Solo Roadtrip Highlights: Detroit Rock City

I am becoming quite solo traveler, something I take a lot of pride in, seeing as I am also the most cripplingly anxious woman I know (and I roll DEEP with anxious ladies, let me tell you). My most recent solo escapade? Detroit Rock City, for a Qveen Herby concert. Let’s recap with my highlights reel, shall we?

Highlight #1—Tim Hortons: I mean, this wasn’t really a highlight in the traditional sense.…I just have an unnatural, unfounded obsession with the entire Tim Horton’s chain writ large. That Canadian maple leaf logo just makes me feel safe, like I am in seriously syrupy good hands. So, a hearty thank you to Canadian ice hockey player, Tim Horton, for inventing this place. My particular location? It was not very good ( a too-sweet doughnut coupled with a limp tortilla wrapped around an equally floppy sausage…and an iced coffee with no ice?), but still, I was incredibly pleased. It’s fine, Mr. Horton! Somehow, it was my fault, I am sure. Sorry sorry sorry. In any case, I was incredibly hungry, and I needed literally anything before my first official stop of the weekend.

Highlight #2—Motown Thrift: and this…this was my first official stop! Nothing beats my favorite thrift store of all time (Village Discount Outlet lovers, where you at?), but this was a pretty good spot. One of my absolute favorite things to do is to go “thrifting abroad” (definitionally speaking, “abroad” in this instance means any place >60m from my house). I always get a thrill from a good thrift, but it is amplified if I am in a different state. While there, I picked up the sweetest vintage baby blue angora cardigan with crystal buttons, and if I recall it was under five bucks. I will definitely stop by Motown Thrift again.

Highlight #3 Detroit Institute of Arts: Now THAT’S a good museum. Let it be known, I am addicted to museums. Museums about anything, really. Science. Industry. Dams and Aquifers (a real museum I went to…). But the top spot on my list will always be an art museum. Whenever I travel somewhere new (and even when I’m just in my hometown), museums are my favorite place to post up. I didn’t know much about the Detroit Institute of Arts besides that it was of a respectable size with a pretty robust collection. It is fabulous, full stop. Its collection ranks in the top six in the United States. As someone who loves the Met but loathes the crowds, this really scratched my itch of being able to see anything I wanted to see, minus being crushed into a Raphael sketch (true happening from my last Met visit). So very many highlights: I loved the Dutch still lives. Obsessed with the whole sixteenth century French chapel they’ve installed inside. The Diego Rivera “Detroit Industry” murals are breathtaking. The Beaux-Arts architecture of the place itself is art. It’s only $20 to spend the day surrounded by really well-curated galleries (with like, actually fun placards to read and activities to complete? I find modern-day curation to be tricky—it either leans too gimmicky or too stale—but that’s a topic for another post). I will absolutely have to go back to DIA—it is a fantastic place.

Highlight #4–Detroit Foundation Hotel: My accommodations for the evening. Formerly a firehouse, the Detroit Foundation Hotel is now luxe accommodations (obviously…I did not sleep in a fire truck). The location was a little tucked away, but I loved everything about the interior design (they kept a lot of the original building’s concept), and, most importantly, they offered Le Labo amenities. I BATHED MYSELF, LITERALLY, IN SANTAL 33. I was so, so happy. My hands were immaculate because I dunked them in Santal every fifteen minutes. My only issue with the stay arose at about one in the morning, when I heard two men’s voices booming in my ear. I thought they were somewhere in my room, that’s how loud they were. It was incredibly alarming. I am not sure if they were in the space next door or outdoors, but clearly the soundproofing was next to nonexistent. I didn’t eat in The Apparatus Room, their on-site restaurant (I had other food plans, as you’ll soon see), but the menu looked really good. Overall, fabulous place, would stay again.

Highlight #5–Buddy’s: I had to go to the OG Detroit-style pizza spot, didn’t I? I ended up walking from my hotel to the Buddy’s location shoved next to Comerica Field…riiiiiiight as the Tigers v. Blue Jays game got out. This meant a long, long, long (I’m talking 60m+) wait. But was it worth it? Oh, girl. IT WAS WORTH IT. I had the meatball/garlic bread appetizer, and that thing was so good on its own that I could have just eaten that. Honestly, it was their sauce. THEIR SAUCE. It is so totally the sauce. I am really a marinara sauce stickler, which is weird because I’m from Indiana and the official flavor profile for everything here is “cardboard bland.” Normally, I can consider butter an adequate seasoning. But with marinara, I need to really “zing.” This…this sauce zang. It wasn’t spicy, but it was perfectly spiced, a little sweet (just enough to cut the bitterness of the tomato). I could have drank a vat of it. Thankfully, this was the same sauce that was on the pizza, which was also top notch. The official lore is that Buddy’s Detroit-style pizza was invented 80 years ago, when my man Gus chose to bake a pie in a steel pan from an automotive plant. Is that true? I have no idea. In the end, my only real complaint is that I ended up with twelve minutes to savor my gustatorial choices before I had to cut out—I had to literally jog back to my hotel to get ready for the Qveen Herby concert…the whole reason I was in Detroit in the first place.

