How lucky are we to live in a city that house the incredible, iconic, and historic artwork that…read morefinds a home within The Art Institute of Chicago. I've been here many-a-time throughout my years. Some highlights include: Georgia O'Keefe's NYC series and Henry Matisse's Jazz cutouts. Come here to see other classics such as American Gothic, Nighthawks, and A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. You can spend a full day here, so plan accordingly. Also, if you live in Chicago or Illinois, consult your public library for free passes!

The decision to go to Chicago meant that I immediately began looking up landmarks from movies that…read moreI love, so obviously we had to make a trip to The Art Institute of Chicago. And was it incredible to stand in front of A Sunday on La Grande Jatte after watching Ferris Bueller for decades? Of course. It was an awe-inspiring experience that gave me literal goosebumps and even got me a little emotional. But the rest of The Art Institute is incredible, too. We barely scratched the surface and yet managed to see several iconic paintings -- including American Gothic and that famous Van Gogh self-portrait. Obviously we should've planned more than a couple of hours in the place. I feel like you could spend a week wandering around the place and you'd still feel like you hadn't seen everything. I really can't wait to go back someday.

Finally visited this River North museum during my return to Chicago. Since I wasn't a CHI/IL…read moreresident, the adult ticket price was $22, however you can also opt for the Pay As You Wish option, which is essentially Suggested Donation. While the museum is 4 floors, the exhibits weren't as plentiful. The 1st floor is basically their cafe. The 2nd and 4th floors are prob the floors with more artwork. The 3rd fl felt like an "in-between" floor. Thankfully, the Yoko Ono exhibit was on display, which featured several interactive activations, like a Wish Tree or writing on a wall, which were fun. Their Museum Shop also spans from floors 1-2. I wouldn't say that this museum has the popular artists. The overall artworks are a mix of abstract, photography, and mixed media. I wouldn't recommend it as a "Must See" for tourists, personally. However, I'm an art enthusiast and still thought it was a decent museum to walk through. Perhaps opt for the Suggested Donation for this one.

I loved my experience! I really appreciate the free Tuesday nights for Illinois residents. That's…read moresuch a treat! Beautiful museum with multiple floors, excellent customer service, plenty of comfortable seating, cool gift shop, and a cafe and restaurant too. It has everything I need! The vibes are good here. I enjoyed all the floors and saw an impressive variety of art. I also wanted to see the Yoko Ono exhibit and I really enjoyed it. I appreciated how interactive it was. There were a few writing stations with activities, such as writing about your mom and taping it to the wall, and writing a wish on a tag and tying it to the wish tree. One room was blue and there were blue markers available and people were encouraged to add to it. Fabulous venue!

Took the Art Deco tour yesterday, what a great way to learn about some of the history of Chicago as…read morewell as the gorgeous buildings!! Our guide was knowledgeable and kept the tour interesting. Unfortunately I flew out yesterday afterwards, but will definitely be back to check out the Center as well.

This is a rather small museum and when I was there there was like two exhibits to check out. The…read morefirst floor is 1/3rd gift shop 2/3 the Chicago exhibit. This exhibit has a cool model of the city and interactive screen that you can highlight different buildings. It's really amazing. However, there's multiple computers and if there's a crowd, as soon as you highlight the building you want someone else highlights the building they want and becomes really hard to really take it all in. There's a small series of panels on Transit orientated development which I really enjoyed. I'm not sure if those are always there or just currently there. They seemed rather new. There was also a piece on regular field with a model of the stadium and some interactive stuff to play with with a scoreboard. Overall the first floor was pretty good. Second floor is where I disappointment kind of hit. I guess they were in the middle of changing exhibits so there was only a small section to see and that exhibit didn't really resonate with me and didn't flow very well. It's worth checking out, especially if you have some sort of discount tickets like I did.

