How to Experience Milwaukee Like a Local in 2024

Posted: 3/15/2024 | March fifteenth, 2024

The following visitor publish is by my buddies Adam from the web site Getting Stamped. He and his spouse are very long time residents of Milwaukee and, since I’ve by no means been, I’ve invited him on to share some recommendations on visiting town.

Milwaukee is underrated, in my view. I adore it!

The largest metropolis in Wisconsin and only one.5 hours north of Chicago, it’s the good measurement: not too small not too large. It affords tasty meals and drinks, nice sports activities groups, and enjoyable festivals. Plus, it’s reasonably priced. And don’t neglect the pleasant locals!

I’ve lived right here my complete life, and my spouse has lived right here for 20 years. We’ve traveled around the globe many instances, and when it got here time to plant roots and begin a household, we might have gone anyplace. But we select to come back dwelling to Milwaukee, which has a lot to supply.

If you need to know expertise it like an area, listed below are my insider suggestions:

1. Stay central

I extremely advocate staying downtown or the Third Ward. This is the place a lot of the standard sights are positioned. The accommodations is likely to be barely dearer than elsewhere, however you’ll save on transportation prices since every little thing is walkable.

These are two accommodations I really like:

2. Take benefit of free rides

Milwaukee doesn’t have a subway system, however it does have an incredible free streetcar service known as the Hop, with quite a few stops downtown and across the Third Ward space. Simply hop on and off — no tickets or reservations are wanted! The Hop runs each quarter-hour throughout peak instances and each 20 minutes off-peak and weekends. Click right here for the map and schedule.

Insider tip: If you’re heading to a sporting occasion, many bars and eating places supply free shuttles to American Family Field for Brewer baseball video games and concert events, Summerfest Grounds for festivals and concert events, Fiserv Forum for Bucks basketball video games, and different occasions round city.
 

3. Eat like an area

You may suppose Milwaukee’s all beer and cheese (and there’s no scarcity of these), however the meals scene has much more to supply. Milwaukee has its personal (generally quirky) meals traditions and staples, like ButterBurgers and frozen custard.

It additionally has some unimaginable markets, the place you possibly can get pleasure from a few of the metropolis’s finest meals from many distributors, multi functional place and in a enjoyable and reasonably priced food-hall ambiance. These are two of my favorites:

• third Street Market Hall – This is a must-visit vacation spot, because it gives a spot for vacationers and locals alike to get pleasure from Milwaukee’s numerous delicacies. Here, you can see the aforementioned frozen custard, plus pho, pizza, burgers, artisan sandwiches, tacos, sizzling canines, home-cooked meals, ramen, sushi, arepas, and a lot extra — all at reasonably priced costs.
• Milwaukee Public Market – Located within the historic Third Ward, this superior market is the very best place to patronize all kinds of distributors with distinctive merchandise, meals choices, and drink pairings. It’s a novel spot to expertise the flavors of Milwaukee’s culinary scene, all underneath one roof, and soak within the native tradition whereas procuring or grabbing a chew.

4. Indulge in native delicacies

There are a number of meals that you should strive that you just (possibly for good cause) is not going to discover many different locations. They are distinctive, tasty, and total fairly reasonably priced!

• Deep-fried cheese curds – Yes, it’s a factor, and they’re wonderful — get them organized and thank us later. Lakefront Brewery is our prime decide.
• Frozen custard – It might appear like ice cream, however it’s a lot richer and creamier, with a number of further components. Kopps is the very best place for it (and nice burgers) — and in addition a type of locations that, in the event you don’t go, did you even go to Milwaukee?
• Bratwursts – Another Milwaukee staple. Nobody does them at the next stage than Vanguard Restaurant within the Bayview neighborhood. It is finest identified for its wonderful house-made sausages, together with vegan choices, with many at an reasonably priced value of underneath $10.

In this checklist, we’ve solely centered on the Milwaukee favorites, however foodies who need to delve deeper into the culinary scene may additionally need to try our full checklist of the finest eating places in Milwaukee.
 

5. Explore brewing historical past

While microbreweries aren’t precisely a brand new development, Milwaukee has been brewing since earlier than it was cool. At one time, it brewed extra beer than any metropolis on the earth. That historical past is obvious throughout city in breweries, eating places, and pubs.

