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Tags: Audio Tours / Chicago Travel / iPods / Technology / → All Tags

How To Make Your Own Tour Of Chicago On Your iPod, For Free

The London Guarantee Building is the tour’s starting point.

In this craptastic economy, you may not have the extra bucks to buy one of those expensive tours where a guide shows you the ins and outs of a city. So we decided to try out a recession-friendly, iPod self-walking "Loop to Loop" tour of Chicago. And it's totally FREE.

Just visit the Chicago Loop Alliance's website and decide whether you want to take a theater, an art or a landmarks tour; we opted for the latter, which takes you throughout the Loop. Download the appropriate tour and add it to your iPod. But for a seamless experience you will have to do some work. The site provides you with a map of all of the landmarks, but it just lists the names of the buildings. We recommend writing down all of addresses so that you know where the heck you’re going. Click on all 23 landmark points on the website to get the addresses.

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Tags: Willis Tower / Sears Tower / Skyscrapers / Architectural Travel / Observation Decks / Chicago Travel / Tourist Traps / → All Tags

We Lived On The Edge And Visited Willis Tower's New Ledge

The Willis Tower installed "The Ledge," these new glass boxes that jut out 4.3 feet from the skyscraper to give you that standing-on-the-edge feeling in the pit of your stomach, on the west side of the building's Skydeck on the 103rd floor.

With a name like that, you'd think it was an amusement park ride. Adding to the amusement park novelty are shirts, mugs and other paraphernalia for sale that boast "Dare to Stand Out" and professional photographers on hand to take a souvenir snapshot of you in the floating box that will be printed and framed by the time you leave the building.

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Tags: Chicago Travel / Comedy Clubs / Events / → All Tags

Second City Alumni Return To Chi-Town For 50th Anniversary Par-Tay

Almost every famous hilarious comic got his or her start at Chicago's Second City, a training center, theater and overall jokester factory. Its alumni includes John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, John Candy, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Chris Farley, Rachel Dratch. The list goes on forever because this marks the company's 50th year in the funny business. Of course, Second City has to throw itself a big birthday party to celebrate.

The company's illustrious alums will come back for a weekend-long bday party, December 11 to 13. Although it's only three days, there are a ton of events. Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, Martin Short and other cast members from the cult hit television show SCTV will return for two special reunion performances December 11. There will be a panel on the Colbert Report on December 12, and a Saturday Night Live panel with former players Tim Kazurinsky, Horatio Sanz and Rachel Dratch as well as current staff writer John Lutz will be December 13.

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Tags: Chicago Field Trip / Chicago Travel / Neighborhoods To Know And Go / Lists / Shopping Travel / Food Travel / → All Tags

Neighborhoods You Need To Know And Go: Chicago's Chinatown

Head to the near South Side to see one of Chicago's best and most hopping ethnic neighborhoods, Chinatown. Along Cermak and Wentworth Avenues, you'll find a slew of yummy-smelling restaurants, gift shops and teahouses.

Find out what there's to see, do and—most importantly—eat, while you're exploring Chinatown after the jump.

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Tags: Chicago Field Trip / Chicago Travel / Neighborhoods To Know And Go / Lists / Shopping Travel / Food Travel / → All Tags

Neighborhoods You Need To Know And Go: Chicago's Lincoln Square

When tourists come to Chicago, oftentimes they don't venture beyond downtown. Because this common, but easily remediable mistake, they miss out on of Chicago's best assets: its diverse neighborhoods. Lincoln Square is one such 'hood.

Once the city's German enclave, the North Side nabe now is known for the hip shops and cool cafes, restaurants and bars that line Lincoln Avenue. Plus, it's the best place to hear folk music in the city and belly up to the bar for a foamy brew. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you love Lincoln Square as much as us, and if you have any favorite spots we should know about. But for now, let's get to the meat of it with our top picks for what to do now in Lincoln Square:

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Sick of Baseball and Football? Leap Over to Chicago's Dance Festival

Every November, dance aficionados head to Chicago for the city's month-long boogie festival, Dance Chicago to see everything from ballroom to ballet to clogging to hip-hop. This year marks the 15th anniversary of Dance Chicago, and while you can expect some good dancing, the fest is changing it up this year.

The biggest change is that the festival is leaving its home base of the Athenaeum Theatre and holding performances in venues all over the region, including the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, Theatre Building in Chicago and Music Institute of Chicago's Nichols Concert Hall in Evanston. Another difference is that there are fewer acts this year, though more than 130 companies will perform. Tickets cost $20 to $25. Here are our fest picks:

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Sweeten Up Your Layover In Chicago-O'Hare At Vosges Chocolate Shop

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport might be known as one of the country's most congested airports, but thanks to the arrival of a new shop in Terminal 1 (B Concourse), ORD is also on the map for something else: designer chocolate.

