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Where to Stay in Royal Oak, Michigan
The Detroit Zoo anchors Royal Oak, an inner-ring suburb in Oakland County whose downtown fills with shopping streets and bars after dark.
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Where to stay in Royal Oak
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Downtown Royal Oak is the first choice for most visitors, because the shopping streets, the restaurants and the bars all sit within a few blocks of each other and nothing there needs a car. Old commercial fronts survive along those blocks, the Hilzinger Block and the B and C Grocery Building among them. Evenings are the busy part.
A room in this quarter puts you in the middle of the noise, which suits some stays and ruins others. The zoo side is calmer. Rooms out toward the Detroit Zoo trade the late-night streets for an easy morning at the gates, and the 10-mile run down into downtown Detroit leaves from the same roads, so a car makes the whole inner ring reachable.
Families tend to prefer this end of the city. Ferndale, a mile off, and Birmingham with its boutiques both offer beds of their own for anyone who wants to spread a trip across more than one suburb of Oakland County. The John W. Hunter House and the Philetus W. Norris House stand among the residential streets in between the two ends.
Pick the downtown for the bars. Pick the zoo end for quiet.
About Royal Oak
Royal Oak draws visitors for two reasons.
What is Royal Oak known for?
The Detroit Zoo brings in the day traffic, and the downtown shopping streets and bars bring in the evening crowd from across Oakland County and the suburbs closer to Detroit. Ferndale lies a mile off and runs to much the same character. Birmingham, with its upscale boutiques, sits close on the other side.
Chaldean congregations gave the city Our Lady of Chaldeans Cathedral and Sacred Heart Chaldean Church.
What are the main landmarks in Royal Oak?
The Detroit Zoo is the one landmark everyone comes for. Churches account for much of the rest: Our Lady of Chaldeans Cathedral, Sacred Heart Chaldean Church, Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church and Highland Park Presbyterian Church all serve congregations across this stretch of Oakland County. Two commercial fronts remain.
They are the Hilzinger Block and the B and C Grocery Building. Hazel Park Raceway, Oak Park Ice Arena, the Michigan State Fairgrounds Coliseum and Troy Museum and Historic Village lie within a short drive.
What is the history of Royal Oak?
Royal Oak dates from 1891, late by the standards of Michigan's older towns and early by the standards of the suburbs that surround it now. It grew up on the road out of Detroit, close enough to the city that the two eventually ran together into one continuous built-up ring. Ten miles separate the two downtowns.
The commercial fronts that survive from the young town, the Hilzinger Block and the B and C Grocery Building, still mark the blocks where the first shops opened. Houses record the same decades. The John W. Hunter House and the Philetus W. Norris House were built for families in the growing settlement and are kept now for what they show of it.
Congregations arrived with the people, and Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Our Lady of Chaldeans Cathedral and Sacred Heart Chaldean Church each mark a community that put down roots in this part of Oakland County. The Detroit Zoo opened on the city's edge and gave Royal Oak the draw it is still best known for. Ferndale and Birmingham grew alongside it, and the three now read as one run of suburbs rather than three separate towns.
Where is Royal Oak?
Thirty square kilometres hold the whole of Royal Oak, which makes it one of the tighter cities in Oakland County. Streets run unbroken into Ferndale a mile away and on toward Birmingham, with no open country between any of them, so the boundaries show on a map rather than on the ground. Downtown Detroit lies 10 miles off.
The inner ring closes around it.
What is the climate of Royal Oak?
Weather in Royal Oak follows the temperate pattern of inland Michigan, which means a hot stretch in high summer, a long cold stretch after the turn of the year, and two short shoulder seasons that carry the pleasant weeks. Winter closes the terraces. The bars and shopping streets of the downtown work best in the warm months, when the crowd spills outdoors and the walk over to the Detroit Zoo is a pleasure rather than a chore.
Snow is a normal part of the cold season.
How do you get to Royal Oak?
Ten miles of road separate downtown Detroit from Royal Oak, which is the way nearly everyone arrives. Drive up and park. The zoo draws its own traffic on weekends, and the streets around the Detroit Zoo fill early on a fine day, so an earlier start pays off for anyone coming from further out in Oakland County.
Ferndale is a mile down the same road.
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Updated August 2026