Vacation in Detroit ?

[animatedmartian]

However, you absolutely MUST rent a car in Detroit, unless you're willing to spend hundreds in transportation. This is especially difficult for international travelers. If you go downtown/midtown, you could probably make a weekend of it [[although it will cost you $50+ to get there from the airport). However, getting to the Zoo, the Henry Ford, etc becomes difficult. You could easily spend a week vacationing in Detroit and seeing things you'd rarely see in other cities. Unfortunately, you'd spend about a day of it driving around as well.

This doesn't make any sense to me. If someone is visiting Chicago or NYC, they're doing the same thing; spending a considerable amount of time traveling. It's something that's expected to happen.

When I went to Chicago, I used the CTA. Waited like 10 minutes for a bus at Navy Pier so I can get to the Sears Tower. Waited for another bus when going from the Sears Tower to one of the museums in the park. Waited for another bus to get to an event in the Southside of Chicago. Very few cities actually have everything within a proximity that doesn't require anything more than walking. In any city, you're going to spend a considerable amount of time in either a train, a bus, or a car, be it a taxi or a rental, and it's going to cost money. That's poor planning on the part of the tourist if they don't take that into consideration.

The only thing "difficult" would be the costs. Maybe it is more expensive to travel around Detroit compared to more compact and transit-oriented cities, but this other nonsense about it taking to much time to get across town is silly. A 15 minute travel is going to be the same 15 minutes in every other city.

[preserve]

Who really takes a long vacation to another city? Most of us do a 4 day weekend of site seeing.
No one mentioned the river tour, Diamond Jack cruise. When in other cities, it's always nice to take their river cruises and see the city from the water. Even Cleveland looks good from the boat.
The museums do take way more than an hour to appreciate. I always take folks to the Historical Museum first. The whole purpose of seeing other cities is to see what they have to offer, not necessarily to go shopping. Chain stores are chain stores. Boston has great history,
Cleveland and Pittsburgh are revitalized cities and also offer history, maybe of industry, but history nevertheless. I think vacation is misused. Europeans have vacations, we have odd days off and maybe a week here and there, but still connected to the job.

[Bham1982]

Who really takes a long vacation to another city? Most of us do a 4 day weekend of site seeing.

I've spent a week or more in a single city, but not generally in the U.S. I don't think it's super-odd. I could easily spend 6 months somewhere like Paris and never get bored.

I think, in the U.S., if we're talking "urban" vacationing [[so forget Orlando and Vegas), you could do NYC or LA for a week. I've done both for a week+ and had very busy days.

Miami possibly too, but probably a stretch. SF or DC or NOLA 4-5 days max for most people. Boston, Chicago, Philly would probably be more of a long weekend for most visitors. Besides that, any other U.S. city would probably be more of day or weekend trip.

[Bham1982]

Also Boston is not that small. People always form their impressions based on population of city limits, but metro area comparisons are probably more reasonable. The Boston MSA has around 5 million people, and the Boston CSA has around 8 million people.

The economic output is considerable too. It's a wealthy metro area. Boston had a gross economic product of 514 billion in 2013, compared to 597 billion for Chicago and 262 billion for Detroit. Boston probably receives a decent amount of business travelers, both domestic and international.

[iheartthed]

This doesn't make any sense to me. If someone is visiting Chicago or NYC, they're doing the same thing; spending a considerable amount of time traveling. It's something that's expected to happen.

Actually, you can walk between many of NYC's tourist spots. The walk from the Empire State Building to Central Park is less than 30 minutes. All of Midtown Manhattan's tourist traps are between those two locations. The Financial District is even more compact than midtown. You can get from the World Trade Center to Wall Street in less than 10 minutes by foot.

[animatedmartian]

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<br>Actually, you can walk between many of NYC's tourist spots. &nbsp;The walk from the Empire State Building to Central Park is less than 30 minutes. &nbsp;All of Midtown Manhattan's tourist traps are between those two locations. &nbsp;The Financial District is even more compact than midtown. &nbsp;You can get from the World Trade Center to Wall Street in less than 10 minutes by foot.

That's my point. If it takes 30 minutes to walk between ESB and Central Park, how is that any different than 30 minutes from Campus Martius to Henry Ford Village? The distance covered is obviously significantly different, but it's still 30 minutes spent traveling.

[iheartthed]

That's my point. If it takes 30 minutes to walk between ESB and Central Park, how is that any different than 30 minutes from Campus Martius to Henry Ford Village? The distance covered is obviously significantly different, but it's still 30 minutes spent traveling.

Because most of New York's attractions are stuffed into that 30 minute walk. You could spend a week trying to do all there is to do along what is a 30 minute walk, point to point. In Detroit there's those two points and nothing else between.

[DetroitPlanner]

Because most of New York's attractions are stuffed into that 30 minute walk. You could spend a week trying to do all there is to do along what is a 30 minute walk, point to point. In Detroit there's those two points and nothing else between.

Maybe for you but I'd want to go to Coney Island, Downtown Brooklyn, Bronx Zoo, Guggenheim, 125th St......

[animatedmartian]

Because most of New York's attractions are stuffed into that 30 minute walk. You could spend a week trying to do all there is to do along what is a 30 minute walk, point to point. In Detroit there's those two points and nothing else between.

But then that's not a 30 minute walk from point A to B. That's aimless sightseeing. In which case, time and distance isn't a disruption.

The two conflicting arguments in this thread seem to be that Detroit doesn't have enough interesting destinations or that they're too far apart, yet if someone isn't stressing about time or distance, Detroit has plenty to see and do. If on the other hand, time is limited then a tourist isn't really going to see a whole lot. Either way, I still don't understand how either discourages people from visiting Detroit if the same things can be said of most any tourist destination.

[iheartthed]

But then that's not a 30 minute walk from point A to B. That's aimless sightseeing. In which case, time and distance isn't a disruption.

The two conflicting arguments in this thread seem to be that Detroit doesn't have enough interesting destinations or that they're too far apart, yet if someone isn't stressing about time or distance, Detroit has plenty to see and do. If on the other hand, time is limited then a tourist isn't really going to see a whole lot. Either way, I still don't understand how either discourages people from visiting Detroit if the same things can be said of most any tourist destination.

That's exactly what people do in urban tourism. You don't travel to NYC just to go to see the ESB and Central Park. You go to experience that and all of the other things you didn't know about before. That is the difference between Detroit and other cities that draw large amounts of urban visitors.

Also, I can't think of another city in the country that should be more concerned about attracting tourists. Tourism = jobs.