River and Lake Cruises
Enjoy a relaxing and informative cruise on Lake Michigan and along the Chicago. This will allow you to see Chicago’s cityscape.
You can take gentle lake tours to adrenaline pumping speedboat rides.
Most Lake Tours take about 40-minute giving you plenty of time to soak up the sights.
Those who want some excitement venture over to the old Navy Training Center on Navy Pier you can an amazing 75-Minute speedboat that will highlight Chicago architecture, starting on the lake and heading upriver as far as the Willis Tower.
If you are looking for a tranquil tour The Chicago River Architecture Cruise has a more sedate pace, and gives you a clear view of more than 40 landmarks, with live commentary from an expert guide.
Skydeck
Willis Tower 25 years ago was tallest building in the world, it still ranks among the top 25. When you have the Chicago city pass, you waste no time, skipping the line and speeding up to the Skydeck 412.4 metres above the west side of the Loop.
While you are walking to the elevators there’s a movie detailing the 45-year history of the Willis Tower. When you reach the Sky deck you’ll be amazed by a view extending over 50 miles and four states.
Standing on The Ledge at the Sky deck will make your heart race: Your able to enjoy the view through four all-glass boxes projecting over a sheer drop of more than 100 stories.
Food Tours
Great deep dish pizza and mouth watering hotdogs if you enjoy these foods, then Chicago has the best for you.
Chicago is one America’s top food cities.
What Chicago is know for are deep-dish pizza, hot dogs piled with seven toppings, Italian beef sandwiches, brownies and beer.
We recommend that you take The Secret Food Tour which will undisclosed locations that you may not find on your own as a tourist.
You can walk through Chinatown as part of Tasting Tour of Chinatown, experience a Mexican tortas and Polish pierogis on a bike tour, or get back to basics with a 2.5-Hour Walking Tour sampling the best Chicago pizzas, hot dogs and craft beer.
Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago is among the best in the world.
See the works of Edward Hopper and Grant Wood. Outside of Paris The Art Institute of Chicago has the largest collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, from such as Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec.
For modern art there’s Jackson Pollock, Warhol, Jasper Johns and Matisse, while the modern architecture and design collection has drawings and models by Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and more.
Experience Greek, Egyptian, Etruscan and Roman artifacts.
Tip: Go Chicago Card or Chicago City Pass: All-inclusive attractions Passes(this will also save you money on admission)
Grant Park
Grant Park fronts the Loop on Lake Michigan and is the city’s prime open space.
This park is comprised of 319 acres containing lots of Chicago’s top attractions like Millennium Park, the Museum Campus Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, Maggie Daley Park and the epic Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears NFL team.
In July Grant Park hosts the Taste of Chicago Festival, the biggest food event anywhere, and in October is the start and finish line for the Chicago Marathon.
Millennium Park
This award-winning space in Grant Park is the most popular visitor attraction in the Midwest.
Millennium Park is free to enter, the park boost amazing public art and spectacular architecture. The 2.5-acre Lurie Garden is part of the world’s largest green roof is a must see attraction.
Jay Pritzker Pavilion is found in Millennium Park this 11,000-capacity band-shell was conceived by Frank Gehry. Hosting Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago concerts from spring to autumn.
River Walk
Take a walk along the main branch of the Chicago River as it cuts through the downtown.
The River walk is 1.25 miles long, made up of six coves or “rooms” up to Wolf Point.
This walk is a scenic route that will take you past the Wrigley Building and a whole of host of head-turning works of public art.
These might be bright graffiti panels or large-scale installations like Ellen Lanyon’s Gateway, recording Chicago’s story through 28 ceramic tile murals.
You can board a cruise boat or water taxi of course, or take matters into your own hands on an urban kayak or “cycleboat” tour. With its view of Chicago’s cityscape, bars/grills and cafes the River Walk is the optimum place for date night.
Navy Pier
Found where the Chicago Portage enters Lake Michigan, the Navy Pier is a popular visitor attraction which stretches over the water for six city blocks. The pier is 50 acres hosting Funhouse Maze, the 65-metre Centennial Wheel, fairground rides and amusements.
