Detroit MI (Michigan)

Detroit MI (aka Motor City) is USA's 7th largest city and a major port on Detroit River. It is located on a navigable waterway that links the Great Lakes with Saint Lawrence Seaway.

The city is also world's foremost car-manufacturing center. The economic growth was aided by city's transport links to USA's interior and its strategic location on Detroit River - the waterway connecting USA's upper and lower Great Lakes.

On Detroit riverfront is located the Civic Center, with Cobo Hall, City-County Building and Arena (one of the largest convention halls in the US). Here also is Henry and Edsel Ford Auditorium and Museum. Ford Museum takes a look at the man behind the assembly line and at how his ingenuity has transformed American life. The collection includes antique and classic cars including the automobile in which JFK was shot, railway locomotives, farm equipment, kitchen appliances, car advertising posters, early car videos. Greenfield Village is adjacent to the museum. It takes tourists back 150 years to reveal the genius of remarkable Americans. Actual structures like Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory, Orville and Wilbur Wright's home and bicycle shop, have been moved to Greenfield. The village also features a paddleboat on the small lake and an operating steam railway.

Also north of downtown are General Motors and Fisher buildings, designed by the German architect Albert Kahn. Pewabic Pottery (1907) is another place of interest, built for ceramicist Mary Chase Perry Stratton. Her glazed tiles were an important element in buildings of 1920s. West of Detroit's downtown area is situated Fort Wayne Military Museum, Midwest's best-preserved pre-American Civil War fort. It houses Great Lakes Indian Museum and Tuskegee Airmen Museum.

The post-COVID 2022 was the most successful year ever for cruises on the Great Lakes. The season featured ~150,000 cruise ship tourists (+25% over 2019) served by 9x boats. Currently, the largest by capacity Great Lakes cruise companies are Viking Cruises USA (Viking Octantis), AQV-American Queen Voyages (ships Ocean Navigator, Ocean Voyager), Pearl Seas Cruises (Pearl Mist), and the Canadian company St Lawrence Cruise Lines (Canadian Empress). Other travel brands that offer Great Lakes voyages are PONANT and Tauck (fleet).

Due to the increased Great Lakes cruise passenger traffic, in 2022 were opened two new US Customs and Border Protection facilities - in Duluth MI and Cleveland OH, in addition to the existing in Detroit MI and Sault Ste Marie MI.