City in a Garden

Get your walking shoes and stroll through this forest preserve that runs along the Lake Michigan coastline. You'll walk through deep ravines and 80 foot bluffs looking over the lake.

Amid the frenzy of the city, downtown Chicago offers prominent green spaces for visitors and locals alike to enjoy. It's like you're getting out of the city, while in reality, you're going deeper into it. With today's guide, you'll get an opportunity to see the city in a new way — quite literally. You’ll get out to one of the Loop's most unique parks to traverse a wall overlooking the concrete jungle that is Chicago, followed by a nearby picnic and a few touristy delights.

As the summer heat hits Chicago, you’ll naturally be jonesing for two things: a sweet treat and time in the hot, outdoor air. In this guide, you’ll get both. Start the day at one of the oldest (and cutest) bakeries in Chicago before making your way across the street to catch some rays and hop on a pedal boat at one of the city’s most iconic parks.

The weather warms up, so Chicagoans flock to the elevated 606 trail to get steps in and marvel at how lush the city has become. Today, you'll take in the nature by walking two-thirds of the beloved trail and fueling up on natural wine at two charming wine bars along the way. The bars are just two of numerous businesses that are dotted along The 606 trail, which serves four neighborhoods and thousands of locals and visitors each day.

It’s springtime in Chicago, and that means the city is collectively regaining its will to live. To maximize your time in the sun and enjoy the city on a casual afternoon, start at a delicatessen for a gourmet sandwich, charcuterie, snacks, and a bottle of wine. Bring your picnic provisions a short walk away and lay out on a big lawn with the skyline as your backdrop.

We're taking a short trip outside the city to hike through a 2,500 acre forest preserve. We start by grabbing coffee at a quirky and retro coffee house, then we head to the trail head where we'll hike through rolling hills, waterfalls, and overlooks. We'll then take a detour off the trail to have lunch beneath a Hindu temple. Here are the details.

Access to nature can sometimes feel inaccessible if you don't have a car. But for this guide, the Metra is all you need. You'll take the UP-N line to the North Shore where you'll walk through a field of wild flowers on a former military base turned nature preserve. The hike ends on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. After, you'll hop back on the Metra and take it one stop where you'll explore a charming downtown and grab a quick bite at a hot dog and sandwich shop. It ends at an old-school ice cream and candy shop for desert.

Start your day at a sustainable farm, picking up fresh produce and sipping local coffee. Then, step into a neighboring nature preserve for an easy stroll or a longer hike through a tall grass savanna. End the day at a family-owned brewery, with craft beer paired with a delicious brisket sandwich.

This guide has you visiting West Ridge, a quiet residential North Side neighborhood that's home to a vibrant South Asian, Jewish, and Eastern European community. You'll start with a hike on a 20-acre nature preserve, build a wooden fort, and end with Balkan street food.

We're taking advantage of living next to a giant freshwater lake and have you going on a fishing 101 expedition. You'll get outfitted with fishing gear from pros who've been helping anglers for over 50 years. Afterward, you'll make your way through a maze of trails that take you to the lake, where you'll fish for salmon, perch, and trout.

We've got a relaxing picnic planned inside a garden, that in the words of Alfred Caldwell, was "planned as a sanctuary of the native landscape, a place sequestered from Megalopolis, the jungle of profound ugliness; a cool, refreshing, clear place of trees and stones and running water . . . a hidden garden of the people of Megalopolis." We scoped out a hidden spot inside this hidden garden and have you bringing Cuban sandwiches to complete our picnic setup.

How far are you willing to travel for a hot dog? We’re here to figure that out. You’ll grab your bike and take it on the Metra all the way to Libertyville, IL. At that point, you’ll be closer to Wisconsin than Chicago. From there, you’ll go on an epic bike ride on a trail that takes you back towards the city and to one of the most iconic hot dog places in the Chicago area.

This guide has you going deep inside a forest preserve where you'll camp along the shores of a small lake, do a bit of hiking, and hang by a campfire. With it being about 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, it's just about everything you need for a an easy weekend nature getaway.  

About an hour outside of Chicago, there are thousands of scientists from all over the world working to answer fundamental questions about space, life, and our very own existence. Is time travel possible? Are we living in a multiverse? You know, all the things we think about right before bed. This guide has you driving out to Batavia, IL where you'll be visiting a particle accelerator and physics laboratory that's housed on on a 6,800 acre site. You'll be touring exhibits, learning about neutrinos, and biking all across the site. Here are the details.

This week's guide takes you to Garfield Park in search of a bit of inspiration. The first stop is to one of the oldest and largest conservatories in the country, where you'll wander through 4.5 acres of indoor gardens and let the vast rooms of tropical plants and small ponds help you de-stress. Afterward, you'll visit a restaurant with a socially conscious mission of supporting men and women to overcome poverty and homelessness. Here are the highlights. 