Lakefront Brewery affords most likely the very best brewery tour within the metropolis. It’s much more enjoyable than simply shiny tanks and sniffing a pungent jar stuffed with hops. The tour guides are hilarious (some are actually comedians from an area membership), and your tour will embody 4 beer samples. This is by far the very best worth and our private favourite tour — plus, the beer corridor is a whole lot of enjoyable. The excursions are tremendous standard and promote out on the weekends, so it’s suggested to buy tickets upfront.

If you need to hold sampling native beers, be certain to take a look at a number of different of my favourite Milwaukee breweries:

• MobCraft Beer – This brewery affords excursions and in addition has an awesome taproom with tasty pizzas, in addition to actually good IPAs and bitter beers.
• Eagle Park Brewing Company – They don’t supply excursions, however they do have an enormous number of distinctive bitter beers.
• Good City Brewing – There are two places: the Eastside one affords excursions, and the downtown one doesn’t. But the latter is true throughout the road from Fiserv Forum and good spot for a beer earlier than a recreation.

6. Do some reasonably priced actions

Milwaukee has far more to do than we might squeeze onto this web page, however we’ve narrowed it down, specializing in must-do and budget-friendly choices (some are even free!):

• Bradford Beach – This is a sandy park on the shorelines of Lake Michigan. Bring a towel and go for a swim, take part a recreation of seaside volleyball, or seize custard at MooSa’s or lunch at The Dock Waterfront Bar & Grill.
• Stroll the Milwaukee Riverwalk – Experience the center of town, and immerse your self in its tradition. Many of the Milwaukee’s finest outlets and eating places might be discovered alongside the three-mile route alongside each side of the Milwaukee River.
• Disc-golf at Milwaukee County Parks – Milwaukee has 11 disc-golf programs — six full ones ($5) and 5 short-practice ones (free).
• Bike the Oak Leaf Trail – Milwaukee County affords over 135 miles of trails for biking, a lot of which function scenic views of Lake Michigan. You can discover the path map right here.
• Bronze Fonz – Stop to take an image with a bronze sculpture of Arthur Fonzarelli, aka the Fonz, from Happy Days (a sitcom a few Milwaukee household within the Fifties).
• Indoor garden video games at third Street Market Hall – Enjoy a wide range of distinctive eating places and free indoor video games, together with large Jenga, cornhole, shuffleboard, and golf simulators. It’s a enjoyable place, particularly when the climate isn’t nice!

After you’ve scoured this information, if you should fill any clean spots in your itinerary, we’ve an in-depth checklist protecting the entire issues to do in Milwaukee.
 

7. Enjoy free-admission days

Some of Milwaukee’s prime sights welcome guests without spending a dime on sure days. Watching the calendar can rating you free tickets that in any other case would set your group again a whole bunch.

8. Chase low cost completely satisfied hours

For higher or worse, the folks of Milwaukee get pleasure from their enjoyable instances intertwined with a beer or three. To kick off an thrilling night time in Milwaukee, head to the place the locals go: discover a good completely satisfied hour, or go to a budget-friendly dive bar.

• McGillycuddy’s – $1 faucets, $2 craft beers, $4 rails and mixers, and $5 appetizers (Tuesday–Friday, 3–7pm).
• Mo’s Irish Pub – $2.72 drafts, $5 wines (Tues–Thurs 4–6pm, Fridays 3–6pm); additionally free brewery shuttles.
• Milwaukee Brat House – Happy hour specials change each day (Mon–Fri 3-6pm).

9. Explore the colourful public artwork scene

Many locations round city have large-scale public artwork shows that you may go to without spending a dime. Most of those items are in a few of the most enjoyable and classy areas. These are a few our favorites:

• Black Cat Alley – One of the most important areas devoted to public murals is positioned close to North Avenue, within the Eastside neighborhood. In addition to the artwork, you’ll additionally discover nice eating places, breweries, and artisanal outlets.
• Sculpture Milwaukee – Annually, this city-funded program shows sculptures by artists from the world over on Wisconsin Avenue. Some are everlasting and a few are modified out yearly, so there are at all times new issues to see.

From meals to free days and bratwurst to beer, Milwaukee has a ton of issues to do and see on a funds. Hopefully this checklist will provide you with a good suggestion of the place to begin!

Hannah & Adam Lukaszewicz are full-time journey writers and run the journey web site Getting Stamped, which is devoted to firsthand guides to their favourite locations around the globe. When they aren’t touring the world, Milwaukee is the place you’ll discover them, they usually cowl their hometown in-depth on the web site Milwaukee Insider. You can observe their adventures on Instagram and social media @gettingstamped.