YOUR WORLD TO EXPLORE
Explore Activities Across the Globe
Let children explore three floors of interactive exhibits on creativity, science, literacy and physical play at the Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier. One of the most visited children's museums in the United States, it engages children from infancy through age 10 with hands-on environments including a scaled-down construction site, a climbing structure and a water play area.
From
Explore one of the world's largest museums dedicated to post-war art and culture at the MCA on East Chicago Avenue, one block from the Magnificent Mile. The MCA holds over 3700 works and presents cutting-edge exhibitions, performance, film and design in a format that treats contemporary art as a living, changing conversation rather than a fixed canon.
From
$24
Take a guided tour through the most important residential building of the 20th century and see Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style masterpiece in Chicago's Hyde Park neighbourhood. The Frederick C. Robie House was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019 as one of eight Wright buildings recognised globally, and the American Institute of Architects ranks it among the ten most significant structures of the 20th century.
From
Walk through eight glass-enclosed rooms of tropical flora and discover one of the largest and most spectacular botanical conservatories in the United States in Chicago's West Side. The Garfield Park Conservatory spans 12 acres inside and out, admission is completely free and its 1908 design by landscape architect Jens Jensen has been recognised as one of the great works of American botanical design.
From
$12
Walk through the largest interactive torture museum in the US and see over 100 authentic instruments of punishment, execution and restraint from the European Middle Ages, with a ghost-hunting experience and audio guide included in every ticket. The Medieval Torture Museum in the Chicago Loop is one of the most unusual and atmospheric museum experiences in the city.
From
$40
Rise to the 94th floor of the John Hancock Center on Michigan Avenue and take in a 360-degree panorama of Chicago, Lake Michigan and four surrounding states. 360 CHICAGO at 1030 feet is the highest point on the Magnificent Mile and its TILT experience pitches you forward over the city at an angle of 30 degrees in a glass-walled pod for the most dramatic perspective on the Chicago skyline.
From
$38
Explore the most architecturally significant city in America through nearly 10000 square feet of exhibitions at the Chicago Architecture Center on the Chicago River. The CAC holds the largest scale model of downtown Chicago in existence and presents the story of how Chicago rebuilt itself after the 1871 Great Fire to become the birthplace of the modern skyscraper.
From
$18
Step onto The Ledge, a glass-floored balcony extending four feet beyond the 103rd floor of Willis Tower, and look straight down 1353 feet to the streets of Chicago. Skydeck Chicago is the highest observation deck in the United States and on a clear day the 360-degree view extends across Lake Michigan and into four surrounding states.
From
$50
Explore nearly 22 million artefacts spanning 165 years of one of America's most dramatic cities at the museum that has been collecting and preserving Chicago's story since 1856. The Chicago History Museum in Lincoln Park holds Abraham Lincoln's deathbed, the original L train car from the city's first elevated railway, relics from the Great Chicago Fire and an original piece of Fort Dearborn.
From
$20
Step inside one of the most beautiful and historically significant theatres in the United States on a guided behind-the-scenes tour of the 1921 masterpiece on State Street. The Chicago Theatre Tour takes visitors through the grand lobby, sweeping staircase, the majestic auditorium and backstage areas of a landmark that has welcomed performers and audiences for over a century.
From
$36
Step onto The Ledge, a glass-floored balcony extending four feet beyond the 103rd floor of Willis Tower, and look straight down 1353 feet to the streets of Chicago. Skydeck Chicago is the highest observation deck in the United States and on a clear day the 360-degree view extends across Lake Michigan and into four surrounding states.
From
$50
Visit one of the world's great aquariums on Chicago's Museum Campus and see beluga whales, dolphins, sea otters and over 32000 animals from more than 1500 species in a building that has been immersing visitors in the underwater world since 1930. The Shedd Aquarium anchors the Museum Campus beside the Field Museum and Adler Planetarium with views across Lake Michigan.
From
$50
Explore the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere in Hyde Park and descend into a real coal mine, board a captured World War II German submarine and experience the Anne Frank exhibition with your general admission through the end of September. The Griffin Museum of Science and Industry occupies the only surviving building from the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition on the shore of Lake Michigan.
From
$25
Spend a full day at one of the world's great natural history museums and stand before Sue the T. rex, the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus skeleton ever discovered, on her permanent display in the Griffin Courts. The Field Museum in Chicago holds nearly 40 million specimens across anthropology, geology, botany and zoology and anchors the Museum Campus on the shore of Lake Michigan.
From
$29
Visit one of the finest art museums in the world and stand before Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Grant Wood's American Gothic, Edward Hopper's Nighthawks and Georges Seurat's iconic dot-painted masterpiece. The Art Institute of Chicago holds one of the world's greatest collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting alongside American art, Japanese prints and the extraordinary Thorne Miniature Rooms.
From
$40
