Air Zoo

The museum was founded in 1979 by a group of aviation lovers, among them a husband and wife who had both flown in the Civil Air Patrol, with the idea of preserving vintage aircraft and sharing the story of flight. Its odd, memorable name came from an early nickname for the lively mix of warbirds, some of them nicknamed for animals, gathered under one roof.

Over the decades it expanded from a modest hangar into a multi-building campus and earned affiliation with the Smithsonian Institution, which lets it host traveling exhibits and borrow artifacts from the national collection. Today it blends a genuine air-and-space museum with the energy of a family attraction, an unusual combination that gives it broad appeal.

The aircraft span the century of powered flight, from fragile early machines through the fighters and bombers of the World Wars to Cold War jets and the fast, secretive reconnaissance planes of the Blackbird family. Space is here too, with a shuttle mockup, a capsule, and exhibits on the astronauts and engineers who built the American space program.

Because the museum leans hands-on, many exhibits invite you to climb aboard, work a control, or test how flight actually works. The indoor rides and the full-motion simulator, which pitches and rolls as you fly a mission, make it a favorite with children, while the aircraft themselves reward anyone who loves engineering and history.

One of the Air Zoo's signature projects has been the restoration of aircraft pulled from Lake Michigan. During World War II the Navy trained carrier pilots on converted paddlewheel ships in the lake, and dozens of aircraft ditched into the cold, deep water during training. That cold, fresh water preserved them remarkably well.

Restoration crews have recovered and rebuilt several of these planes, including an SBD Dauntless dive bomber, working in an open shop where visitors can watch the slow, careful process of turning a corroded wreck back into a museum piece. It is a rare chance to see conservation happening in real time, not just the polished result behind a rope.

The Air Zoo sits in Portage, just south of Kalamazoo, a lively college town on the old railroad line between Detroit and Chicago. Downtown Kalamazoo has one of the country's earliest pedestrian shopping malls, a strong craft-beer scene, and Western Michigan University, and the region is dotted with lakes and orchards.

This corner of the state is Anishinaabe homeland, the country of the Potawatomi and their Ojibwe (Chippewa) and Odawa (Ottawa) relatives of the Three Fires Confederacy, whose descendants remain in Michigan today, including the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band. Their communities lived and traveled across this landscape of rivers, prairies, and oak openings long before the airport or the museum existed.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.