Belle Isle Park

Belle Isle — Detroit's Island in the River

20 stops· 41 min· 6.7 mi

Some of America's great parks sit right in the middle of its cities — this is one of them. A self-guided driving loop around Belle Isle, Detroit's 982-acre island in the river, the second-most-visited state park in America and one almost nobody outside Michigan knows the story of. In one easy counterclockwise loop you'll pass a scandalous marble fountain a disliked millionaire bribed the city to build; the oldest aquarium in the country and a glass-domed conservatory of orchids, both from 1904; and the only marble lighthouse in the United States out at the island's tip. Along the south shore, Canada sits a mile across the water — the same river that was the last line to freedom on the Underground Railroad, and, a lifetime later, the busiest smuggling channel of Prohibition, whiskey running across the ice by car. The loop closes with the island's own comeback: a bankrupt city that refused to give up its crown jewel. Ranger Quinn drives you through it; Ranger Boone Merrick tells the deep stories. The island is free to walk or bike (a small Recreation Passport covers your car); the tour works fully offline. Designed in the 1880s by Frederick Law Olmsted — the same hand behind Central Park and the Niagara Reservation, the very first state park in America.