47 min 12 stops
Museum Campus
Museum Campus: Landfill of Dreams
"You're standing in Grant Park, on ground Chicago made itself. This started as the burned remains of the city."
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$9.99
Chicago
Chicago reversed a river, invented the skyscraper, survived a fire that killed three hundred people, and came back meaner. There's a reason people have been telling stories about this city for a hundred and fifty years.
6 experiences · 71 story stops · GPS audio · Downloadable narration
Choose from
6 tours
Stories on location
71 stops
Typical length
35 min–1h 15m
Best value
$14.99 city pack
Keep Exploring
Every neighborhood has a story worth hearing.
53 min 14 stops
The Loop & Magnificent Mile
Steel, Stone & Ego
"Chicago burned to the ground in eighteen seventy-one. What the city stacked on top of the ashes is the strangest concent..."
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$9.99
1h 15m 10 stops
Lincoln Park
The Best Free Day in Chicago
"You're at the south end of Lincoln Park. Twelve hundred acres on the lake, and not one square foot of it was ever meant to end up as a park. It's been a graveyard. A dance hall."
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$7.99
55 min 12 stops
Jackson Park
The Obama Library Tour
"That tower in front of you is two hundred and twenty-five feet of Canadian granite, and near the top there's a speech carved into it."
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$9.99
40 min 13 stops
The Loop & Magnificent Mile
The Postcard Tour
"You're in Chicago. A city that once had a sewage problem, looked at the options, and decided the sensible move was to reverse the direction of its own river. Permanently."
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$9.99
Exploring more than one neighborhood?
Get every Chicago tour for $14.99
The city pack is a one-time purchase with all 6 currently available Chicago tours—71 narrated stops you can take on your own schedule.
Buy the Chicago pack
Secure checkout · Redeem instantly in the app
Preview the storytelling
Stories hiding in plain sight
Read a few of the places covered across Chicago, then hear the complete stories on location in the app.
landmark
Adler Planetarium
Your brain is going to file the building at the end of this peninsula as a nineteen-thirties idea of a flying saucer. Close enough.
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park
Cloud Gate
You already know it's a bean. Everybody knows it's a bean. Its name is Cloud Gate, the sculptor is Anish Kapoor, and he has spent roughly twenty years being quietly furious that the city looked at his masterwork and named it after a…
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landmark
Shedd Aquarium
The Shedd Aquarium is a Greek temple covered in seafood. Get close to the trim around the doors and windows and the classical restraint falls apart.
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park
The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool
Come through the gate and listen to what happens to the sound. The traffic drops away. That was designed. The stone walls and the tree canopy were shaped to do precisely that.
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landmark
The Art Institute Lions
The lions. One on each side of the stairs, bronze gone dark green except where the weather has scrubbed it back to gold, and both of them ignoring you completely. These are the meeting point for the entire city.
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landmark
The Biograph Theater
The Biograph, and its restored marquee, look frozen in the summer of nineteen thirty-four. That's deliberate, and there's a reason.
Read the storyHere's How It Works
Put in your headphones, press play, and start walking. The app does the rest.
1
Download the app
No account needed. Start whenever you're ready.
2
Pick an experience
Choose a tour, hit play, and start walking.
3
Listen as you explore
Stories play at each stop. Pause, wander, and continue whenever you want.
Plan with confidence
Before you explore Chicago
Which tour should I choose?
Compare the subject, neighborhood, duration, route, and exact stops on each tour page. Individual tours show their one-time price before you open the app.
Do I need to reserve a start time?
No. Start whenever it suits you, pause for food or a detour, and resume later. Check the opening hours of any venue you personally plan to enter.
What should I download before I leave?
Download the tour narration on Wi-Fi. Cached audio does not need to stream, though map tiles and other online features may still require a connection.
Are attraction tickets included?
No. Your purchase covers the Bad Historian audio experience. Transportation, food, and admission to third-party attractions are separate.
Every Chicago tour
6 tours · $14.99 one-time