Enjoy weekly fireworks in summer, the Chicago Children’s Museum and the Crystal Gardens botanical garden.You can use the pier as the jumping off point for cruises on the lake or river, take in some live music at the Miller Lite Beer Garden and watch the drama unfold at the non-profit Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
Cloud Gate
Cloud Gate is found in the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park this is a public sculpture by Anish Kapoor.
Installed in 2006 and is also known as “The Bean”, Cloud Gate is a rounded arch, clad with 168 highly reflective stainless steel plates.
The monument was designed to depict a blob of liquid mercury, and its value lies in how interactive it is.
You can take photos of your own reflection against the distorted Chicago skyline.
John Hancock Center
It is an iconic Chicago’s silhouette, which can be found at 875 North Michigan Avenue (formerly the John Hancock Center) is a 344-metre skyscraper on the Magnificent Mile.
The tower was topped off in 1969 and appears in pretty much any movie that needs an establishing shot for Chicago.
Get a closer look to exam the characteristic X-shaped bracing zigzag up the facades.
You must see the 360 Chicago on the 94th floor has been rated as one of the best in the country.
If you want a true adrenaline rush try the “Tilt”, a glass capsule that tilts forward at 15°, 25° and 40° for a bird’s eye view of 300 meters above the city streets.
Chicago Cultural Center
This building was once the home of the Chicago Public Library, in 1991 the building became the first free municipal cultural center in the United States.
The Cultural center host more than 1,000 exhibitions every year. You can catch free theatre, dance, music, and lectures. You need to take a look inside this building that was built in 1893 and opened 1897. Some of the country’s top craftsmen were commissioned for the interiors, working with valuable materials like fine hardwood, rare imported marble, polished brass and mother-of-pearl.
The building houses the largest stained glass Tiffany dome in the world and the larger Renaissance-style dome on the north side is 12 meters in diameter and has 50,000 glass panels.
Wrigley Field
The Chicago Cubs play at the second-oldest ballpark in the Major League.
Wrigley Field (1914), is noted for its ivy-clad outfield walls and has an iconic manual scoreboard.
You will be surprised to see the stadium in the middle of a residential neighborhood and has no car park.
The Cubs are the 2016 World Champions you really must catch one of 66 regular season games. Take selfies in front of the famous red entrance marquee from 1934.
Maggie Daley Park
This park is named for a former first lady of the city who passed away in 2011.
Landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh designed the layout of the park, opened in the northeast corner of Grant Park 2014 and shines for its recreation and family facilities.
The kid friendly Play Garden, for kids up to 12, is like you’ve ever seen, with six different zones like the Watering Hole which has a giant breaching whale, and the Enchanted Forest where you’ll walk under upside down trees . There’s also an ice skating ribbon, a quarter of a mile in length, picnic groves, an 18-hole mini golf course and rock-climbing walls.
Richard H. Driehaus Museum
Representative of the America’s Gilded Age at the refined Nickerson House, built in 1883 for the banker Samuel M. Nickerson. Not far from the Magnificent Mile, on the Near North Side, the house looks a little out of place, dwarfed by the city’s monuments and glass-clad skyscrapers.
In 2003 the Nickerson house was turned into a museum, blending the original furnishings with luxurious Art Nouveau glazed tiles, stained glass, onyx, carvings and marble.
The museum is heaven if you like decorative arts.
The ballroom has Edward Colonna furniture you can sit in, while some other exceptional pieces include Sèvres vases, a suite of George A. Schastey neo-Empire chairs, pre-Raphaelite paintings and a rare Chickering and Sons grand piano.
Buckingham Fountain
At the center of Grant Park, between the ornamental North and South Rose Gardens is a sight that needs a double take.
Hewn from Georgia pink marble, the Buckingham Fountain (1927) is one of the largest in the world.
The Rococo design is borrowed from the Latona Fountain at Versailles, and is an allegory for Lake Michigan, with four pairs of sea horses representing the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.
At any one time there’s 5,700,000 liters of water in the Buckingham Fountain.
