on ceramics and craftsmanship. This lets you choose between music history, a broad art collection, and traditional crafts for your stay.

Discover more destinations: Hamtramck, Melvindale, Southgate, Plymouth, Romulus, Grosse Pointe, Dearborn, Inkster

For the broader travel overview: Wayne.