During the summer, Rogers Park can feel like a mini-beach town if you know the right spots to visit. For this guide, we've got an afternoon beach trip all planned out. You'll start at a beach side cafe for slushies and then walk 10 feet to find a spot on the sand. Once you've got enough sun and beach, you'll make your way through a quiet lakeside residential neighborhood until you come upon a small enclave of shops and cafes that give off strong small town beach vibes. You'll end the day there with a post-beach meal of ice cream, sandwiches, and coffee.

Being in the middle of the city doesn't mean we have to give up on enjoying green space. We're spending the day at Northerly Island, a former airplane landing strip that's been transformed into a 119 acre nature preserve with views of Downtown Chicago you won't get anywhere else. This is our second time here, after featuring it a few years ago, and we've got lots to update you on. Here's the agenda for this guide.

For many of us Chicagoans, wintertime means hibernating inside, curled under a heavy blanket, and waiting for the worst of winter to pass.  Well for this guide, we won't be hiding from mother nature -- instead we'll be venturing outside for a winter weather hike and seeing for ourselves how beautiful this season can be.  Head to the Northwest suburbs to visit a small herd of elk at an elk pasture, and then take a peaceful hike through the woods. Here are the details.

We're taking a trip to Chicago's South Shore where we'll be visiting a monstrous relic from an abandoned steel complex. This once busy industrial complex is now a quiet park that runs along the shores of  Lake Michigan, but after the park conversion, the city left behind a series of 30 feet high concrete walls that span over 5.5 football fields. We're here to explore these walls and see what's on the other side.

Put on your hiking shoes because you're visiting a former toboggan hill converted into an outdoor fitness center in the woods. Afterward, you'll set off on a quiet hike atop a 100 ft bluff that extends over 8 miles. The afternoon ends at a nearby nature center to visit owls, falcons, and amphibians. Here are the details.

This guide takes us to Chicago's Northwest side. We're going to spend the morning hiking through a beautifully preserved nature center with trails covering 46 acres of woodland, wetland, prairie, and savanna. But before any successful hike, we start with a meal. Today, that means Korean pajeon pancakes and bread pudding french toast at a nearby breakfast spot. Here are the details.

Travel south along the Lakefront Trail and you'll eventually reach the entrance to a South Side palace. Sitting on over 70 acres, this public space, dubbed "a palace for the people," is the focus of this guide. We'll visit a historical landmark and take a stroll through a nature reserve where we uncover stone fire pits overlooking Lake Michigan.

While stay at home orders are in full force, one thing we're still allowed to do is visit the surrounding forest preserves while practicing physical distancing. For some time outside of the home, head to this nearby Northside trail and explore Labagh Woods and the railroad track turned trail that runs through it.

For this guide, grab the fishing pole and tackle box from storage, because we'll be relaxing by a lagoon and doing some fishing in Humboldt Park. Afterwards, we're going to stroll through this 219 acre park, which is also home to a vibrant Puerto Rican community, and end the day at a mom and pop diner for an authentic Puerto Rican lunch. Here are the details.

Here's a fun fact for this guide. About 425 million years ago, Chicago was actually located south of the equator in a tropical sea. You can see evidence of that in small pocket of Lake Michigan where the compressed remnants of a coral reef still sit today. It's an area that is teeming with underwater life, and we'll be grabbing our snorkel gear and exploring it with this guide. After we step out of the water, we'll end our outdoor adventure exploring a quiet bird sanctuary tucked back into a small corner off Lakeshore Drive. Here are the details:

There's something about pitching a tent and sitting around a campfire to make us forget about our worries. For Chicagoans, a camping trip normally means driving over an hour outside of the city into Michigan or Wisconsin. While those types of trips can be great, they also can be a hassle to plan out when all you're looking for is a quick retreat from the city.  This guide is for those times when you're looking for an easy overnight getaway, and you're looking to leave now. We'll be camping at one of Cook County's forest preserves to do a bit of hiking, grilling, and star gazing. If coming from downtown Chicago, you can be out the door to having a camp site set up in about 45 minutes.  *Here's another important note. If I had to rate the camping difficulty level on a 1 to 10 scale, where 1 is backyard camping at your parent's house, then this is a 2.

We're taking a short trip outside the city to hike through a 2,500 acre forest preserve. We start by grabbing coffee at a quirky and retro coffee house, then we head to the trail head where we'll hike through rolling hills, waterfalls, and overlooks. We'll then take a detour off the trail to have lunch beneath a Hindu temple. Here are the details.

For this guide, we're taking out the bikes and doing some heavy duty pedaling across Chicago. We're headed to the North Branch Trail, and we'll go 21 miles (one-way) to the Skokie Lagoons.  This guide documents the notable spots along the way. Here are the highlights.

This is a guide when the weather is warm you're in the mood to grill food by the lake, throw the old pig skin around, and picnic in the grass.  To start, we'll be going as far North as you can go on the red/purple line train to get to the North suburb of Wilmette. What makes this particular park worth going to? Well, overlooking the park is a massive and uniquely designed temple which makes the backdrop while you're picnicking different than any other experience you'll get in Chicago. We'll also have a chance to visit the temple and learn more about it. Here are the details.