The terminal has a Vosges Haut-Chocolat (pronounced "voge") shop, and although it was installed before Christmas last year. it's better late than never to pass on any chocolate news, especially with another round of holiday travel looming. Vosges, a Chicago-based company started by a world traveling woman inspired by the flavors of the world, now has two shops in NYC and one in Vegas in addition to the Windy City, and the treats continue to evolve.

Bacon and chocolate, after the jump.

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Tags: Museum Travel / Museums / Chicago Travel / Chicago / → All Tags

Chicago Gets Some Bling with The Field Museum's 'Diamond' Exhibit

This tiara, which Salma Hayek donned for a 1998 White House correspondent's dinner (who knew such dinners had a royalty dress code), will be featured at the Field.

Chicago will see some dazzle when "The Nature of Diamonds" brings more than 800 jewels to the Field Museum on October 23. You'll see bling from top-notch designers such as Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels, Boucheron and Cartier.

The centerpiece of the exhibit will be The Vault, a reproduced vault that will showcase rare pieces that have rarely been on display. See the diamond jewelry owned by Mae West, Catherine the Great, Joan Crawford, Elton John and other celebs. A highlight is the 128.54-carat Tiffany Diamond, one of the world's largest and finest yellow diamonds, and the 407.48-carat Incomparable Diamond, the largest flawless diamond graded by the Gemological Institute of America and the third-largest cut diamond ever recorded.

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Is The Windy City Ready For Some Burlesque?

In case you haven't been to any plush clubs reminiscent of boudoirs lately, we need to remind you that burlesque performances are hot, and we mean in both sexual appeal and popularity. If you can't pony up the major dough for a private performance from Dita von Teese however, perhaps a more pedestrian introduction to burlesque theater would do, and luckily that is exactly what the Teatro Zinzanni offers at their locations in Seattle and San Francisco.

Soon enough, a third city will be added to the Zinzanni's list of locations as Chicago's Block 37 development closes a deal with the club. Currently the windy city is getting windy about the fact that this "bawdy and acrobatic burlesque show," whose tickets for the five-course meal and entertainment average $145 per person, will be located on city property. We say oh well; at least it's not becoming a David Barton gym as originally planned.

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Five Ways To Experience Chicago's Trump International Hotel & Tower

In January 2010, Chicago's Trump International Hotel & Tower will celebrate the one-year anniversary of its completion. We're talking the whole thing here—including the towering antenna which was placed on January 2, 2009, even though the restaurant and hotel had been open previously.

So how do you celebrate one of the country's newest, hottest skyscrapers? Well, you should swing by the Donald's towering siren and have a drink of course, or better yet—sleep with her. The Trump Tower is part hotel, part condo, and part upscale hotspot, and there are five specific ways to get all up in her without feeling like you're trespassing on Trump's property.

Five Ways To Experience Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago:

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Tags: Killer New Music Venues / Best-Small-New-Music-Venues-in-the-US / Music Travel / Chicago Travel / Live Music Travel / Live Music / → All Tags

It's A Good Concert When Even The Drum Set Goes Crowd-Surfing

When you think of live music venues in Chicago, is the first thing that pops into mind the bright-lit vintage marquee of the Chicago Theater? If so, get ready to have your mind blown by learning what actually are the hot spots for concerts these days; one hint: they aren't clubs and they aren't sit-down theaters.

In true Chicago style, the city's forgotten spaces are being reclaimed for art and community—we once went to a Ghetto Gourmet dinner (a roving dinner party) in an old church loft, stained glass windows and all. And one old ballroom, the Logan Square Auditorium, is seeing its own fair share of shows this season. We headed into Chicago's hipster haven to experience the Israeli band Monotonix this last Saturday night, and we'll just say that it was an experience all right. Read on for all drum set crowd-surfing details...

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Fashion Focus Chicago Unleashes Windy City's Chic Set

Chicago may have lost out on its bid for the Olympics, but its fashion scene is getting just as much attention as any gold medal athlete. For that they can thank, in part, First Lady Michelle Obama, whose long standing relationship with boutiques like Ikram has earned The Windy City fashion credibility and inspired a thorough article about its style in a recent issue of The New Yorker.

But it's the city's independent designers who are truly trailblazing a sartorial path—those emerging names whose work you might see on the rack at major department stores in the future. In celebration of LBDs (that's Little Black Dresses, for you non-fashion followers), elegant draping, and everything else Chicago has to offer on-and-off the catwalk, Fashion Focus Chicago (October 22-25) will dedicate four full days to shopping events, industry seminars, and runway shows from designers like Horacio Nieto and Michael Alan Stein.

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