Experience the best of Kalamazoo

Kalamazoo is a city of about 70,000 people on the Kalamazoo River in south-west Michigan, roughly midway between Chicago and Detroit. Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College give the downtown a student feel. The Kalamazoo Mall, opened in 1959 as one of the first outdoor pedestrian shopping malls in the United States, is still the main street of downtown.

The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum are in the centre, and the Air Zoo, an aviation museum, is in nearby Portage. Kalamazoo is where Gibson was founded as a guitar and mandolin company in 1902, and its instruments were made in the city for decades. Gull Lake lies to the north, and the Lake Michigan beach towns of South Haven and Saugatuck are about an hour's drive west.

Michigan craft beer is a regional pride, and the city's cafés and farm markets use produce from Michigan's fruit belt, which supplies cherries, blueberries and apples. Warm, humid summers give way to October colour, and winters are cold and snowy, with lake-effect snow blowing in from Lake Michigan.