Stop by for the 20-minute water display on the hour, shooting jets up to 50 meters into the air.
Lakefront Trail
Eighteen miles of Chicago’s shoreline can be accessed on a waterfront path, threading through all four of the city’s lakeside parks.
The Lakefront Trail is shared by cyclists, joggers and families.
Stroll next to Lake Michigan and take in the Chicago’s skyline.
You can use the path to get to interesting places, from the South Shore Cultural Center to Navy Pier and the Shedd Aquarium.
Museum of Science and Industry
The Museum of Science and Industry is great place for families. This is place that will amaze kids.
Located in the old Palace of Fine Arts, built in 1933 in Jackson Park.
These are a few of the spectacular exhibts full-size German U-505 submarine captured during the Second World War, the Pioneer Zephyr, stainless steel diesel locomotive from 1934 and the first Boeing 727 to enter commercial service.
Young scientists can wrap their heads around big concepts at the Science Storms exhibit, which has a Tesla coil, Foucault pendulum and Wimshurst machine.
Magnificent Mile
Eight blocks of amazing shopping, entertainment, dining, dazzling architecture and more things to do than you could manage in a whole holiday.
There are 275 restaurants and more than 460 retailers here, from flagship stores for Zara, Disney and Nike to scores of boutiques and ritzy emporia for Rolex, Boss, Burberry and any other high end brand you can think of.
Soaring overhead are icons of the Chicago skyline like the Tribune Tower (1925) and the Wrigley Building (1924) in the south and 875 N Michigan (1969) towards the north end.
For a more unassuming sight, stop for a snap of the castle-like Chicago Water Tower, dating to 1869 and the second oldest surviving water tower in the United States.
Garfield Park Conservatory
Completed in 1908 and designed to resemble the haystacks of the Midwest.
This garden contains more than 80 varieties of palm tree.
Also see the incredible ferns and cycads against the waterfall in the Fen Room, and one of the nation’s most varied collections of cactuses and succulents in the Desert House. This a place that you and your family enjoy.
Mob and Crime Bus Tour
Take a tour of Chicago’s prohibition-era mobsters.
Names like Al Capone, Bugs Moran and Dion Johnny Torrio remain household names.
The city has changed so much in the last century that you’d never guess that benign looking neighborhoods witnessed a bitter war that claimed scores of lives in the 1920s and 30s.
Get Your Guide.com offers a 90-minute Mob and Crime Bus Tour.
This uncovers the dark past of the Windy City, profiling notorious men like Capone and John Dillinger.
You’ll visit the site of the Valentine’s Day Massacre and the Biography Theatre, where Dillinger was gunned down by FBI agents.
Shedd Aquarium
The Shedd Aquarium (1930) was for some time the largest indoor aquarium in the world.
Donated by the philanthropist John G. Shedd, the attraction has an incredible 32,500 aquatic creatures from across the planet.
These are in immersive zones like Amazon Rising, which has caimans, anacondas, piranhas and freshwater stingrays in tanks among the roots of rain forest trees.
Also mandatory are the Caribbean Reef, housing a rescued green sea turtle, the Wild Reef with four varieties of sharks and the historic Waters of the World gallery home to colorful starfish and seahorses.
Field Museum of Natural History
One of the best and largest natural history museums in the world, the Field Museum’s museum collection has swelled to more than 24 million objects since it opened in 1893. This a place to feed your fascination for the natural world, with grand Neoclassical halls housing fossils, priceless gemstones and animal and plant specimens.
There’s also compelling anthropology for the Ancient Americas and Ancient Egypt, as well as Tibet, China, Africa and cultures in the Pacific Islands.
The Geology Halls meanwhile have an exquisite collection of Chinese jade, and a stained glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
The star of the show is the 37-metre Titanosaur in the Stanley Field Hall.
In 2018, this herbivore from Argentina replaced SUE, a T-Rex specimen, which will reappear at the Evolving Planet Gallery in 2019.
United Center
The Chicago Bulls moved to this arena in 1994 when Michael Jordan was on his strange hiatus in Minor League Baseball, and he’d return to lead them to three straight titles between 1996 and 1998.
