Where are Michigan's spring festivals? Where to enjoy blooms, music, outdoors
Spring officially starts on March 20. This season, from Native American heritage to blooming Tulips to trout fishing and beyond, festivals will offer a chance to get outdoors and celebrate spring's warming weather.
Here's what to know.
Welcome west Michigan's blooming tulip season with a twist of Dutch heritage in Holland this spring.
The Tulip Time Festival is May 2-11, with events and activities throughout the downtown Holland area. The annual festival includes guided tours, Dutch dance lessons, art exhibitions, performances, food and drinks, and more. Information about tickets for individual events can be found online.
More: Where are hummingbirds? Here's a look at migration map
Spend Memorial Day weekend in the birthplace of techno to enjoy electronic music and dancing. Movement, recently ranked the nation's sixth-best music festival, will run May 24-26 at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit.
The three-day festival will feature more than 115 acts performing on six stages, including internationally renowned DJs, live acts and up-and-coming artists. There will be food and drink vendors, colorful lights, and an artist in residence program with art installations and murals.
Three-day passes are $319 general admission, $449 VIP. Single-day tickets are $169 general admission, $219 VIP. Tickets can be purchased online.
Bird enthusiasts, the Michigan Bluebird Society will soon offer a chance to learn all about bluebirds in Grand Rapids.
The 2025 Spring Bluebird Festival is from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Saturday at the Prince Conference Center at Calvin University. The annual event will feature an expert panel, prize drawings, a bluebird/nature expo, bluebird and other native birds informative programs, and more. The festival is free to attend.
Cross the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula to honor the state's Indigenous roots.
The Native American Festival is May 24 at the Museum of Ojibwa Culture. The annual festival recognizes the culture and contributions of local Anishinaabe people, per the event website. The festival will feature Indigenous apparel, dancing and drumming, medicines, and more.
Head to northern Michigan to celebrate the opening of trout season in Kalkaska this spring.
The National Trout Festival is April 23-27. The 88th annual festival will include fishing, a classic car show, parades, contests, and more. The festival will mainly be in downtown at Railroad Square and at the Kalkaska County Fairgrounds.
More: Sick of winter? These upcoming markets will make it seem like spring in Michigan
If you can't make it to those festivals this spring, here are more to check out across the state:
Upper Peninsula Dark Sky Festival: The festival is during International Dark Sky Week. The third annual festival will run April 24-26 at Keweenaw Mountain Lodge just outside Copper Harbor at the Keweenaw Dark Sky Park. There will be a lineup of speakers, informative presentations, two lunches and more.
Fairy Festival in Jackson: The annual Fairy Festival is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 12 in downtown. The event will include crafts, activities, snacks, costumes, a performance, bounce house and more.
Saginaw on Stage: The music festival fundraiser will be from 5-10 p.m. April 5 at the Saginaw Club. The 2025 event, hosted by the Rotary Club of Saginaw, will benefit the Saginaw Community Foundation's Crayola Park Improvement Fund. The festival will feature a variety of musical performances, along with a buffet meal.
Freeland Walleye Festival: The 39th annual festival will run April 24-27. The festival will include tournaments, carnival rides, a parade, Bingo, run and walk, and more.
Renaissance Faire in Marshall: The festival is from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. May 10-11. The fair is based around historical re-enactment inspired by medieval Europe, complete with costumes, activities, performances and more.