Highlight #6–Royal Oak Theatre+Qveen Concert: I have been a Qveen Herby fan since forever. Well, since 2020, at least. If you’ve never heard any of her music before, I implore you to check out “Vitamins” and “Marie Antoinette,” then come back and finish reading. When I saw my literal queen was going on tour, I jumped. Chicago was sold out, so the next logical (and next closest) stop was Detroit. If I was on the fence before, when I learned that Thot Squad was opening for her….well, it was a done deal. The show was an A+. The venue was a solid C-. I had a really horrific time with security telling me my bag was “too big,” despite the fact that I had actually measured it, with their bag requirements in mind (and then literally measured it again in front of them with the fabric tape measure I carry on my person at all times…in case I catch a thrifting bug and need to know if something will fit w/o trying it on). Even though my bag was an entire two inches smaller than the biggest bag allowed….they denied me entry until I took it back to the car. So, I did. To add insult to injury, the venue was approximately 97 degrees. I sweated. So much. Like more than buckets. I was wearing the coolest vintage sequin coat from the 1950’s on top of a vintage dress from the 1970’s. Mix vintage polyester with prolific bodily fluid? I smelled like a grandma’s musty basement. The sweat unlocked a cheat code to the gnarliest odor to have ever odored. No matter, because the whole place already smelled like dank weed. I despise that smell, but this was one time I was grateful for its overpowering nature. Anyways, to the dry cleaner we went!

Highlight #7–Yellow Light Coffee and Doughnuts: This was an impulsive choice, and it was the best impulsive choice I have ever made. Normally, I am not a fan of old-fashioned doughnuts. I think they are too dense, and frankly, usually not sweet enough (my sweet teeth know no bounds). I prefer a yeast doughnut, or, best of all, a cream/frosting filled doughnut. But every review I read about Yellow Light (by many folks who, like me, don’t normally like the old fashioned), made me change my mind. The nail in my doughnut coffin? Two words. Coffee. Slushie. Say less. My order consisted of a giant coffee slushie, an order of hash brown rings (a modern scientific marvel), a brown sugar plantain doughnut, and a cherry almond doughnut. This may have been my perfect meal of all of 2026, honestly. I keep thinking about it. The doughnuts had so much flavor and glaze. They were perfectly moist. The hashbrowns gave a salty reprieve. And that coffee slush? Holy crap. Gorgeous. I gotta go back. I have literally thought of driving myself back up there solely to repeat this exact meal.

Highlight #8–Belle Isle: Another impulsive decision. I needed somewhere to eat my aforementioned perfect meal, so I went to Belle Isle, a nearly 1,000 acre park on an island in the Detroit River. While you do pay an entrance fee to the island ($12 if you are out of state), from what I could tell, almost every other amenity provided was free, including the oldest operating aquarium in the United States. I loved that place! It is incredibly small, but well thought out. Designed in 1904 by Albert Kahn, a man who wanted the fish tanks arranged to look like paintings on the wall and the ceilings to be green tiled, so that you felt as though the entire fish art gallery was underwater. It really does feel like you are both at the Met and under the sea. Honestly, a really ingenious way to display a fish. Obviously, the biggest question is: are the fish happy like this (I mean, at least that was my biggest question)? I have no idea. Do not ask me. They appeared happy, but I am not a fish therapist, by any means. My favorite “painting”, by far, was of the spotted garden eels. I don’t think I have ever seen such a creature before, nor do I think I ever will again (by all means, prove me wrong. I hope I see them all the damn time). These little guys were so simultaneously goofy and creepy and cute. If I can figure out how to embed a video, I will do so, because you’ve really gotta see ‘em move to believe how interesting they are. After visiting the fish, I went next door to the Anna Scrips Whitcomb Conservatory. Also amazingly well kept (and free). I spent a good half hour just wandering through the different plant biomes. I did miss out on the lighthouse and the Great Lakes Museum (I do believe that has a small admission fee), but since I have to have Yellow Light Doughnuts again, I will put those on my to-do list for the next time.

Highlight #9–Volunteers of America Thrift Shop: Aesthetically, I felt as though I was in a Marshall’s or a TJ Maxx. This should have been pleasing, no? Isn’t the big complaint re: thrift stores that they are too dirty, too cramped, etc? The vibe at Volunteers of America didn’t work for me. It didn’t feel like as much of a treasure hunt. Admittedly, the stock at this store wasn’t as robust as Motown, either. I did come away with a couple of gems (a pair of snakeskin flats for $2.50 and a .50 bracelet), but if I could only visit one Detroit-area thrift store again, it would be Motown, but if I was doing a double dip, I would for sure go back.

And there you have it! A few highlights from my trip. As much as I love sharing travels with my friends and family, I am growing really fond of exploring new cities on my own. I can be a little…uhhh…intense with my travel scheduling (I did everything listed above in less than 36 total hours), so I feel 0% guilt when I am the only one subjected to my grueling itineraries.

Where will I solo next? Help me decide!