Find the top rated trails in Kalamazoo, whether you're looking an easy walking path or a long bike trail, you'll find what you're looking for. Click on a trail below to find trail descriptions, trail maps, photos, and reviews.
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Just shy of a mile, Elkhart's Riverwalk offers a pleasant, paved connector through town. It begins downtown, across from City Center Park, and heads north paralleling Waterfall Drive and later Main...
The Litchfield Nature Trail meanders through scenic property owned by the City of Litchfield, in some places adjacent to the St. Joseph (St. Joe) River. At one point, the trail passes through...
The pleasant little Albion River Trail runs along the south bank of the Kalamazoo River through the town of Albion. The trail runs between McClure Riverfront Park on the west end and Victory Park on...
When complete, the Paul Henry - Thornapple Trail will be a 42-mile, multi-use recreation trail, extending from Grand Rapids to Vermontville; it eventually may be extended to Jackson. The trail is...
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Following the north side of the creek, the Buck Creek Trail provides a pleasant route through Grandville's neighborhoods and, with a newer extension, connects the downtown area with a network of...
As its name implies, the Northwest Portage Bikeway traverses the northwestern neighborhoods of Portage, a city in the Kalamazoo metro area. The 3-mile paved trail begins just south of Crossroads Mall,...
On the east end of Portage, this paved pathway begins near the intersection of S. Sprinkle Road and Zylman Avenue. On the south side of Zylman Avenue, you can easily reach Ramona Park, which offers a...
If you’re looking for a rustic escape form the din of everyday life, consider the Calhoun County Trailway. The Trailway weaves through three of the county’s four parks. The 5.3-mile trail kicks off...
The Falling Waters Trail is a 10.4-mile asphalt rail-trail that links the town of Concord with the city of Jackson. The trail follows the old rail bed of the former Michigan Central Railroad, and...
The Van Buren Trail Spur, which opened in November 2015, offers a paved, off-road route from the southern outskirts of South Haven to Van Buren State Park. The rail-trail begins at 16th Avenue, where...
The Wilden Avenue Trail stretches for roughly 3 miles from the northern Goshen city limits to the community's downtown. In the north, the trail is a direct continuation of the MapleHeart Trail (and is...
Shaver Road Bikeway begins on the south side of E. Centre Avenue in the southern Michigan city of Portage. On the north side of the roadway, a connection to the 4-mile Portage Creek Bicentennial Trail...
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The City of Wyoming’s Interurban Trail follows a former interurban railroad corridor through the heart of the community just south of Grand Rapids. Trains between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo ceased...
The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail covers more than 17 miles (with a short 1.5-mile section on rural roads) between the towns of Goshen, Middlebury and Shipshewana. The railroad line between Goshen and...
The Plaster Creek Trail provides a non-motorized way to access Grand Rapids neighborhoods via a pleasant, tree-lined route. The path meanders along a tributary of the Grand River from Ken-O-Sha Park...
To be in Holland, Michigan is to experience authentic Dutch culture in the American mid-west, from dikes and canals, to tulip fields and even a windmill. The city sits on the shores of lakes Macatawa...
The Lakeshore Connector Path runs along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, between Grand Haven and Holland, a distance of nearly 20 miles. The paved path parallels Lakeshore Drive and offers access...
The Fred Meijer Millennium Trail courses through the 1,500-acre Millennium Park in Walker, a community southwest of Grand Rapids. The trail network has both paved and crushed stone trails, allowing...
The largely unimproved Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail links the cities of Lowell, Belding and Greenville in Kent, Ionia and Montcalm counties, respectively. While plans call for the eventual...
The Portage Bikeway trail system is a 17.5-mile network of multi-use trails throughout the city of Portage, south of Kalamazoo. The 4-mile segment through Portage Creek Bicentennial Park is cleared of...
The Plaster Creek Trail provides a non-motorized way to access Grand Rapids neighborhoods via a pleasant, tree-lined route. The path meanders along a tributary of the Grand River from Ken-O-Sha Park...
The Wayne Avenue Trail serves as a pleasant east-west connector through the quiet, tree-filled neighborhoods of Middlebury in northern Indiana. On its west end, it provides residents with access to...
The Vicksburg Trailway runs for nearly 2 miles on a former railroad corridor in a small village south of Kalamazoo. The paved trail is surrounded by dense woodlands for all but the southernmost...
On the east end of Portage, this paved pathway begins near the intersection of S. Sprinkle Road and Zylman Avenue. On the south side of Zylman Avenue, you can easily reach Ramona Park, which offers a...
hen complete, the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail will run for 35 miles throughout Kalamazoo County. Currently, the trail consists of two continuous segments connected by bike lanes: one segment extends...
