Chicago
On the 40th floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange building, this 21-room hotel isn't easy to find. The benefit if you do? It's quiet (on weekends and evenings especially) and has expansive views. Elegant rooms are so spacious they’d be considered suites elsewhere. Lots of freebies add to the excellence, including access to the namesake gym with lap pool.
There's free continental breakfast and free wi-fi, to boot.
5.08 MILES
Built in 1914, Wrigley Field – aka the Friendly Confines – is the second-oldest baseball park in the major leagues. It’s home to the Chicago Cubs and…
6.46 MILES
The MSI is the largest science museum in the Western hemisphere and a place to completely geek out. Highlights include a WWII German U-boat nestled in an…
0.48 MILES
The second-largest art museum in the country, the Art Institute houses a treasure trove from around the globe. The collection of impressionist and…
0.65 MILES
There's free admission to Millennium Park, the playful heart of the city. It shines with whimsical public art, both permanent and temporary exhibits, and…
0.24 MILES
Willis Tower is Chicago's tallest building (and one of the world's loftiest). Breathe deeply during the ear-popping, 70-second elevator ride to the 103rd…
Field Museum of Natural History
1.05 MILES
The Field Museum houses some 30 million artifacts and includes everything but the kitchen sink – beetles, mummies, gemstones, Bushman the stuffed ape –…
1.54 MILES
Half-mile-long Navy Pier is one of Chicago's most-visited attractions, sporting a 196ft Ferris wheel and other carnival rides ($9 to $18 each), an IMAX…
National Museum of Mexican Art
2.54 MILES
Founded in 1982, this vibrant museum – the largest Latinx arts institution in the US – has become one of the city’s best. The vivid permanent collection…
0.09 MILES
The Board of Trade is a 1930 art deco gem. Inside, manic traders swap futures and options – or, at least, they used to. Most trading is done these days by…
0.12 MILES
This small museum in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is fun for a quick browse. The best exhibits include a giant glass cube stuffed with one million …
0.16 MILES
Architecture buffs on a pilgrimage bow down to the Monadnock, two buildings in one that depict a crucial juncture in skyscraper development. The north…
0.17 MILES
The famed firm of Burnham and Root built the Rookery – named for the site's previous building, a temporary city hall that was popular with roosting…
5. Kluczynski Federal Building
0.17 MILES
No discussion of famed Loop architecture is complete without mentioning the boxy, metal-and-glass style of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose functional,…
0.19 MILES
Alexander Calder’s soaring red-pink sculpture provides some much-needed relief from the stark facades of the federal buildings around it. Calder dedicated…
0.19 MILES
A classic 1891 design by Holabird & Roche, the Pontiac features the same flowing masonry surfaces as the architects’ famed Monadnock Building in the Loop.
0.2 MILES
Famed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the buildings at 230 S Dearborn St (aka the Kluczynski Building) and 219 S Dearborn St (aka the Dirksen…