Choose Chicago

Soaring 1,000 feet over Chicago’s legendary Michigan Avenue, 360 CHICAGO is one of the city’s most unique attractions. Located on the 94th floor of the John Hancock Center, 360 CHICAGO (formerly John Hancock Observatory) offers breathtaking views of Chicago’s lakefront, magnificent skyline and four neighboring states. After only a 40-second ride in North America's fastest elevators to the observation deck, guests can experience what Travel & Leisure Magazine voted one of the best views in America. 360 CHICAGO is also the only place where locals and visitors alike can enjoy TILT – Chicago’s highest moving experience. This one-of-a-kind marvel tilts guests out and over the city from the 94th floor observation deck and gives up to 8 visitors at a time the most thrilling views of Chicago. 360 CHICAGO also offers a variety of educational opportunities. It all begins on the concourse level with an interactive exhibit highlighting Chicago’s rich history and showcasing nine of the city’s culturally unique neighborhoods. On the 94th floor, interactive learning displays and audio tours in 7 languages allow guests to further explore the history and architecture of the magnificent city stretched out before them.

Maggie Daley Park is one of Chicago’s newest spectacular green spaces in the heart of downtown and connected to Millennium Park via Anish Kapoor’s BP Bridge. Opened in late 2014, Maggie Daley Park became an instant success due its unique “Skating Ribbon” and magical “Play Garden”. Additions to the park in 2015 include the rock climbing and bouldering walls, an 18-hole miniature golf course, and picnic groves. The 3-acre Play Garden, a first of its kind in Chicago is in the spirit of Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Play and plantings are intentionally different from usual garden and park settings, capturing the imagination, engaging different senses in all seasons of the year, and integrating landscape with custom-designed play structures and sculptures. The Play Garden has diverse opportunities for fun, adventure, exploration, and learning for children of all ages, such as the short cut leading from the small intimate spaces of the Enchanted Forest to the high prospects within the Slide Crater. The skating ribbon is dramatically different from typical ice rinks. Skaters can experience “alpine in the city” as they follow a path twice the length of a lap around a traditional skating rink. Complementing the ribbon are places to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and rent skates. In the summertime, the Ribbon can be used to watch climbers on the climbing wall or children are welcome to walk or ride scooters on the ribbon. At the center of the Skating Ribbon sits two stunning rock-climbing structures that form Chicago’s first and only Climbing Park. These custom-designed sculptural rocks and boulders provide a unique outdoor recreational experience for beginners and experts alike, supported with instruction and supervision by park staff. The combination of the Skating Ribbon and Climbing Park achieves the project aspiration of a park for all seasons, inviting and engaging to all Chicagoans and visitors alike. The rock climbing walls’ maximum height is 40 feet over a total surface area of 19,000 square feet. The wall is divided into a beginner and advanced wall with three different types of climbing: bouldering, lead-harnessed, and top rope. The climbing wall capacity is between 25 to 100 climbers at a given time.

The Adler Planetarium — America’s First Planetarium — is more than a museum; it is a laboratory, a classroom, and a community exploring the Universe together. Each year, over 550,000 visitors experience the museum’s interactive exhibitions, live planetarium shows, hands-on, minds-on STEM education programs, and world-class collections. The museum's scientists, historians, and educators inspire the next generation of explorers and invite you to explore space.

At Shedd Aquarium, animals connect you to the living world, inspiring you to make a difference. From whales to snails, tarantulas to turtles, you’ll meet 32,500 creatures from aquatic habitats around the world. Explore Shedd’s Abbott Oceanarium, where you can get face to face with beluga whales, dolphins, sea otters, sea lions and penguins. Polar Play Zone is a permanent exhibit where kids and their families can play, pretend and discover through hands-on activities. See the aquatic show, starring the dolphins, belugas and more. Then meet some of Shedd's critters up close during live animal encounters in the Waters of the World galleries, talk to a diver in the 90,000-gallon Caribbean Reef, take a walk through a flooded forest in Amazon Rising and watch sharks overhead in Wild Reef. And visit Granddad, the oldest fish in any aquarium or zoo! Two million annual visitors can’t be wrong: Shedd Aquarium is the "must-sea" destination in Chicago!

No trip to Chicago is complete without a visit to the #1 museum in the world according to TripAdvisor's 2014 Traveler's Choice Awards. Explore America's greatest collection of Impressionist paintings, including world-famous works by Monet, Renoir, Seurat and Van Gogh. Then discover the critically acclaimed Modern Wing, home to an extraordinary collection of modern and contemporary masterpieces by Chagall, Dali, Matisse, Picasso, Pollack and more. As the second-largest art museum in the country with outstanding special exhibitions, gallery tours daily, and a warm, engaging family space that is always free, the Art Institute of Chicago has something for everyone!

The Museum of Science and Industry is the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere! Housed in the only remaining building from the 1893 World’s Fair, MSI is a Chicago must-see! You’ll experience 14 acres of mind blowing, hands-on exhibits and have the chance to navigate through a mirror maze; manipulate a 40-foot tornado; climb aboard a World War II German submarine; take a run in a human-sized hamster wheel; descend into an Illinois coal mine; board a 727 hanging from the ceiling; transmit your pulse to a 13-foot, 3-D, beating heart; and much more! It’s fun and interactive! MSI is not a place where you walk around quietly and observe. No way! You get involved in the fun — and learn by doing. See your blood running through your veins, dive and surface a submarine or create an avalanche! It’s all only at MSI,

Discover Sue, the world's largest and most complete T. rex ever found! Descend into an Egyptian tomb and see 23 Egyptian mummies and 5,000 year-old hieroglyphics, shrink to 1/100th of your natural size and get a bug's-eye view in Underground Adventure, come nose-to-nose with the man-eating lions of Tsavo, walk among dinosaurs in Evolving Planet or explore 13,000 years of history from the Ice Age Mammoth hunters to the temples of the Aztecs in the Ancient Americas Hall. Experience Chicago’s only completely digital 3-D theater featuring "Waking the T.Rex."

Historic Navy Pier® is Chicago's lakefront playground with over 50 acres of parks, shops, restaurants, entertainment and attractions. Navy Pier is the Midwest's #1 attractions with more than 8 million visitors a year. Enjoy a ride on the Ferris Wheel, musical carousel, Wave Swinger and miniature golf course. Visit the Chicago Children's Museum, Chicago Shakespeare Theater or the Navy Pier IMAX® Theatre. Take a ride on a tour boat or dining cruise ship. Fireworks on Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:15 p.m. between Memorial Day and Labor Day.