By a long shot, the best experience Vivian and I have had is traveling the U.S and Canada in an RV. While national parks and monuments are the forces that shape our travel itineraries each year, the opportunity to visit some of the country’s great cities is never overlooked. We love cities. We love the vibrancy of a city which can be experienced in many ways – art, culture, architecture, food, history. We love it all and when we come in close proximity to one, we figure out a way to get in there and visit (remember, we drive a 21’ ft long and 7’ ft tall truck!).
When we began traveling smaller with the Casita, we quickly realized that friends’ driveways were fair game and wow did we take advantage of that while visiting Michigan and Indiana. Fortunately, we have friends that live near two great midwestern cities. Not only did our friends open their homes and driveways to us, but they gave us the opportunity to visit Detroit and Chicago, the two largest cities in the U.S.’s midwest.
I grew up in north woods of Michigan and ever since I can remember, I thought of Detroit as a place so different from my surroundings and very far away. I understood it to be dirty and crowded and not a very nice place to be. To us living in a small town, Detroit – the Motor City – was just big and scary and had no attraction whatsoever. Motown was playing on my radio, but I never really made the connection to Detroit until much later.
Over the years, my long standing perception of Detroit had been shaped by the legacy of the 1967 riots and further tainted in the 70s & 80s by the massive job losses from the auto industry and the rapid suburbanization (“Middle Class Flight”). At its peak in the 1950s, Detroit’s population reached 1.85 million. By 2013, it had declined by 65%.
In 2013, Detroit became the largest U.S. city to file bankruptcy. It did not follow through with it when the state of Michigan stepped up and gave the city a helping hand and some money. Since then, developers have revitalized abandoned properties in downtown, creating both budget and luxury residences. Recently, there has been a visible population growth in downtown Detroit, a first since the 1950s.
Congratulations Detroit for a your successful come-back! We enjoyed walking your downtown riverfront along the Detroit River, a stone’s throw away from Canada. And we visited one of the best art museums in the country, Detroit Institute of Art known for many things including the Diego Rivera’s ‘Detroit Industry’ mural.
Soon after, we visited our friends who live in Gary, Indiana. A 10-min drive to the train station and a 1-hr train ride was all it took to get to the heart of Chicago. To say our visit was too short is an understatement because to really take in the best parts of Chicago, you need a few days. As it were, we had one day which included our commute.
With almost 3 million residents, Chicago is the the third most populated city in the U.S. The windy city has over 50 million visitors each year. Its central business district known as the Loop is where we spent our time and is the second largest business district in North America. Chicago is a beautiful city and although crowded with visitors and residents on a warm & sunny Sunday afternoon, it was an amazing place to be.
Everyone downtown seemed to be there to experience Millennium Park, a public space that is among the top ten destinations in the U.S. with 25 million visitors a year. Perhaps the greatest attraction in the park is ‘Cloud Gate’ or better known as, ‘The Bean’. This was the first attraction for us after coming out of the underground train station.
A short walk away is the Art Institute of Chicago. Founded in 1879, the Art Institute is one of the oldest and largest in the country. A person can easily spend an entire day at the museum and it is one of several in Chicago that we would be interested in visiting.
This simply means that Chicago requires a few days to visit and Vivian and I look forward to doing that one day. Chicago is well connected to the rail system, so much so that it is standard practice to take the train into the city. We learned that the commuter train extends well beyond the city limits in various directions, which makes visiting the city convenient for RV’ers as there are plenty of campgrounds in the area, including a national park.
We got a very small taste of Chicago and Detroit and although we have no compelling reason to return to Detroit, we would be happy to return again if our friends wanted us to come with them. As for Chicago, it is one of those cities that stands out as a destination. Chicago is so alive with much to offer and it is just one of those great places everyone should see at least once in a lifetime.
Vivian and I feel so lucky to have gone into Chicago when we did, because it is now a city under siege. Americans pitted against Americans, for no good reason whatsoever. The videos we see are ugly. We are saddened thinking about the people of Chicago and can only hope the city will continue to be the vibrant and colorful city we experienced, where people from all over the world are welcome.
If you enjoyed this post, check out previous posts about the many cities, some large, some small that we have visited.
Changing Views From Our RV 
We had similar experiences in both of these cities! Although there is not much to see in downtown Detroit, it was nice to find a city that has had such a cloud hanging over it, making a resurgence. And Chicago with its history, culture and deep-dish pizza, far, far exceeded our expectations. If you go back, visit the observation deck of Willis Tower.
LikeLike