If you’re looking for a rustic escape form the din of everyday life, consider the Calhoun County Trailway. The Trailway weaves through three of the county’s four parks. The 5.3-mile trail kicks off...
When complete, the Paul Henry - Thornapple Trail will be a 42-mile, multi-use recreation trail, extending from Grand Rapids to Vermontville; it eventually may be extended to Jackson. The trail is...
The Fred Meijer Kenowa Trail begins in the rural community of Jamestown southwest of Grand Rapids and travels nearly 10 miles west, primarily along existing roads, to Zeeland Township. Passing by one...
As its name implies, the Northwest Portage Bikeway traverses the northwestern neighborhoods of Portage, a city in the Kalamazoo metro area. The 3-mile paved trail begins just south of Crossroads Mall,...
An easy, flat, and well-maintained trail system, the Kent Trails provide transportation and access to nature in the bustling, second-largest metropolitan area in Michigan. The southern trail section...
Romence Road Bikeway is a utilitarian east-west route across Portage, a city just south of Kalamazoo. The west end of the paved pathway begins at Westnedge Avenue, adjacent to a shopping center...
The Main Trail runs for just 0.5 mile along an east–west corridor through the Whitehouse Nature Center. The trail links a series of loop trails through the nature center and begins at the visitor...
Shaver Road Bikeway begins on the south side of E. Centre Avenue in the southern Michigan city of Portage. On the north side of the roadway, a connection to the 4-mile Portage Creek Bicentennial Trail...
The East West Trail follows an electric utility corridor for more than 2 arrow-straight miles through Kentwood, Michigan. The trail runs along a creek for a short distance and features some short...
The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail covers more than 17 miles (with a short 1.5-mile section on rural roads) between the towns of Goshen, Middlebury and Shipshewana. The railroad line between Goshen and...
The Van Buren Trail Spur, which opened in November 2015, offers a paved, off-road route from the southern outskirts of South Haven to Van Buren State Park. The rail-trail begins at 16th Avenue, where...
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Allegan County’s Interurban Trail runs north-south through the City of Wayland. The trail follows a former interurban railroad corridor through the heart of the community between Grand Rapids and...
Following the north side of the creek, the Buck Creek Trail provides a pleasant route through Grandville's neighborhoods and, with a newer extension, connects the downtown area with a network of...
To be in Holland, Michigan is to experience authentic Dutch culture in the American mid-west, from dikes and canals, to tulip fields and even a windmill. The city sits on the shores of lakes Macatawa...
Head for Van Buren Trail State Park and take a walk (or ride) on the wild side. Wildlife abounds on this rural 14 miles between Hartford and South Haven. While you might see deer, rabbit, fox and...
As its name implies, the Northwest Portage Bikeway traverses the northwestern neighborhoods of Portage, a city in the Kalamazoo metro area. The 3-mile paved trail begins just south of Crossroads Mall,...
The Fred Meijer Millennium Trail courses through the 1,500-acre Millennium Park in Walker, a community southwest of Grand Rapids. The trail network has both paved and crushed stone trails, allowing...
To be in Holland, Michigan is to experience authentic Dutch culture in the American mid-west, from dikes and canals, to tulip fields and even a windmill. The city sits on the shores of lakes Macatawa...
The Indiana-Michigan River Valley Trail currently runs for more than 2 miles through Niles, Michigan, on the eastern bank of the St. Joseph River. The trail occupies a former New York Central Railroad...
Head for Van Buren Trail State Park and take a walk (or ride) on the wild side. Wildlife abounds on this rural 14 miles between Hartford and South Haven. While you might see deer, rabbit, fox and...
Lovers Lane Bikeway provides a paved, north-south route through the southern Michigan city of Portage. The paved pathway parallels the east side of Lovers Lane for 2 miles with a wide grassy median...
The City of Wyoming’s Interurban Trail follows a former interurban railroad corridor through the heart of the community just south of Grand Rapids. Trains between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo ceased...
The Portage Bikeway trail system is a 17.5-mile network of multi-use trails throughout the city of Portage, south of Kalamazoo. The 4-mile segment through Portage Creek Bicentennial Park is cleared of...
Following the north side of the creek, the Buck Creek Trail provides a pleasant route through Grandville's neighborhoods and, with a newer extension, connects the downtown area with a network of...
hen complete, the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail will run for 35 miles throughout Kalamazoo County. Currently, the trail consists of two continuous segments connected by bike lanes: one segment extends...
