Introduction/Overview
Chicago, the windy city. Situated along the coast of Lake Michigan this city is one of the largest cities in the United States. Its skyline is world-famous, as is its history. With the neo-Gothic architecture of the Tribune Tower to the modern slick look of the Trump Tower, this city has many buildings with diverse visual characteristics. While quite photogenic during the summer, it has downright cruel weather during the winter. With all of that said, let’s get to Chicago!
Population
Chicago currently boasts a population of around 3,000,000 people. The metropolitan population is much larger at a whopping 12,000,000 people. That’s a lot of people living in the windy city area. (AKA Chicagoland)
Geography
The city is situated along the coast of Lake Michigan, which is quite nice to see during the spring and summer. The surrounding topography is atypical of what you can expect to find throughout the Midwest; flat, maple forests, occasional rolling hills, and not much else.
Climate
The summers in Chicago can be quite brutal and sweltering, temperatures will commonly range from the 80s to the 90s with heat indexes above those numbers. The winters are cruel and inhumane, just recently this city experience temperatures of -40f. Yeah, really.
Transportation
Chicago has a wide variety of public transportation available to visitors and locals alike. You may take the CTA trains, hail a taxi, call an Uber, get on a bus, or take the Metra out to the suburbs. Take your pick or rent a car.
Safety
Chicago isn’t exactly the safest city, however, compared to places I have visited outside of the US, it is pretty safe in comparison. If you stick to the downtown area you will generally be safe during the day. At night, try to avoid walking down unlit areas of the parks alone or going into dark alleys, just use common sense and you will generally be fine.
Cost of Living
Chicago is pretty damn expensive for the Midwest. It seems to think it’s Los Angeles or New York. You will find similar pricing out here.
Food
Some of the local places off really nice dishes. I personally prefer Portillo’s. If you visit Chicago and don’t try Portillo’s, you may be missing out. There’s one in Los Angeles too, by the way. Giordano’s and other pizza places are worth trying if deep dish pizza is your thing. Downtown has a bunch of unique restaurants to try as well. Try the Russian Tea Time restaurant, it offers some really tasty Eastern European themed dishes at decent prices, for Chicago anyway.
Places of Interest
Route 66 starts at Navy Pier in Chicago and ends at the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles. The History Museum, Shedd Aquarium, Sears (now Willis) Tower, The Art Institute of Chicago, and Wrigley Field are some places you may like to visit. The Botanical Garden in Evanston is really cool to see, they recently had a corpse flower bloom over there.
In the suburbs there are some really cool shopping malls. The Outlet Mall in Aurora, IL is world-famous and you will constantly find tourists shopping there from Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The Woodfield Mall in the Northern suburbs is nice. The Fashion Outlet near O’hare is pretty cool too; but be prepared for sticker-shock.
Useful Links
Conclusion
I would recommend visiting Chicago for 4-7 days at most. The downtown area is entertaining for visitors, but you can do everything down there within two days at most. The suburbs offer some other interesting things to see as well. Have fun visiting the windy city!