At roughly the same time of year, the Bulls share the United Center with the Chicago Blackhawks NHL team, which has had a much more successful decade, winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015.
Chicago History Museum
In Lincoln Park you can lift the lid on Chicago’s rich history, perusing fascinating thematic exhibitions.
Facing Freedom goes into depth on the various struggles for freedom to beset Chicago from the 1850s to the 1970s, covering the Civil War, Women’s Suffrage, the formation of labor unions and Japanese internment.
At Crossroads of America you can step into a jazz club or climb aboard Chicago’s very first L train, while the Chicago dioramas tracks Chicago’s breakneck rise from a lonely frontier outpost to an immense metropolis.
Sensing Chicago lets kids jump into a gigantic Chicago-style hot dog, ride a vintage high wheel bike and hear the roar of the Great Chicago Fire.
Lincoln Park Zoo
In 37 acres and dating back to 1868, this zoo deserves extra credit as one of the last remaining free admission animal parks in the United States.
There are more than 1,100 animals here, in habitats that are constantly being revamped.
The polar bear and African penguin enclosures for instance have just been reopened, while a recent arrival in 2014 is the Regenstein Macaque Forest where you can see Japanese macaques bathing in a hot spring as they do in the wild.
There’s a hint of the great age of the zoo at the Kovler Lion House, constructed in 1912, while some other family favorites to tick off are the Helen Brach Primate House (1927), seal pool, family petting zoo, the superb Regenstein Center for African Apes and the Regenstein African Journey.
This has indoor and outdoor habitats for giraffes, pygmy hippos, ostriches, gazelles and many more.
Chicago Picasso
Pablo Picasso produced this monumental piece of public art for Chicago in the mid-1960s.
Standing in Daley Plaza, the Chicago Picasso weighs almost 147 metric tons and stands over 15 metres tall.
Since it was unveiled in 1967, the work, rumored to depict French model Lydia Corbett who sat for a series of drawings for Picasso in the 1950s, is a landmark for the city and something for kids to clamber on.
Holy Name Cathedral
Chicago’s Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral, by Chicago Station on the Red Line, was completed in 1875 after its predecessor burnt down in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Eagle-eyed visitors will be able to spot an overarching Tree of Life Theme in the building’s fittings.
On arrival you’ll be confronted by the cathedral’s immense bronze doors, each weighing more than 500 kilos and cast to resemble planks of wood.
Inside, a few of the fixtures worth closer inspection are the Stations of the Cross in red Rocco Alicante marble, bronze sculptures depicting the Evangelists and the cathedra (bishop’s throne) for the Chicago Diocese.
There’s also a slice of Chicago gangland history outside, where a cornerstone inscription is still chipped from the 1926 murder of mob boss and Al Capone rival Hymie Weiss.
North Avenue Beach
Another of the many things to love about Chicago is the way the city has been planned to grant access to the lakeshore.
In hot weather this means you can slip off your shoes and set foot in Lake Michigan, or plan a whole day at the beach.
Being slightly removed from the fabric of the city, Lincoln Park has what many people agree to be the best beach in the city.
There’s a bar on the beachfront, as well as companies offering rentals and tuition for kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding.
International competitions take place at the South Volleyball Courts here, while in August North Avenue Beach is the place to catch the Chicago Air & Water Show.
Crown Fountain
The wonders keep coming in the Millennium Park, because we haven’t even mentioned the Crown Fountain (2004) yet.
Here the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa designed two glass brick towers, 15 meters in height.
They face each other across a black granite reflecting pool.
Those glass bricks are installed with LEDs displaying changing photographic facial images of citizens’ faces, filling the towers.
For a playful touch, water spouts from the a nozzle between their lips from May to October.
Like most of the works in the Millennium Park the Crown Fountain is interactive, and on hot summer days you’ll see children paddling in the reflecting pools and cooling off under the waterfalls that cascade down the sides of the towers.
Michigan Avenue Bridge
The Burnham Plan of 1909 helped shape Chicago’s cityscape, and brought about this trunnion bascule bridge conducting Michigan Avenue over the main branch of the Chicago River.