Contact Jenna Prestininzi: jprestininzi@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tulips, music, fly fishing: Michigan festivals announce spring
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New York Post
4 hours ago
- New York Post
Hundreds of historic tall ships arrive in Amsterdam for maritime festival
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National Geographic
8 hours ago
- National Geographic
Meet the cowboys of the Andes
German explorer Alexander von Humboldt coined the grand name 'Avenue of Volcanoes' when he toured Ecuador at the start of the 19th century — but locals have viewed the country's rumbling giants with reverence for far longer. 'The Incas called the mountains Apus ['lord' in the Quechua language], as they believed them to be gods,' says my guide Luis Chinchín, on our drive south from Quito to Cotopaxi National Park along the avenue. The volcano-gods Pichincha, Rumiñahui and Iliniza are bearing down on us through a grey haze, magnified by the curve of the windscreen. A little further south is Chimborazo, Ecuador's highest peak at 20,550ft. This is the land of the chagras: the cowboys of the Andes, who have been herding cattle on horseback across Ecuador's highlands for centuries. Today, some chagras communities invite travellers to learn about their way of life, and we're on our way to meet one of them. Chagras have been herding cattle in the highlands of Ecuador for centuries, and many of their traditions remain intact. Though their ancestors were Indigenous, the chagras' culture is intertwined with the history of Ecuador's Spanish colonisers. Before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the chagras were farmers, who lived high in the mountains and planted corn, beans and tubers on fields they called chakras. When the Spanish brought over bulls and horses to help cultivate the land, it was these Indigenous peoples who taught them how to do it in the highlands. Over time, chakra became chagra, and the word was used to describe people who had become mestizo. This mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage gave them a higher social ranking than those who were purely Indigenous; around the 17th century, they were taught to ride horses and handle bullfighting bulls. Yet they were never considered full equals to the Spanish colonisers, an attitude that persists in Ecuador to this day. The word chagra is still used by some to imply a person who is rustic or uneducated. Perhaps this misconception comes from the fact that more than 200 years after Ecuador's independence, the chagras retain much of their traditional farming lifestyle. We meet our hosts, including local community coordinator Rafael Changoluisa, and their horses, at Rumicorral. It's a small wooden corral with a corrugated iron roof within Cotopaxi National Park, 11,8110ft above sea level. Rafael wears a royal blue poncho and wide-brimmed felt hat. In preparation for a ride through the national park, he invites me to join him in wearing the chagras' uniform. I'm given tasselled cowhide zamarros (chaps) and a green wool poncho, over which I pull on a waxed leather rain poncho to combat the fat drops of rain that have just started to patter onto the roof. The colours of the ponchos chagras wear historically carried meaning, often reflecting their community roles and identities. Their horses are adorned with traditional woven bridles, intricately made by hand. Rafael tells me that, historically, poncho colours had significance — representing, say, red blood or the gold of barley fields — but these days, the colours simply reflect personal preference. Yet the leather betas (lassos) the chagras carry are the same as they were in colonial times, and they are keen to show me their wood stirrups, still traditionally carved with horses, flowers and leaves. Maintaining the chagras' way of life is a challenge, says Rafael, as fewer young people are taking up the reins. 'My father was also a chagra, but my children aren't really interested; they prefer the city,' he says. This is why he persuaded his community to open up their lives to travellers. 'I'd like this tradition not to be lost.' It's an unconventional method, yet one he believes strongly in. 'It's important to show foreigners how we live here, day by day with the animals, the horses and nature, and to keep this style of life alive.' Life in the saddle My Andean steed, a 10-year-old stallion called Fritada, can smell my inexperience on horseback. He ignores my heel kicks and tugs on the leather reins as we set off on our horse trek. He swerves, resisting all my efforts to make him ford the first river. Rafael, on the other hand, manages to guide his horse with the barest touch of the reins. It's as if he were born in the saddle, which is unsurprising — he tells me all children in chagras communities learn to ride from a young age. Once we've had a quick horse-riding lesson, Fritada and I settle into a rhythm and it becomes easier to take in my surroundings. The terrain we're travelling through is known as the páramo: the part of the Andes found roughly between 10,000 and 16,400ft above sea level, which sits higher than the trees and below the snow. It's named for the tall, yellowish paja grasses that brush against my shoes as Fritada ambles along. It coats the hills all the way to the mountains, rippling like llama wool. This is a place both macro and micro in the extreme. The near-perfect cone of Cotopaxi, which rises to 19,350ft at the centre of the park, is as fickle as my horse, teasing us with glimpses then vanishing into mist. The flowers are as tiny as the mountains are giant — an adaptation that protects them from sub-zero temperatures, wind and solar radiation at the park's high altitude. Many are still used in traditional chagra medicine, according to Rafael. Yellow ñachag and cottony-white achicoria flowers — pinpoints of light under the increasingly gloomy skies — are used by chagras as treatments for liver and kidney disease. On a clear day, the snow-capped cone of Cotopaxi Volcano is visible from Quito. There's something biblical about the landscape as the rain intensifies, splattering off the chagras' hats. Yard-wide lightning knifes down, turning the paja to silver filigree. Thunder rumbles like the voices of the Apus. Fritada's musky scent funnels up through the ponchos and warms my face. After a few hours, we arrive at Tambopaxi Lodge — a former mountain climbers' hut, now upgraded to a hotel with private rooms and a corral. At the restaurant, I sit down for a coffee with Rafael, his brother William and fellow chagra Odalis Velozo. A skilled rider at just 13, she'd raced to the front shortly after we set off on our ride. Her outfit is a more stylish, curated version of her elders' — her black felt hat more angular, her striped beige poncho complemented by an ivory scarf. Odalis attends school in Machachi, a town around 30 miles from the national park that's known as the chagras' capital. Though it has a population of just 24,000, it's the largest town in Mejía Canton and has long been a centre for chagras' markets and festivals. Unlike Rafael's kids, she says that's as close to city life as she ever wants to get. 