Walking & history / citywide
Preservation Detroit
Detroit's oldest preservation nonprofit has been leading walking tours for fifty years, with a downtown route running most Saturdays all summer.
Languages: English
At a glance
- Length
- 2–2.5 hours
- Price
- $20 non-members, $17 members and students
- Hours
- Saturdays at 10 a.m., summer season
- Season
- May through September
- Groups and private tours
- private tours $100 for up to four people, $25 per person for five or more, book a month ahead
01 / 4
What tours do they run?
Downtown
Historic high-rises, monuments, and plazas, tracing how downtown Detroit came together.
- Price
- $20 non-members, $17 members
Midtown
How Midtown grew from farmland into today's lively neighborhood, told through local stories.
- Price
- $20 non-members, $17 members
Cultural Center
The Cultural Center's grand public spaces and Detroit's cultural institutions, all in one walk.
- Price
- $20 non-members, $17 members
Eastern Market
125 years of Eastern Market history, starting from the market's Welcome Center.
- Price
- $20 non-members, $17 members
02 / The story of this place
Make time for these
Preservation Detroit has protected the city's architecture since the 1970s, and every summer they run a weekly rotation of walks: their own Downtown, Midtown, Cultural Center, and Eastern Market tours, each about two and a half hours. In July and August they add weekday walks too, plus specialty routes like one on Detroit's French roots and another covering its churches. Guides are experts in their own neighborhoods, and every tour goes ahead rain or shine.
- Four rotating Saturday walks all summer
- Specialty church and French-roots tours
- Tours run rain or shine
How to book and where to meet
Book ahead through Eventbrite, up until 6 p.m. the night before. A Saturday walk runs $20 for non-members, $17 for members and students, and you should show up ten minutes early.
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