Wasn't sure what to expect but this place was great to explore. This would be a great time for the…read morewhole family. Interactive rooms, areas where other guests were taking photos, bright and colorful. Staff was very nice and very helpful. Getting through the museum and for guidance. The location was easy to find and there is parking close by.

This museum is nice, fun for all ages. I really enjoyed walking through the fiber optic hanging…read morelight strands gotta watch out those unexpected walls... lol. The fortune teller was interestingly correct, strange. There are photo ops all throughout which is a great touch. It's also very interactive. Easy to maneuver though and not too big. The staff is very nice as well. Very attentive and helpful, more hands on which is nice. Location was easy to find.

I took my four year old here. We spent about 3 hours looking at the exhibits. He really enjoyed it!…read more The closest lot fills up immediately so we had to park in a lot about 10 minutes away. I believe it was around $30. We paid extra to see the 3d movie. I believe we saw the trex movie. My son wasn't that impressed. I could skip it. I liked seeing the dinosaurs, like Sue. Another favorite was the taxidermy. There's also a children's area which he enjoyed!

This is a fantastic museum!…read more They house the largest, most complete T Rex skeleton ever found. Sue is quite impressive and there is a very interesting exhibit dedicated to her and the life it is believed she lived. There are halls of animals, an ancient Egypt exhibit, an underground creepy crawly exhibit, a Native American exhibit, and lots more. Don't skip it.

Stunning restored and/or maintained home with interesting exhibits. Great staff-very helpful, and…read morefriendly. Free Wednesdays from 4-7, but easily worth the price of admission.

This is a relatively small museum in Near North Side. A small auditorium will greet you upon…read moreentering. The first floor showcases beautiful rooms including the receiving and dining area and more. Fine furniture, statues, and other fixtures have interesting stories. They have a grand staircase that leads to the second floor which houses mainly the Tiffany lamps in different rooms. The third floor has a small Wizard of Oz exhibit with a part where you can take your pictures with some wearable items like a headband with lion's fur and ears, an axe, wands, etc. The small gift shop is also on this floor. You can finish the entire museum in 45 minutes. If you only have limited time in Chicago, you may want to skip this.

This was the most wonderful experience! I highly recommend it if you're in Chicago. It's located in…read morethe Willis Tower, so if you're going to the Skydeck it's a quick little jaunt over before or after. I wasn't sure what to expect, and it ended up being so much better than I imagined! All the people working were friendly, knew what they were doing, and helped us have the best experience we could have. I loved every part of it, and it was awesome tying in all the senses to color! The tasting one was so fun, I ended up guessing mine right! I think my husband and I had the most fun with the partner drawing activity, that's a keepsake for sure, haha! Other faves were the poem and balloon exhibit and of course, the ball pit. We came with our 6 year old nephew but I think the adults had more fun than he even did! It was fun to let loose and be a kid again. I was thankful for all the fun photo ops, it made it easier to get great pics without having our phones out the whole time. The only bummer was the ice cream. We paid $1 per person for it and it was just one tiny little ball with a wooden spoon, and I could taste the spoon more than the ice cream.

The Woman in the photo is a current employee at the Color Factory in Chicago…read more She made our experience TERRIBLE As soon as we walked into her location inside the ball area she greeted us rudely and spoke to our kids as if she didn't want to even be there. She does NOT like this job and does NOT know how to speak to children or treat them. It was our child's birthday with all her friends from school and kept rolling her eyes at them to the point where I finally approached her and told her the way she is talking and behaving in front of children is unacceptable Please get this girl proper training She is NOT cut for a job around kids Rudest employee I've ever met

Intuit Art Museum is a cultural experience not to be missed -- for Chicago buffs and newcomers…read morealike. It champions self-taught and outsider artists with sincerity and respect, giving voice to those who have forged their own artistic paths. The works presented here lack nothing in skill, beauty, ingenuity, or eloquence. The exhibition Catalyst: Im/migration and Self-Taught Art in Chicago deepened my understanding of the city's history and connects meaningfully to conversations about immigration today. Barberena's linocuts are especially striking, emotional, and deeply resonant. Other highlights from my visit included a beautiful commissioned work by Della Wells, stunning fiber art by Pooja Pittie, and the dazzling portraits of Drossos Skyllas, shimmering with character and skill. Henry Darger's story -- and the work itself -- is haunting in the best, most imaginative way. Our tour with Claire was outstanding: passionate, informed, and clearly invested in the artists' lives and contexts. I highly recommend getting a tour! I left inspired and grateful that a museum like this exists. Strongly recommend.

