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Chicago Travel Tips?

M

MetroMan1000

Guest
Hey guys, I'm relentlessly narrowing down my list of MUST SEE cities in North America and Chicago is next on that list.

I booked the flight today without having a game plan for my 4 days there.

Who's been to Chicago? Can you share your experiences here and suggest some travel tips?

Thanks in advance.
 
You MUST:

- go to the Architectural Society, and take some of their walking tours, and especially do their boat tour down the Chicago River

- go up either the Sears tower or the John Hancock. Time your visit so you are up there just before the sun sets, it's worth it.

- ride the "EL", especially arpound The Loop.

- visit both Oak Park and the University of Chicago areas to do some Frank Lloyd Wright touring (his Home and Studio and Unity Temple plus many exteriors in Oak Park, and the Robie House bu the U of C).

- visit Millennium Park and Grant Park along the lake just to the east of the Loop. Millennium Park has many intersting components including the faces fountain, the stainless steel jelly bean, and Gehry's concert pavillion. Grant Park has the fountian from the beginning of Married with Children.

- (window) shop in the Magnificent Mile area on Michigan Avenue north of the Loop. There are alos great buildings like the Tribune Tower to see there too.

- visit the Chicago Art Institute, as it contains one of North America's best collections. Other particularly good attractions include the Field Planetarium (remember what a Planentarium is? - world class citites have one) and the Shedd Aquarium, both along the lake just southeast of the Loop.

- go to a bar/dance club named 'Big Sisters' in a snazzy white jacket with giant silver and blue brocaded epaulettes because your Chicago friends told you you had to dress up for it, and then find out it's totally blue collar when you get there.

So that's a few ideas.

42
 
The Loop is easily walkable, and you'll probably do all that.

Start walking up Michigan, past Magnificent Mile, up into the Gold Coast. Nice apartment neighbourhood. Take the Red Line up to Wrigley Field, and walk around the gay part, and Andersonville.

Take the Blue line out to Ukranian Village and Wicker Park -- very nice, Toronto-ish neighbourhoods. Good bars everywhere.

I was just in Chicago, and made two pictury posts on the Spacing wire about places we wandered, that might give you some ideas:

spacing.ca/wire/?p=963

spacing.ca/wire/?p=968

Do make sure you get out of the downtown, and see the real chicago. Too many people just stay in the centre and come back to TO thinking what we do here is garbage. Chicago has a lot of catching up to do outside of the pretty areas, much more than TO.

You can do the nieghbourhoods i mentioned on the El....Chicago is huge though, and a car might be requires.

Had lovely runs in the evening up the gold coast and around Grant park.

We stayed at a boutique hotel in the 1895 Reliance Building....very nice, not too expensive...$150 a night or so. but such a hot building (first steel skeleton and all that). www.burnhamhotel.com

But reserve lots of time to wander and just find stuff.

For sure for sure take the architecture tour i mention in the spacing post....the boat one like us, or one of the others ones that you'd like. so worth it.
 
What interchange said -- and if you take a tour, book a head, cuz they sell out. you can do it online (link to them from the 2nd wire post). do it now, just in case.

Ya, Hyde Park in the south, by university of chicago, is neat. one of the few non-segregated neighbourhoods in chicago, lots of middle class blacks -- louis farrakhan has a compound there. it is completely surrounded by the horror of the south side of chicago though...weird america.

read "Devil in the White City" before you go. we reviewed it in the current spacing mag. it will make the city seem like magic when you are there.
 
Certainly do the architectural boat tour. You won't regret it.

If you get a chance I recommend visiting the top of tHancock tower. The views are amazing, and it's quicker to access than Sears Tower.

Shawn makes a good point - downtown is splendid and may at first appear to be vastly superior to what we have here (architecturally we're not on the same planet, and the river certainly adds a great deal of charm), but other parts of the city aren't as impressive. That said, most people only get to see the downtown and it's hard not to be impressed by it.
 
Thanks guys, I really appreciate your input. There's nothing like getting advice from people who've already learned from their trips there.

I'll be certain to take plenty of excellent pictures with my new D-SLR (Nikon D200).
 
And first things first, depending on all logistics and your sense of navigation, take the subway from O'Hare to wherever you're going to...
 
^^ Beautiful. It's been a while since I've been able to take the subway from an airport into the inner city.
 
chicago travel tips

Note that the Blue Line from O'Hara travels quite a while through the middle of the interstate, much like our Allen Road/Spadina line. Then it hits good neighbourhoods like Wicker Park (Damen Station).
 
Somebody told me to avoid the subway. Is it really that bad?

I was planning on taking the subway to my hotel from the airport when I arrive around 10pm. Will I get mugged?
 
I rode it alone a few times between 9pm-2am, ipod in ears, cell phone texting back to toronto -- nothing bad. The route in from ohare is fine.

Other good advice: don't listen to people.
 
^^ LoL ... so does that mean that I shouldn't listen to you? :b

I guess the opinion differs from person to person. The local Chicagoan who told me to stay away from subways was a girl. I've since asked a guy and they have no problem with it.

... and hey, for somebody's who's been on the Central Park Eastside subway through the Bronx @ 1am, nothing in North America should be worse.




... I think. :rolleyes
 
Don't listen to me either...it's all at your own risk and peril. But i have found that people tend to say some place is scary, or dangerous, and it really isn't. I've been warned away from corktown in toronto, of all places, by the paranoid.

The rules are, unfortunately, different for girls with stuff like this.

Most stuff on the north side of chicago is fine, south is....america at it's worst. American subways have a very different feel than canadian ones...(could be just the way i read it)....but ya, no problems in chicago.
 
Oh Oh! :(

I've already booked the flight but I cannot for the life of me find accomodations in Chicago! I usually stay in Youth Hostels whenever I travel and both of them in the city are booked full.

I've looked around and any under $100 p/night room in the city is booked!

WTF? Is there some sort of massive event going on there that nothing is available? :(

Can anybody offer me some advice?

I'm THIS close to considering sleeping at the airport.
 
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