If you are not familiar with Chicago, or don’t make it to big cities that often, Chicago can be a bit daunting! But in our experience Chicago is one of the friendliest cities we’ve ever visited or lived in. People here will often notice, if you look lost, and offer to point you in the right direction. It’s happened to us a lot!
You can always call either Hannah or Amy if you have any problems! But below we wanted to give you some general navigation information to give you a head start.
Check the map on the right!
We added links to the Google map to the right. There are several categories (Wedding Event Locations, Helpful Navigation Locations, and Just things that we find fun. Click the little white square with the arrow, in the upper left corner, to expand the list of links. You can also expand it to full frame.
The purple pins are for our house and the wedding location at Lincoln Park Zoo. It shows the Small Mammal and Reptile house, so you don’t have to walk the whole park to find it. We’ll have a sign out front of the doors where the ceremony will be held. Finding a hotel close to the purple pins will put you closest to us.
Flying In
In our opinion, O’Hare airport is the best way to fly into Chicago. It’s a huge international airport, but in our experience it generally runs pretty smoothly. The Blue Line “L” train has a terminal, right in the airport, and the Blue Line is usually a bit faster than driving, but it runs right along I90 so you could do either.
If you have questions about the train just sent us a note, we’ll be happy to help!
Getting around while in Chicago
The Blue Line “L” train has two stops that are somewhat close to us, the California stop is the one we using when coming in from O’Hare. It’s a short walk to the 74W bus on Fullerton Ave. There is another stop right at Logan Square, but it’s a little more difficult to get to the Fullerton bus from there.
If you are staying in Logan Square and have easy access to the 74W bus on Fullerton, you could take it to the Healy Metra station and take the Metra train (the diesel commuter train) to Union Station in the heart of The Loop (the main business section of the city). The Healy station is just two stops from Union station and only takes about 15 minutes to get to The Loop.
To use the “L”, the Bus, or the Metra, you’ll need to get a CTA card and the Ventra app. You can definitely get the card from the vending machines at the Blue Line gate at O’Hare, but you can also get them at most “L” stations. You can also put money on the card when you get it, but getting the Ventra app will let you add money as needed. Keep the card when you leave, so that you can use it again when you come back to see us!
Bus and L Train: https://www.transitchicago.com/
Metra Commuter Train: https://metra.com/
O’Hair Airport: https://www.flychicago.com/ohare/home/pages/default.aspx