An official Chicago Landmark, the bridge opened in 1920 and once completed helped spur the flurry of development that gave rise to the Magnificent Mile.
Go in for a closer look at the north and south pylons, which have bold reliefs depicting scenes from Chicago’s past, carved by Henry Hering and James Earle Frasier respectively.
The south pylons depict Regeneration, while the north pylons show the Discovers and Pioneers.
The southwest bridge house holds the McCormick Bridge house & Chicago River Museum, chronicling the history of the bridge and the Chicago River.
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Enjoy a relaxing and informative cruise on Lake Michigan and along the Chicago. This will allow you to see Chicago’s cityscape.
Willis Tower 25 years ago was tallest building in the world, it still ranks among the top 25. When you have the Chicago city pass, you waste no time, skipping the line and speeding up to the Skydeck 412.4 metres above the west side of the Loop.
The Art Institute of Chicago is among the best in the world.
Grant Park fronts the Loop on Lake Michigan and is the city’s prime open space.
This award-winning space in Grant Park is the most popular visitor attraction in the Midwest.
Found where the Chicago Portage enters Lake Michigan, the Navy Pier is a popular visitor attraction which stretches over the water for six city blocks. The pier is 50 acres hosting Funhouse Maze, the 65-metre Centennial Wheel, fairground rides and amusements.
Cloud Gate is found in the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park this is a public sculpture by Anish Kapoor.
It is an iconic Chicago’s silhouette, which can be found at 875 North Michigan Avenue (formerly the John Hancock Center) is a 344-metre skyscraper on the Magnificent Mile.
This building was once the home of the Chicago Public Library, in 1991 the building became the first free municipal cultural center in the United States.
The Chicago Cubs play at the second-oldest ballpark in the Major League.
This park is named for a former first lady of the city who passed away in 2011.
Representative of the America’s Gilded Age at the refined Nickerson House, built in 1883 for the banker Samuel M. Nickerson. Not far from the Magnificent Mile, on the Near North Side, the house looks a little out of place, dwarfed by the city’s monuments and glass-clad skyscrapers.
At the center of Grant Park, between the ornamental North and South Rose Gardens is a sight that needs a double take.
Eighteen miles of Chicago’s shoreline can be accessed on a waterfront path, threading through all four of the city’s lakeside parks.
The Museum of Science and Industry is great place for families. This is place that will amaze kids.
Eight blocks of amazing shopping, entertainment, dining, dazzling architecture and more things to do than you could manage in a whole holiday.
Completed in 1908 and designed to resemble the haystacks of the Midwest.
Take a tour of Chicago’s prohibition-era mobsters.
The Shedd Aquarium (1930) was for some time the largest indoor aquarium in the world.
One of the best and largest natural history museums in the world, the Field Museum’s museum collection has swelled to more than 24 million objects since it opened in 1893. This a place to feed your fascination for the natural world, with grand Neoclassical halls housing fossils, priceless gemstones and animal and plant specimens.
The Chicago Bulls moved to this arena in 1994 when Michael Jordan was on his strange hiatus in Minor League Baseball, and he’d return to lead them to three straight titles between 1996 and 1998.
In Lincoln Park you can lift the lid on Chicago’s rich history, perusing fascinating thematic exhibitions.
In 37 acres and dating back to 1868, this zoo deserves extra credit as one of the last remaining free admission animal parks in the United States.
Pablo Picasso produced this monumental piece of public art for Chicago in the mid-1960s.
Chicago’s Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral, by Chicago Station on the Red Line, was completed in 1875 after its predecessor burnt down in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Eagle-eyed visitors will be able to spot an overarching Tree of Life Theme in the building’s fittings.
Another of the many things to love about Chicago is the way the city has been planned to grant access to the lakeshore.
The wonders keep coming in the Millennium Park, because we haven’t even mentioned the Crown Fountain (2004) yet.
The Burnham Plan of 1909 helped shape Chicago’s cityscape, and brought about this trunnion bascule bridge conducting Michigan Avenue over the main branch of the Chicago River.
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