Chicago travel/sightseeing help

[disykat]

You poor Chicago people are always being asked for help - but I haven't seen this question. If you can help I'd be very grateful.

We are flying into Midway and renting a car. We plan on staying two nights so we can spend a full day seeing some of the museums etc. in Chicago. My kids would really like to ride the subway - they love any kind of public transportation. I was thinking maybe we could even stay on the outskirts and take the L into town to see the sights. Is this possible? I'm having difficulty finding a route map and wouldn't be able to tell what areas are safe from that anyway. We just want to find a family motor hotel -not too expensive.

Any suggestions?

 

[babar]

It would depend where you are staying. If you are staying near Midway, you can take the orange line downtown, if you are staying downtown there are a few lines you can grab. The elevated train line would be brown or purple, the subway would be red. If you are in the suburbs you can take the blue or green line downtown........... I'm not much help, but when you get here, grab a cta map, they are really easy to read, and our el system is not complicated at all.

You can basically get almost anywhere you want to go downtown by the el/subway.

andrea

...I don't really know any hotels by Midway, I know more by O'hare. I'm sure someone here knows of some, though.

 

[disykat]

Thanks Babar! We would actually prefer to be away from the airport, but somewhere with easy access. We don't have hotel ressies yet because I'm trying to figure out safe areas with realtively easy access. I've used subway systems in Europe so once I know I'm close to an access station I'm fine! I'll think I'll try to see if I can find a website with a cta map - then I can find a hotel in a neighborhood it services using my AAA guidebook. cta - I assume that stands for Chicago Transit Authority?

 

[helenabear]

Disykat, I have looked up the L maps myself and they can be found at http://www.transitchicago.com/ I can tell you that you can find some really excellent rates in the 'burbs. I think the most I have paid a night for a hotel (not via priceline) is about $55-60/night. I currently found a nice hotel (major chain, indoor pool, hot tub, excersize room... all the good stuff) for $48/night on weekends. So you can probably find good hotels if you look around. I'll say that I seem to pick hotels in the NW 'burbs area (closer to O'Hare) when I find these rates.

 

[newmousecateer]

Hi. If you want to stay away from the airport, I would go "west" of the city. We don't have the subways, but we have Metra which takes you into Union Station downtown (right by Sears Tower). They have a great schedule all day and night,

Have you looked on the map of where you would like to stay? Out west here, we have lots of hotels. Will you be renting a car?

I will try to help you out as much as I can. You can PM me if you would like. I will give you some ideas.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Any chance of flying into O'Hare? There is a great CTA L that goes from there to Downtown, some in the subway. You can see the start of it by clicking on the Nortwest.

http://www.transitchicago.com/maps/systemmaps.html