Hikes, parks, and family camping
Amid the frenzy of the city, downtown Chicago offers prominent green spaces for visitors and locals alike to enjoy. These parks provide a meaningful getaway with the family and an opportunity to see the city in a new way — quite literally — with today’s guide. You’ll get the gang out to one of the city’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.
Few things symbolize summer like ice cream and boating, and Chicago offers myriad options to embrace them both. The Chicago River cuts through the city’s urban sprawl with 156 miles of water, and today the whole family will get busy exploring it. You’ll start the afternoon in nature at a North Center boathouse and end by treating the kiddos to sweets at one of Chicago’s oldest and most iconic ice cream parlors.
During the summer, Rogers Park can feel like a mini-beach town if you know the right spots to visit. We've got an afternoon beach trip planned for this guide. You'll start at a beachside cafe for slushies and walk 10 feet to find a spot on the sand. Once you've got enough sun and beach, you'll go 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. There, you'll end the day with a post-beach meal of ice cream, sandwiches, and coffee.
We're taking advantage of living next to a giant freshwater lake and have you taking the family 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.
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 catching big air and big eats for this guide. We start the day in Chicago's Southeast side at a former industrial site that's been converted into a 200+ acre nature area. We'll be wandering trails and spending time riding bikes over dirt jumps at a world-class bike park set inside this reclaimed industrial site. We end the trip with the most delicious donut you'll ever get your hands on.
As kids, do you remember those mornings after a big snowstorm when you'd peer out the window and your ten-year-old brain would analyze road conditions and constantly calculate the probability of a snow day like it was the NY Times Election Needle? Then, when school was finally called off, you'd fill your days with snowball fights, sledding, and drinking hot chocolate. This guide is our attempt to help you create some of those childhood memories for your kids. You'll be barreling down a steep sledding hill with the skyline as your backdrop. After that, you'll end things with with Japanese souffle pancakes, ramen, and hot chocolate.
Do you know what's better than roasting s'mores around an open campfire? Watching your kid's eyes light up when they experience that for the first time. For this guide, we've got you hanging out at the only sanctioned firepits along Lake Michigan. But before that, you'll have pancakes, steak, and eggs at a beloved diner nearby in Hyde Park.
We're getting the kids out of the house for an early morning hiking on the Northwest Side of Chicago. You'll walk through a beautiful nature preserve with trails covering 46 acres of woodland, wetland, prairie, and savanna. But before that, you'll fuel up with Korean pajeon pancakes and bread pudding French toast at a nearby breakfast spot. Here are the details.
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. If this is your first overnight camping trip with kids, this is an excellent option, as the grounds are set up to make this as easy as possible. You're also only 30ish minutes from downtown Chicago, so you're not too far away if you need to cut the trip short and head back into the city.