The Main Trail runs for just 0.5 mile along an east–west corridor through the Whitehouse Nature Center. The trail links a series of loop trails through the nature center and begins at the visitor...
The MapleHeart Trail travels nearly 5 miles from the city of Elkhart south to the outskirts of Goshen. The trail parallels County Road 45 and a Norfolk Southern Railroad corridor through residential...
The Pumpkinvine Nature Trail covers more than 17 miles (with a short 1.5-mile section on rural roads) between the towns of Goshen, Middlebury and Shipshewana. The railroad line between Goshen and...
The Falling Waters Trail is a 10.4-mile asphalt rail-trail that links the town of Concord with the city of Jackson. The trail follows the old rail bed of the former Michigan Central Railroad, and...
The Fred Meijer M-6 Trail runs for 9 miles paralleling Michigan Highway 6/Paul B. Henry Expressway south of Grand Rapids (a.k.a. the M-6). As such, it's not the most quiet of trails, but it still...
The largely unimproved Fred Meijer Flat River Valley Rail Trail links the cities of Lowell, Belding and Greenville in Kent, Ionia and Montcalm counties, respectively. While plans call for the eventual...
The Fred Meijer Kenowa Trail begins in the rural community of Jamestown southwest of Grand Rapids and travels nearly 10 miles west, primarily along existing roads, to Zeeland Township. Passing by one...
The Fred Meijer Grand River Valley Rail Trail is one component of a network of trails in mid-west Michigan that, when complete, will stretch 125 miles from Alma to Owosso. The trails are named after...
On the east end of Portage, this paved pathway begins near the intersection of S. Sprinkle Road and Zylman Avenue. On the south side of Zylman Avenue, you can easily reach Ramona Park, which offers a...
Allegan County’s Interurban Trail runs north-south through the City of Wayland. The trail follows a former interurban railroad corridor through the heart of the community between Grand Rapids and...
Now that the portage bike way, north of Milham, has been redesigned, it's an even better ride north to Kilgore. Riding by the old cider mill dam site, brings back many memories. I was hoping that Portage would do something there. Clean it up, or rebuild parts of the old dam. My dad and I would fish the mill pond back in the mid 50's for Trout and Chain Pickerel. Beautiful ride through that area.
My wife and I are in our late 60's and we have been riding rails to trails all over the country. This trail is as good as we have ever ridden. It was an easy ride and very little elevation change. A perfect blend of shaded canopy and open farm lands. The scenery is fantastic. The Amish farms on the trail have so many horses and the occasional Amish horse and buggy just adds to the ambiance. We are coming back in the fall for sure.
Sometimes it seems like you are riding through peoples backyards. Some parts swampy. Some parts soft sand and we had to walk bikes. Rode this trail from Hartford to South Haven. Found alternate routes on the country roads for the way home. Won't be riding this again. Ever.
I have ridden it twice and enjoyed the natural setting, many wild flowers and butterflies, and varying terrain of this moderately curvy and hilly path. Mountain bike or at hybrid suggested due to fine gravel surface, so slow down in curves, some mildly washed out sandy areas, and on board walks when damp. The Ott Biological Preserve has separate foot trails and the North Country Trail also separates for a while, which otherwise follows the trailway. Most of the trail is wooded and shady. Historic Bridge Park at the southern end has a nice picnic area, canoe launch, and playground.
My husband and rode this trail for the first time and loved it. It amazes me that people call a trail such as this boring. It is beautiful nature----loved the first part out of the Kalamazoo trailhead---pristine and full of lush trees. We rode 10 miles and turned around and saw rolling landscapes and agriculture. Gentle incline but be prepared that it is a gravel trail. After the first mile it became hardened and easier. Also---keep your heads up for the crossroads. Next time we will start in South Haven. Beautiful and we are very appreciative that we are provided with trails such as this to keep us off the road.
This is nothing more than a wide asphalt sidewalk next to busy noisy highway. Loud motorcycles, trucks, driveways many street crossings. You name it. Houses and front yards, etc. I went about halfway from GH to Holland and just turned back. Don't do with smaller children! This is not "Ottawa county's showpiece".
I started at a cute park where there was absolutely no signage and followed a trail for almost a mile until it ended at a sidewalk. I asked a neighbor if this was the trail and she said yes. I wound my way through a small town bumping over driveways until I decided to turn back. It's hilly, unmarked and bumpy.