This hidden gem is absolutely worth a visit. The layout is beautifully designed, making it easy to…read morenavigate and appreciate the collection without feeling overwhelmed. The displays are incredibly engaging, and the overall atmosphere is welcoming and peaceful. I was thoroughly impressed by how well everything was curated. The only slight downside was that the descriptions for a few exhibits felt a bit brief, and I would have loved just a little more background context on those pieces. Still, it is a fantastic cultural spot with great energy. I really enjoyed my time here and would definitely suggest stopping by if you are in the area.

We had so much fun here! I wasn't sure what to expect and we went here on a whim. The museum was so…read moreinteractive! The staff are so nice and offer to take pictures for you through the installations. Highly recommend

This was a super quick experience... 30-45 minutes max... but it was pretty neat if you like this…read moresort of thing. Basic illusions with some neat instagram moments. If you're expecting an afternoon of experiences you'll probably be disappointed. I think if you know what you're getting you'll probably have a swell time. Staff was friendly and helpful. Everything was clean and was in working order.

The International Museum of Surgical Science ended up being way more interesting than I expected…read more It's inside this gorgeous old mansion on Lake Shore Drive, the kind of place you walk into and immediately think, "Wait... surgery happened here?" The whole building used to be a private home modeled after a French chateau, which makes the contrast between crystal chandeliers and antique bone saws kind of fantastic. I'd say 1.5 to 2 hours is the sweet spot, depending on how deep you want to go into the placards. You can easily stretch it longer, because every room has some wild piece of medical history to learn. There's everything from early anesthesia equipment to an iron lung, to old surgical kits that look like something a pirate would carry. It really hits you how fast medicine has evolved , I mean we really went from "bite this leather strap and hope" to modern surgery in basically a cosmic blink. Makes me wish I could time-travel forward to see what medicine looks like in 200 years...though I'll be very, very gone by then:( One thing to know: there is absolutely no place to eat or drink inside. No cafe, no water bottles for sale, nothing. Just a tiny gift shop with some quirky souvenirs. So show up hydrated or plan to escape for snacks afterward. Overall, it's a great stop if you like history, science, or simply marveling at how humans figured out how to keep other humans alive. A little eerie, very educational, and surprisingly beautiful.

I went there for an event last night, but we got full reign of the museum. We did a scavenger hunt…read moreso we got to see every inch of this place. Chicago has a bunch of these smaller niche museum, but I thought this one was one of the better ones. It's an an historic house that would have overlooked the Lake before LSD existed. The exhibits were all pretty good, but my favorite was eye care. They had some great optometry artifacts and a collection of sunglasses over the years. They also have quite a bit of original art, mostly in sculpture form which is both odd, but still important. Another thing I liked was that it wasn't overly graphic. There's a plastic surgery section that has a few slightly unsettling portraits of people maimed during WWI. I mean, I kind of felt more bad for those poor people which I think was the point. If I were to give it all a rating, it's a light PG13. If there are any downsides, the place is a little on the expensive side for its size, but they're constantly running events that include admittance. They also seem to lean on some kind of artist or researcher that does a lot of dream stuff. I didn't like his stuff as much. Also, the sections are a little disorganized, but that might be spacing in issues. Either way, this was a pretty interesting place. I'm betting they do an awesome Halloween event because it's a little spooky, but all educational. The gift shop is neat too!