'I prefer the freedom we have in the grasslands,' she says. 'It's not the same in the big cities like Quito; there isn't the freedom we feel in an open space like this.' I cradle my coffee close to my cold face and look out the window; the storm is breaking up, and the park's fauna is emerging from hiding. Tiny violetear hummingbirds flit by, the growing light dancing over their blue and emerald feathers. Llama and white-tailed deer munch on the paja; Andean gulls soar in the oxygen-starved heights. Condors and Andean foxes are also occasionally spotted here, though none are visible today. Balancing act Cotopaxi National Park was founded in 1975 to protect this unique environment. However, Rafael says the increasing enforcement of national park preservation orders has created frustrating conflicts for the chagras who live off the land. 'A long time ago, we just let the animals roam free on the páramo,' he says. 'Nowadays, there are restrictions. It's to take care of the ecosystem, but life in the park isn't just the ecosystem — it's us, too.' But what challenges the chagras' traditions may also protect them. Under national park rules, they're the only people allowed to work the land, meaning that industrial farmers can't turn it over to monocultures. 'La naturaleza y la libertad — nature and freedom,' Rafael says, when I ask him what he loves most about his life on the páramo. In modern times, preserving the first means compromising the other; it's a delicate balance that the chagras must come to terms with. On leaving the chagras, Luis and I drive to Chilcabamba, a mountain lodge hotel with cabin-like rooms ringed by twittering, bird-filled gardens. Sinking into a bean bag by the window, I see the day's last golden rays finally pierce the grey veil to reveal the chiselled face of Cotopaxi, both sparkling and stern, his white brow furrowed with wisps of cloud. Chilcabamba is unique in that the hotel is integrated into the chagras' community. 'Here, you get to see the way they really live, in their own territory,' says general manager Cristina Coronel. I'm staying here so I can try out a new experience offered by the hotel — the opportunity to see a chagras rodeo. It's not a rodeo in the North American sense: there are no bucking broncos or wrestling steers. It's a display of their traditional culture through activities such as rounding up cattle, lasso tricks and bullfighting. The next morning, I arrive at the mountainside pen where the rodeo will take place. Rafael, William and half a dozen more chagras are already there fitting spurs to their boots. Scattered cattle chew slowly with blank-eyed stares, unaware they're about to be rudely awakened by Omar Cumbaiin and his 13-year-old son Matteo. The boy is too shy to talk; his father does the boasting for him. 'When he was eight, he won a lassoing competition in which there were 100 participants,' he tells me. 'He won in every category.' Matteo wears an identical black hat and scarlet poncho to his father and, from a distance, it's impossible to tell them apart. They gallop out to the fringes of the cattle herd and start chasing them into the pen. This is a smaller, more intimate version of what travellers could see at El Paseo del Chagra — one of Ecuador's biggest festivals, held each July in Machachi. There, hundreds of chagras parade through the streets, show off their skills and take part in bullfights — no-kill events, since the tradition was banned in 2011. A cow clatters past me; Matteo barrels after it, whirling a lasso. It's hard to believe this is the same kid who was hiding from us minutes ago. He shouts, digs in his spurs and thunders over the crest of the hill. Perhaps with the help of tourism and the next generation led by young chagras like Odalis and Matteo, their traditional culture will be reinvigorated and passed on for many generations to come. Flights from London to Mariscal Sucre Quito International Airport typically connect through major hubs such as Amsterdam, Madrid or Miami. From Quito, visitors can catch a bus to Chimborazo or opt to rent a car for a more flexible journey through the highlands. For more information, visit This paid content article was created for Ecuador Tourism. It does not necessarily reflect the views of National Geographic, National Geographic Traveller (UK) or their editorial staffs. To subscribe to National Geographic Traveller (UK) magazine click here. (Available in select countries only).
San Francisco Chronicle
11 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Hundreds of historic tall ships are heading for Amsterdam for a maritime festival
AMSTERDAM (AP) — A flotilla of hundreds of historic ships was heading into Amsterdam on Wednesday, kicking off a five-day festival celebrating the Dutch capital's maritime history. Vessels from all over the world, their masts and rigging decorated with flags, left the North Sea coastal town of Ijmuiden to begin their hours-long journey up the North Sea Canal and into Amsterdam's Ij waterway for SAIL 2025, the first edition in a decade. A puff of orange smoke erupted into the sky and ships' horns sounded as the replica three-masted clipper Stad Amsterdam passed through a lock to mark the official start of the event. Each ship is greeted with two cannon shots and its country's national anthem as it enters the harbor. Hundreds of smaller vessels packed the waterways to watch the ships pass. The event, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors, is held every five years. The 2020 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wednesday's parade culminates in an evening fireworks display. The ships will remain in Amsterdam, many open for visitors, through the weekend. The first event was first held in 1975 to celebrate Amsterdam's 700th anniversary and this year's edition coincides with the city's 750th birthday.
