Chicago, the Windy City, is a one of the largest cities in the Midwest and one of the highlights of a visit to the region. It is home to several popular professional sports teams including the Bulls and the Cubs, has excellent museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, and boasts a tall skyline (it’s the city where the first skyscraper was built).

Chicago is fun to explore because it is a patchwork of different neighborhoods. There’s a busy Downtown neighborhood and a sleepy Old Town to explore. You could also spend a day or two lounging on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Foodies come to Chicago for two all-American foods: deep dish pizza and the Chicago hot dog. A good deep-dish pizza has plenty of cheese and requires a knife and fork because it’s so heavy with ingredients. The classic Chicago hot dog is an all beef dog in a poppy seed bun with lots of toppings: yellow mustard, bright green relish, red tomato slices, chopped onion, pickles, celery salt, and, for those that can handle truly hot food, sport peppers.

And if you don’t want to live solely on pizza and hot dogs while in Chicago, there are plenty of other options from fine dining to food trucks. The restaurant scene is ever changing, so your best bet is to ask around when you arrive to see what’s hot like Grant Achatz’s Alinea or to visit a restaurant with a long history like Charlie Trotter’s.

Despite the Cubs longstanding losing streak, they are still a popular team and tickets sell out quickly for games at Wrigley Field. Going to a Cubs game is fun just to see Wrigley, which is one of the older ballparks currently in use, features a hand-operated scoreboard. The White Sox are the Chicago baseball team with a more recent record of excellence (they went to the World Series in 2005), but U.S. Cellular Field rarely fills completely and tickets are cheap for their games.

The Bulls basketball team, who Michael Jordan used to play for, rarely sell out these days and are easy to see on a whim. Bears tickets, on the other hand, can be tough to get as the football team has many devoted fans. Chicago’s hockey team, the Blackhawks, one of the Original Six NHL teams, is popular and won the 2010 Stanley Cup.

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