Chicago Traveler

Even if you’ve never visited, Chicago is at once as familiar as your home town baseball field and as exciting as hearing a legendary harmonica player performing at an “L” train station. This is the town where distinctive forms of blues, soul, gospel, and jazz grew up, where blues laid the groundwork for rock and roll, and where new genres of hip hop and house continue to evolve. If the songs lingering throughout along the Riverwalk or beside the Bean seem familiar, it’s only because Chicago’s music, musicals, and culture have wound their way into every American home and throughout the world for the past century.

Chicago is the home of American innovation, where Highland Park’s Elisha Gray experimented with an acoustic telepathy design that is thought by some to count as the first real telephone. It’s where Chicago’s Home Insurance Building, built in 1884, once soared 10 stories and 138 feet over the city and coined the phrase “skyscraper” decades before New York’s Empire State Building was completed. The Willis Tower and John Hancock Center carry forward that designation with pride. From humble origins as the nation’s stockyard to our modern stock exchange, Chicago has forever been a hub and haven for dreamers, doers, and those driven to succeed.

When you're in Chicago, you're in a space that delivers the best of everything America’s prairie Midwest has to offer. As a travel destination, our glittering towers and scintillating night life along the Magnificent Mile offer shopping, romance, and adventure. For the curious, we host the world class Shedd Aquarium and Art Institute of Chicago. Families will enjoy wandering our preserved Lake Michigan beaches and landmark Navy Pier, fueled by cotton candy and our renowned deep dish Chicago-style pizza. Come join us in Chicago, where year-round we’re ready to share our corner of the heartland with you.