One day in Minneapolis is not much, and it is plenty — as long as you stop trying to see everything. The mistake visitors make is spreading a single day across the whole metro and spending half of it in the car. The city rewards the opposite approach: pick a spine, stay on it, and let somebody else do the driving for the middle of the day.
Here is the one-day itinerary we would give a friend. It is walkable, it is honest about opening hours, and it ends with a drink.
Morning: start at the river, because the city did
Begin on the Stone Arch Bridge. It is the picture you have already seen of Minneapolis — a curving limestone railroad bridge over St. Anthony Falls, now walkers and cyclists only, with the mills on one bank and the skyline on the other. Twenty minutes here orients you better than any map.
Then walk to the Mill City Museum, built inside the ruins of the Washburn A Mill. This is the reason the city exists: flour, water power, and an enormous amount of money. If you only do one indoor thing before lunch, do this one. More riverfront ideas are in our best Minneapolis landmarks list.
Coffee and breakfast on the way — we keep running lists of the best breakfast in Minneapolis and the best coffee shops in Minneapolis for exactly this moment.
Midday: take the shortcut
This is the part that makes a one-day visit work. Instead of walking yourself into the ground between neighbourhoods, get on a trolley for the middle of the day.
Our narrated scenic tour covers the landmarks, the neighbourhoods and the lakes with a guide talking the whole way, so an hour and a half of it leaves you knowing what you just looked at. If your interests run darker, the True Crime Tour turns riders into the jury on real Minneapolis cases, and the Murder Mystery is the one to book if you are a group. All of them leave from the same place — more on that below. The full schedule is on the calendar of tours, and the wider field is in our best Minneapolis tours roundup.
Afternoon: pick one museum, and check the day of the week
Do not try to do both of the big art museums. Pick the one that is open.
The Minneapolis Institute of Art is free — general admission is always free, no ticket, no reservation — with more than 100,000 works at 2400 Third Avenue South. It is open Tuesday through Sunday, late on Thursdays. If your one day is a Monday, this is closed.
The Walker Art Center is the contemporary counterweight, at 725 Vineland Place. Adults are $18 and everyone 18 and under is free; it is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 to 5, with late hours until 9 on Thursdays, and closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden across the road, home of the Spoonbridge and Cherry, is free and open every day from 6 a.m. to midnight — so even on a Monday you can still see the spoon.
Our best Minneapolis museums list has the rest.
Late afternoon: go inside a mansion
You are already in the neighbourhood. A few blocks from Mia, on East 22nd Street, is the Pillsbury Club — the 1916 Charles S. Pillsbury Mansion, an English manor with genuine centuries-old imported interiors, on the National Register since 1974. It is also where every one of our trolleys departs from, which is why the midday tour and the afternoon mansion fit together so neatly.
Our Gilded Age Mansion Tour looks at these houses from the outside and from the inside — including 300 Clifton, the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion above Loring Park, which is the only mansion in Minneapolis you can tour and sleep in.
Evening: dinner, then one good drink
Eat somewhere you would not get at home. Our best restaurants in Minneapolis list is the starting point, and if the weather is behaving, the rooftops are worth the elevator ride.
Afterwards, one drink somewhere with a door you have to find: see the best speakeasies in Minneapolis and the best cocktail bars in Minneapolis.
If you still have energy, the Candlelight Ghost Tour runs after dark to the city’s most haunted sites, aboard a trolley that is itself said to be haunted. It is a very good last hour of a very full day.
Where to sleep if the one day turns into two
It usually does. 300 Clifton is a historic mansion bed and breakfast a block from Loring Park, with a garden hot tub and on-site parking. Oakland’s on 9th has furnished studios with full kitchens in the exact centre of downtown, by the night, week or month — the better answer if the trip stretches past a weekend.
Three practical things
Check the day of the week before you plan around a museum — Mondays are thin in this city. Use the Metro Transit trip planner rather than assuming a route, and book the trolley ahead: one day means you do not have a second chance at a sold-out departure. Ready? Have a look at the full list of tours, or bring a crowd with group tours and private rentals.
Keep reading: Where Does the Minneapolis Holiday Lights Trolley Leave From — and What Should You Wear?