Visiting Chicago?

Travel Info
I'm going to Chicago with my family in mid-July and am wanting to find some of the cool places to go. This will be about our fifth visit so we've done the basic sightseeing stuff. I'm looking for some of the best places to either just relax, eat, see something cool, anything that most people don't know about and is uniquely Chicago! We will mainly be on the North Side and downtown as well as some of the northern sububurbs. Also, if this helps, we're all HUGE Cubs fans!

Travel Tips

Screw standing in line to get to the a high rise view of Chicago, eat lunch or grab a drink at the Signature Room (95th floor of the John Hancock Building). It'll be a $13 sandwich, but the inflated price is well worth the view. They also have an all you can eat buffet. Food is very good.
Brookfield Zoo
Take Metra to Highland Park for a concert at Ravinia. Pack a picnic or grab some food there. Suggested to BYO bottles of wine. Concerts range from classical to some popular acts. Get lawn seats, and just enjoy the music.
Check out Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg
Medieval Times in Schaumburg
Arlington Park Racetrack (horses). Great for the whole family! Tickets start at $6/person (these are the ones I usually get).

As for restaurant suggestions, this webpage has helped me get out of my shell and try a bunch of new ones and gives all the details you want!

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/6417... Source(s): www.signatureroom.com
www.brookfieldzoo.org
www.ravinia.org
www.shopwoodfield.com
www.medievaltimes.com
www.arlingtonpark.com/
Other Travel Tips

take a trip into Evanston, there are a lot of cool restaurants, bars and local shops. you can take the El there if you like.
I suggest Millineum park. It's downtown, in the waterfront area. It combines nature with modern sculpture, offering gardens, streams, crazy cool waterfountain that projects images on two builing like towers. It's also home of the "Bean". I've been lots of places and this is one of the coolest inner city parks I've seen.
I live in Chicago! Ok. So this is what you should do.

Go to these restaurants if you can : Cafe Iberrico or Cafe Ba-Ba Reeba (for tapas, Spanish food). For sushi, I looove Cafe Sushi up north. It doesn't sound like it would be fantastic, but I think it's great. Another really good restaurant is The Ralph Lauren Grill on Chicago just off of Michigan. It's a little pricier than the other restaurants, but it's soooo worth it. For Cuban food, I looove Cafe Laguardia and for Greek food, Greek Islands is the best (and this is coming from a Greek girl). For good old fashioned burgers and sandwiches, check out Clarke's...there are a few locations by DePaul University, so it tends to have a big college crowd and is a lot of fun.

As for stuff to do, if you love the Cubs so much, try to go to a game, and hang around Wrigleyville...that part of town has some great bars and restaurants to hang out at. Also, up north, is Second City, which is always a looot of fun. Another great couple of theaters are the Chicago Shakespeare in Navy Peir and The Goodman on Dearborn, (just west of State,) and Lake. Oh! and go to the beach!! Oak Street beach is one of the more popular beaches, just north of the Hancock building. There's no parking nearby, but you can take the red line and get off the train at the Chicago stop and just walk from there.

There's tons of stuff to do...but it's hard to think of things on the spot...Good luck!
Check out Metromix.com for events and restaurants!
Blues clubs on Halsted. Visit there websites and see who is playing. Its always an awesome time. Wrigleyville has alot of fun bars to visit, or you can just go see a game. Go to City of Chicago's website and see if they have any festivals going on. Chicago has more festivals than any other city.