Ann Arbor

We rolled into Ann Arbor on a Friday evening in October, and the whole town smelled like woodsmoke and fallen leaves. Lia had been here once for a conference and kept promising me bookstores; she wasn’t exaggerating. Within an hour of parking we’d wandered into three of them, State Street glowing under string lights, University of Michigan students weaving past on bikes with backpacks half-open. It is a small city that thinks like a big one — opinionated, well-read, and thoroughly unhurried about it.

The Diag and central campus

The heart of the university is the Diag, a diagonal crisscross of paths cutting through central campus between old stone halls and modern glass. We arrived the morning of a home football game and found the whole town had turned maize and blue, tailgate smoke drifting over parking lots long before kickoff. Even without tickets, we followed the crowd toward the Big House, watching a hundred thousand people funnel toward a stadium bowl sunk below street level so it barely announces itself from outside. Later, in quieter hours, we found the Law Quad’s Gothic cloisters nearly empty, ivy climbing limestone in a corner of campus that feels transplanted from Oxford.

Kerrytown and the food scene

South of campus, the Kerrytown district gathers the Ann Arbor Farmers Market, Zingerman’s Deli, and a cluster of independent shops around brick warehouses turned boutiques. We queued at Zingerman’s for a sandwich stacked absurdly high with pastrami, then carried it two blocks to eat on a bench by the old rail spur. Saturday mornings the farmers market spills over with Michigan apples, tart cherries, and maple syrup vendors who’ll talk your ear off about sap season. Main Street, a few blocks over, does dinner properly — we found ourselves at a corner table over Michigan whitefish and a local pinot noir, the kind of unpretentious, ingredient-forward menu that college towns with good universities and better farmland tend to produce.

The Arb and the river

Just southeast of downtown, Nichols Arboretum unrolls along a bend in the Huron River — 123 acres of prairie, peony gardens, and oak woods that the university has tended since the 1900s. We spent an entire lazy afternoon there, following trails down to the river where students sunbathed on the grassy banks and a few brave paddlers drifted by in kayaks. It’s the kind of green space that makes you understand why so many students never quite leave Ann Arbor after graduation — the town has a gravity to it, equal parts intellectual and outdoorsy.

Getting There

Detroit Metropolitan Airport sits about 25 miles east, roughly a 30-minute drive via I-94, and is the easiest way in for most visitors. Ann Arbor is also a straightforward hour’s drive from downtown Detroit itself, making it an easy day trip or overnight add-on. Once downtown, the campus core and Kerrytown are entirely walkable, and the free AATA bus system covers the rest of town for anyone without a car.