Book a 6-Hour Layover to Save Money and Expand Your Knowledge of the U.S.A.

I have a friend who courted his eventual wife by taking her on cheap, weekend getaways to unexciting U.S. cities advertised at rock-bottom rates on airline websites. Schedule a weekend trip to places like Terre Haute, Indiana, or Peoria, Illinois, and you'll pay a pittance for your airfare and hotel, and you'll also find that the cities in question aren't nearly as dull as you feared (at least for a very short stay).

How about Detroit? Would you believe that Motor City -- the most blighted, declining urban area in America -- can be a fascinating stopover en route to another more promising town? A friend, Tripatini.com co-founder David Appell, recently scheduled a flight from Miami to New York City on Spirit Airlines in order to enjoy a rock-bottom airfare. The only hitch: a required, six-hour layover in Detroit en route (i.e., Miami to Detroit to New York City). He learned, to his surprise, that he was thus enjoying not only a tiny, tiny airfare, but an unexpected urban treat.

In Detroit, a twenty-minute cab ride from the airport took him to the center of downtown, and an interesting visit to the city's Greek Town filled with restaurants and shops. Nearby, he had the most exciting barbecue of his life at an iconic restaurant called Slows Bar BQ that has created a sensation in Detroit. And from there, he took another cab to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, which is on the way back to the airport. There, he discovered an institution that he now ranks among the top museums of the nation, and wrote about it in his blog post "Sightseeing in Detroit: Revelations of an Unexpected Layover."In it, and among other things, he viewed:

Presidential limousines such as the one in which John F. Kennedy was shot; the bus in which Rosa Parks sparked the seminal Montgomery Bus Boycott; the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was shot; a period replica of America's first train; the "Oscar Meyer Wienermobile"; and various and sundry planes, cars, locomotives, machines, furniture, appliances and a gazillion other items. Ever heard of Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House? It was once going to be the house of the future, but was never put into production; the only surviving example is here, and it's utterly fascinating. There's also stuff we didn't get to see/do, such as the outdoor Greenfield Village, with more historical reproductions....

So there you have it. Though a complicated flight on Spirit Airlines isn't the most pleasant of prospects, the use of its one-stop-en-route service to New York resulted in a surprising travel experience, in a town that you wouldn't have expected to be as fascinating as Detroit turned out to be. Maybe there are reasons, as well, for scheduling a weekend in Terre Haute or Peoria.