Green Bay

Green Bay is the oldest European foothold in Wisconsin and one of the oldest north of St. Louis. French explorer Jean Nicolet arrived at the head of the bay in 1634, and Charles Michel de Langlade set up the first permanent settlement here around 1764–1765. The city sits at the mouth of the Fox River where it opens into the Green Bay inlet of Lake Michigan, and the Fox was the reason it grew: for a century it carried fur, then lumber, then paper mills.

The town’s modern identity came in 1919, when a 21-year-old former Notre Dame football player named Curly Lambeau talked his employer, the Indian Packing Company, into fronting the money for a football team. The company’s name gave the players a nickname (the Packers), and its money paid for jerseys. A hundred and six years later that team has won thirteen NFL championships — nine before the Super Bowl era, four after — and the town added “Titletown” to its list of nicknames.

None of the modern NFL business makes sense in Green Bay: it is the smallest market in the league, and nobody owns the team in the usual sense. The Packers are owned by their fans, structured as a non-profit corporation. The team’s shareholders page lists six stock sales — 1923, 1935, 1950, 1997, 2011 and 2022 — and counts approximately 5,204,625 shares owned by 538,967 stockholders, none of whom receives a dividend. The team’s 2021 offering document says the stock cannot appreciate in value, is not negotiable or transferable except to family members or back to the corporation at a price substantially less than the issuance price, and carries one vote per share along with an invitation to the annual meeting. That’s the whole model.

Lambeau Field is the anchor, and it is open even on days without a game. The Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame moved into the atrium in 2015 and now draws more than 170,000 visitors a year on its own; stadium tours run alongside it year-round. Nine pre-Super-Bowl NFL titles and four Super Bowl wins are laid out in one room: 1929, 1930, 1931, 1936, 1939, 1944, 1961, 1962, 1965, then Super Bowls I, II, XXXI and XLV. The stadium seats 81,441 — the second-largest in the NFL.

*Fees subject to change, please check greenbaywi.gov for updated information.

Kroll’s West, on South Ridge Road directly across from Lambeau Field, serves a charcoal-grilled Butter Burger topped with real butter on a toasted bun, according to its own site. The restaurant’s history page dates the Kroll family’s restaurant on Main Street to 1936 and says Kroll’s West moved to its current South Ridge Road home in 1974. They keep game-day hours during the season and quieter ones the rest of the year.

The local specialty is booyah, a Belgian-descended chicken-and-vegetable stew that Green Bay parishes cook by the fifty-gallon kettle at summer festivals. It’s not restaurant food; it’s a July church-lot ritual. No published schedule of booyah dinners could be confirmed; check parish bulletins and community-group announcements for dates before planning a stop around one.

9 breweries within 10 miles of Green Bay, 4 of them brewpubs with a kitchen.

Brewpub locations from Open Brewery DB (MIT)

No MLB, NBA, NHL or MLS team in Green Bay — the Packers absorb the entire pro-sports oxygen and the Milwaukee franchises cover the rest.

*Fees subject to change, please check northwoodsleague.com for updated information.

5 more Highway Heads places lie within about 180 miles of Green Bay in a straight line — far enough that most are a night away rather than an afternoon.

• MilwaukeeWisconsinabout 100 mi
• Wisconsin DellsWisconsinabout 110 mi
• MadisonWisconsinabout 120 mi
• KenoshaWisconsinabout 130 mi
• Grand RapidsMichiganabout 160 mi

Budget one full day for Lambeau, the Hall of Fame and a lakefront meal — two if the National Railroad Museum or Door County are on the list.

Home-game weekends are a different city. Traffic, prices and hotel availability all change; if you don’t hold tickets, come Monday through Thursday for a normal town, or come on a game day only if the whole visit is the game.

Lambeau tour reservations on home-game weekends. The Packers say stadium tours are offered daily, can be bought online or at the Hall of Fame desk in the Atrium, and are not offered on gamedays; on home-game weekends tours run the day before and the day after games, with reservations through packershofandtours.com. Whether tours sell out could not be confirmed; check the tour site for availability before planning around a date.

The winter is the point. The Frozen Tundra is a real weather condition, not just a marketing phrase — the December 31, 1967 Ice Bowl was played at -15°F. Dress the way locals do or accept that a January game will teach you something about the word cold.

*Fees subject to change, please check greenbaywi.gov for updated information.

Lambeau Field

Address

1265 Lombardi Ave, Green Bay, WI 54304

Hours

Atrium and Hall of Fame open year-round; tours run daily with reduced schedule on game weekends

Price

Check the official site for current Hall of Fame and tour pricing

Link

packers.com/lambeau-field

We checked seasonal opening, operating status, fees, opening hours and reservations on 2026-09-22. These change without notice — confirm with en.wikipedia.org, gbbg.org, packers.com, greenbaywi.gov and northwoodsleague.com the week you travel.

Straight-line distance from Green Bay, not drive time.

• Austin Straubel International (GRB) — 6 miles
• Appleton International (ATW) — 31 miles
• Wittman Regional (OSH) — 46 miles