ALL EARS Andrew and Patrick get ready for the tour.
Kids are getting a little VIP treatment from the City of Chicago Office of Tourism, which recently introduced a series of free audio tours—including one made just for young culture vultures. Available at downloadchicagotours.com, the Chicago for Kids tour is something you can do any time of year, as it’s designed to be listened to anywhere from the living-room sofa to the car or while you’re hoofing it among tour sites with friends and family from out of town.
The tour comes in 17, two- to nine-minute segments that can be downloaded to MP3s in English, Mandarin, German, Japanese and Spanish. Each segment has a series of photos you can use if your player accommodates images, and the audio portions of the English version are read by in-the-know Chicagoans including historian Tim Samuelson, culinary commissioner Judith Dunbar Hines, and former Chicago Cub Ryne Sandberg.
The tour stops are fun family excursions for both city natives and tourists: an El ride to Wrigley Field; a bus trip to North Avenue Beach and the Lincoln Park Zoo; a stroll up Michigan Avenue; a wander around Loop landmarks; and a trip to the Garfield Park Conservatory.
I tested the tour on a recent Sunday with the help of two young and somewhat-jaded travelers, my son Andrew, 10, and his friend Patrick, 11, both native Chicagoans. We took the El downtown to see as many tour-suggested Loop sites as our time and energy allowed. We ended up visiting the Chicago Cultural Center, Millennium Park and the Daley Center Picasso sculpture. Because the tour is designed to give you freedom to wander, you can enjoy the serendipity that makes travel so much fun. (There’s a logistical problem, though: Unless everyone has an MP3 player, there has to be some sharing of earbuds and taking turns—something kids don’t exactly love doing.) We didn’t, but you can stick to the audio schedule if you want. (Why walk up Michigan Avenue to see a bunch of boring stores when you can skip ahead and get very, very wet at Crown Fountain?)
The audio segments come in two categories: “To Know,” covering the history of a location, and “To Go,” explaining what to look for when you get there.
Everything the tours recommend is free except the cost of public transportation, and you won’t find yourself anywhere near typical tourist traps like Navy Pier. Still, that didn’t mean I wasn’t springing for souvenirs. After the fountain, we found our soaked selves at a store the kids discovered that wasn’t part of the tour: comic book retailer Graham Crackers (77 E Madison St, 312-629-1810). Could we go inside? Of course. Could they each get a comic book? Okay.
Between our stops and flipping through some comics, the boys listened to all the segments. Here’s their report.
What was the best part of the whole trip?
Andrew: The fountains at Millennium Park. The comic-book store was really fun, too.
Patrick: I learned a lot. It was much better than sitting home and watching TV.
I know you’ve both been downtown plenty of times, but what did you learn that was new?
Andrew: How the Loop got formed. [By the pattern of the El that “looped” around it.]
Patrick: That Picasso never came to Chicago. I thought he came and built the sculpture here, but he didn’t. [He made a scale model in France that was fabricated in full-size stateside.]
What was missing that you’d want to include on this tour?
Patrick: The Sears Tower. Then you could see everything at once.
Andrew: Yeah, the Sears Tower. Everyone should go to Sears Tower.
What didn’t you like?
Patrick: In the Wrigley Field piece, they sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” with “White Sox” and “Cubbies.”
Andrew: The narrator sounded a bit young. I think she was talking to younger kids.
Where should we get lunch? Did the narrator suggest a good place?
Patrick: Portillo’s on Ontario. And the John Hancock.
Can we go to the Hancock?
Andrew: No. Maybe when Grandma Logue comes to visit.
For other tours, visit downloadchicagotours.com.