My wife and I visited Battle Creek for the first time solely to ride this trail Sunday. Even after reading some reviews and seeing "poorly marked" noted several times, we decided since it was relatively close to home (75 minutes or so) we'd give it a try. We started at Friendship Park downtown since it looked like it was smack in the middle of the trail, but when we got to the park there wasn't a trail sign or marking to be found, at least that we could see. Most of the downtown area is closed on Sunday, it was like a ghost town at noon. We drove around for 30 minutes following both Google Maps and the map found on this site, and finally figured out where the trail was (we thought). We unloaded and started riding, following what we thought was the Linear Park trail, only find that after a mile or so of turning around and riding in circles, it was not even the actual trail. Once we found the proper path, the ride was choppy in the downtown area... lots of stops for cross streets, still having to stop and check street names and such because the trail was not marked at all in town. Riding out of town we started feeling much better about it. It follows the river for a ways and the scenery is very nice. We got to a sports complex that we vaguely identified on the trail map, saw the dotted line for the trail on the map, but again there were no markings at the outer edge of the park that identified where the trail continued for us to do the entire loop. We ended up doubling back to where we started and then rode out a ways in the other direction. Again, the actual Linear Park trail veered off on a city street to loop around at the other end of town, but there were no signs at all noting that. We ended up continuing for about 3 miles on a trail that connected to someplace else and had no way of knowing how to get back to the Linear Park path without doubling back. So again, we had to double back and try to find where the turn was for the Linear Park loop. Once we found it, we again were happy with the scenery, and the trail goes through the Leila Arboretum which offers some more challenging terrain. But soon after that the trail again goes through residential areas with sidewalks in every direction at the intersections, and very little signage to indicate which direction to go to stay on the actual bike path. It's almost embarrassing to note that the perimeter loop is supposedly 10.5 miles.... with all the doubling back and circling around to try to stay on track, we rode over 25 miles. No, not kidding. No, it wasn't on purpose. No, we're not idiots, either, just determined to find the whole trail. :)
So all in all, it was a disappointment. This "trail" has some great potential, but there are a lot of things working against it, and most of those could be avoided or easily corrected. Here are some of our observations:
1) The trail is badly overgrown in most of the areas outside the downtown area.
2) There is a serious need for more signage and trail markings. Seriously. If you don't know this city, it's nearly impossible to follow the trail at times.
3) The trail crosses several busy roads with no warning signs for cars, no way to signal when you cross. It's like playing Frogger on a Trek hybrid. It's downright dangerous at 2 crossings in particular.
4) When in residential areas with sidewalks in all 4 directions at intersections, your best bet is to follow the sidewalk that is asphalt instead of the lighter colored concrete... most times that's the only indicator of which sidewalk is the actual trail.
5) At a few intersections or other transition areas, look for small, white signs that read "no motor vehicles". Most often that's the only marking for some sort of trail entrance across the street. You can't always see the path itself, so at times these signs (when they actually have them) are the only way you know there is a path across the street.
This city has put a tremendous amount of money in the downtown area. Parks everywhere, a beautiful river walk, seemingly nice restaurants (most were closed... we'd recommend Clara's on the River... very nice after our ride), etc. But once you leave the downtown area, things get pretty run down in a hurry. This could be a great trail and a destination for cyclists... but as it is it will be a one-and-done for us. No reason to ride this one again until they clean it up and get it marked a little better.
Just for note, we aren't trail snobs. We don't expect every trail we ride to be laid out, groomed, and marked perfectly. We ride a lot of rails-to-trails routes and we go looking for trails like this that potentially offer some fun off the bike kicking around in the downtown areas. Unfortunately, Battle Creek is shut down on Sundays (apparently they make extra cereal on Saturdays so the city can close up on Sunday) so we were pretty discouraged.
Ok, so my first go at this trail left me very underwhelmed, mostly because it seems to end in a campground only 4-5 miles out of town. Very short.
But if you're a newbie on the bike or a runner, then this trail is a great place to start. Not extremely hilly, paved nicely from South Haven all the way to the campground, plus you can park and start with views of Lake Michigan!
I can literally walk to this trail from my house (which I do quite often). It's beautifully kept and I see deer nearly every time I walk/run here. I feel safe walking this trail and it's the perfect length! And it has a great balance of sunny/shady, and lots of curves to keep it interesting. I love it so much!!
I ride trails a lot and will ride trails close to my home over and over because they are close. I ride trails as I travel and there are many that I will ride again if I'm in the area. Battle Creek Linear Park is NOT on my list of "ride again". I thought the trail was very rough in spots, it is not always well marked. This trail is in need of maintenance - low, overhanging branches, twigs, rocks, sand, etc on the trail. There are remote trails that I am not afraid to ride alone, but I sure was glad my husband was with me on this one. He even said he did not feel safe at times.
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