Chicago Travel Guide

Welcome to
Chicago

Steely skyscrapers, top chefs, rocking festivals the Windy City will blow you away with its low-key cultured awesomeness.

Its hard to know what to gawk at first. High-flying architecture is everywhere, from the stratospheric, glass-floored Willis Tower to Frank Gehrys swooping silver Pritzer Pavilion to Frank Lloyd Wrights stained-glass Robie House. Whimsical public art studs the streets. So youre walking along and wham, theres an abstract Picasso statue thats not only cool to look at, youre allowed to go right up and climb on it. For art museums, take your pick: impressionist masterpieces at the massive Art Institute, psychedelic paintings at the mid-sized Museum of Mexican Art or outsider drawings at the small Intuit gallery.

Loosen the belt. Youve got a lot of eating to do. On the menu: peanut butter and banana-topped waffles for breakfast (at Stephanie Izards Little Goat), a fig and goat-cheese-slathered elk sausage for lunch (at Hot Dougs hot-dog shop), and 20 courses of centrifuged, encapsulated molecular gastronomy for dinner (at Grant Achatzs Alinea).

You can also chow on a superb range of ethnic eats from Vietnamese pho to Mexican carnitas, Polish pierogi and Swedish almond tarts. Still hungry? Order a late-night deep-dish pizza.

Chicago is a maniacal sports town, with a pro team for every season (two teams, in baseballs case). Watching a game is a local rite of passage, whether you slather on the blue and orange body paint for a Bears football game, join the raucous baseball crowd in Wrigley Fields bleachers, or plop down on a bar stool at the neighborhood tavern for whatever match is on TV. Count on making lots of spirited new friends. Should the excitement rub off and inspire you to get active yourself, the citys 24 beaches and 580 parks offer a huge array of play.

Chicago knows how to rock a festival. Between March and September it throws around 200 shindigs. The specialty is music. Blues Fest brings half a million people to Grant Park to hear guitar notes slide and bass lines roll, all for free. During Lollapaloozas three-day mega-party, rock bands thrash while the audience dances in an arm-flailing frenzy. Smaller, barbecue-scented street fests take place in the neighborhoods each weekend though some rival downtown for star power on their stages (oh, hey, Olivia Newton-John at Northalsted Market Days).

Chicago's lakefront
PAUL VELGOS / GETTY IMAGES

Why I Love Chicago

By Karla Zimmerman, Author

Ive lived in the city for 25 years, and I never get bored. Theres something groovy going on any night of the week. Like tonight: should I see the Grant Park Orchestra playing Shostakovichs 5th Symphony in Millennium Park, or a guitar-drum duo called Earring at Empty Bottle? I love that Tibetan dumplings, Mexican carnitas and crme brle doughnuts are all equally, easily accessible from local eateries. I love how total strangers sitting next to each other in a bar watching a Blackhawks game become high-fiving pals by evenings end. Chicago really is my kind of town.

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