Why Grand Rapids is a Great Place to Visit

Grand Rapids is famous for being Beer City USA, hosting the international ArtPrize competition and offering some of Michigan’s most popular tourist attractions, including Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and John Ball Zoo.

Grand Rapids won the Beer City USA title in 2012 and has held it ever since, along with all sorts of other beer awards, including USA Today nods as America’s Best Beer City ever year from 2021-2026.

Get the Beer City Brewsader® passport app – it’s a guide to the city’s 35+ craft breweries, complete with locations, tours, events and transportation options. Use the app to check in to eight breweries and you’ll get a free collectible t-shirt. Check in to 30+ breweries for a free crewneck sweatshirt. The app also has fun challenges to do and cool badges to earn through the app.

You’ll be happy to know that Grand Rapids is also America’s Craft Beverage Capital, according to USA Today, so you can enjoy world-class spirits, hard and soft ciders, hard seltzers, mocktails, mead, coffee juices and other delectable creations on your visit.

Is it ever – USA Today says Grand Rapids is one of the 10 Best Cities Where You Can See Amazing Art and it offers more cultural experiences than almost any other city its size. Our annual ArtPrize competition, held each fall, is the world’s most attended public art event. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is one of the world’s most visited art museums. The Grand Rapids Art Museum is itself a work of art, named one of the world’s best buildings when it opened in its current location in 2007. Grand Rapids is also home to Michigan’s only professional ballet company, the state’s longest running professional opera company, a Grammy Award-nominated symphony, one of America’s oldest and largest community theatres and a presenter of touring Broadways shows.

CNN asked the question, “Is Grand Rapids the most family-friendly town in the country?” Legions of visiting parents, grandparents and kids say yes. So does the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), which hailed Grand Rapids as “an underappreciated gem for families.” We’ve got a children’s museum , an awesome zoo , a children’s garden, 100+ parks and playgrounds, and dozens more family-friendly attractions, all designed to let every child play their way. 

Absolutely! With one of the world’s best agricultural regions just 15 minutes from downtown and one of the nation’s finest culinary schools smack dab in the city center, Grand Rapids practically invented farm-to-table dining. We’ve been ranked one of the Top 20 Foodie Cities in the U.S. – and the most affordable foodie city of all. Bring your appetite, there are nearly 1,200 restaurants to choose from. Don’t miss the Grand Rapids Downtown Market, named one of 13 Must-Visit U.S. Food Halls by Tasting Table. Be sure to sign up for the free Flights of Flavor digital pass before you visit – it’ll tell you where to find the city’s best food and/or drink pairings and how to earn cool prizes for checking in to Flights of Flavor locations.

Yes – 2024 research by Cairn Consulting Group identified Grand Rapids as America’s #3 Most Outdoor-Friendly City. There are 100s of miles of hiking and biking trails, 120+ parks, 50+ lakes and rivers, 30+ golf courses, a winter ski resort and much more within 30 minutes of our bustling downtown. You can spend your days on the trail (or the beach, water, fairway or ski run) and your nights on the town!

Grand Rapids offers the best shopping between Chicago and Detroit – and it’s considerably easier and more affordable than any big city. Shop two huge malls, an outdoor outlet mall and all the big box stores you can imagine for famous brand names. You’ll find more distinctive treasures, many handcrafted by local artisans, in our walkable shopping neighborhoods – including downtown Grand Rapids, where more than 100 unique stores are located within a 10-minutes stroll.

Grand Rapids is just a 30-45 minute drive from 20+ world-class beaches on Lake Michigan. Basically an inland ocean – only without salt or sharks – Lake Michigan boasts a sugar-sand coastline, crystal-clear water and sweeping sand dunes. Five inland lake beaches are even closer to downtown Grand Rapids – including the beautiful six-acre beach at Millennium Park, five minutes away, which fronts a clear, 100-acre lake.

With 100+ live-music venues around town, you can listen to live music just about anywhere you go. There are 30+ exceptional music venues in downtown alone, including the new-in-2026 Acrisure Amphitheater, a 1,200+ outdoor concert venue, and Van Andel Arena, West Michigan’s largest indoor entertainment space – both hosting the nation’s biggest touring acts. Bars, breweries, coffeehouses and concert halls host live music performances on a more intimate scale.

Yes, you can cheer for Grand Rapids Gold basketball, Grand Rapids Griffins hockey, Grand Rapids Rise women’s volleyball and West Michigan Whitecaps baseball – all pro teams playing at a peak level. Debuting in spring 2027: Athletic Club Grand Rapids, Michigan’s first MLS Next Pro soccer team, who will play in downtown’s new Amway Stadium.

Grand Rapids hosts fantastic cultural festivals all year ‘round. The most popular include World of Winter, a two-month outdoor celebration of our cold-weather season; LaughFest, the world’s first-ever community-wide festival of laughter, held every March; Cider Week GR, an annual May event saluting the city’s apple and hard cider expertise; ArtPrize, the global art competition held each fall; and the Christkindl Markt, a European-style Christmas village running from mid-November to Christmas Eve. There’s a festival most every weekend in summer, including celebrations honoring on our Native American, Asian-Pacific, LGBTQ+, Italian, Celtic, African American, Hispanic, Danish and Polish communities.

Yes, it was named one of America’s Top 14 Walkable Cities in 2024, thanks to a downtown boasting 300+ shopping, dining, cultural and entertainment options within a 10-minute walk. “Visitors can easily make their way between museums and restaurants, theaters and breweries, nightclubs and hotels entirely on foot,” says CNN.

Yes, Grand Rapids is an “Accessibility Verified” destination through Wheel the World, a travel platform that facilitates accessible travel for people with disabilities and seniors. We also partnered with Wheel the World to develop the world’s first AI-powered accessibility agent, which draws on years of accessibility data to answer your questions about planning an accessible trip to Grand Rapids.