The Best Free Day in Chicago
One of America's oldest free zoos. A Victorian glass house. A hidden garden designed by a man who cashed in his life insurance for flowers. And roughly twelve thousand unmarked graves. All free.
What You'll Experience
Plan your walk
Know the route before you buy
- Starts at
- Introduction
- Ends at
- The Reveal
- Walking plan
- 50 min · ~1.6 miles
- Schedule
- Start, pause, and resume anytime
Included in the app
- Professional narration
- GPS-triggered stops
- Downloadable tour audio
- Ask the Historian Q&A
- Optional end-of-tour reveal
- All 9 story stops
A taste of what you'll hear
9 stops, each with its own story. Here's a preview.
"Welcome to the Best Free Day in Chicago. I'm going to take you through one of America's oldest free zoos. A Victorian glass house full of tropical plants. A hidden garden designed by a man who cashed in his life insurance to buy flowers."
"Step inside and you're in the tropics. In Chicago. In February. This place is basically therapy with ferns. The architect was Joseph Lyman Silsbee — the man who gave Frank Lloyd Wright his first job."
"That's the Best Free Day in Chicago. All free. REAL: The cemetery — 12,000 bodies never moved. The two swans. Caldwell's life insurance policy. The milk bottle boardwalk. Jeanne Gang being the first woman to lead a skyscraper project in Chicago."
Tour itinerary
Every stop on this walk
Explore the route before you go. Each stop has its own story preview, location details, and place in the larger tour.
- 11IntroductionWelcome to the Best Free Day in Chicago. I'm going to take you through one of America's oldest free zoos.41.9115, -87.6315 Read this stop
- 22Standing LincolnYou're looking at what many consider the greatest sculpture of Abraham Lincoln ever made. And the sculptor cheated.41.9115, -87.6315 Read this stop
- 33The Couch TombSee that stone building in the trees? That's a tomb. In a public park. And it's not empty. Welcome to the part of the tour where I tell you...41.9123, -87.6320 Read this stop
- 44Lincoln Park ZooLincoln Park Zoo opened in 1868 with a gift of two swans from Central Park. That's it. Two swans. And Chicago said, "This is a zoo now.41.9215, -87.6340 Read this stop
- 55Lincoln Park ConservatoryStep inside and you're in the tropics. In Chicago. In February. This place is basically therapy with ferns.41.9243, -87.6360 Read this stop
- 66Alfred Caldwell Lily PoolWalk through this gate and you leave Chicago. This is a hidden prairie in the middle of a city of three million people.41.9270, -87.6355 Read this stop
- 77Café BrauerThis is Café Brauer — the most beautiful building you'll ever see in a public park that was also, for decades, a really fancy storage shed.41.9210, -87.6345 Read this stop
- 88Nature BoardwalkThat's the Nature Boardwalk, designed by Jeanne Gang — the first woman to lead a firm that built a Chicago skyscraper.41.9198, -87.6335 Read this stop
- 99The RevealThat's the Best Free Day in Chicago. All free. REAL: The cemetery — 12,000 bodies never moved. The two swans.41.9198, -87.6335 Read this stop
Stories first
Every stop is built around people, conflict, ambition, and consequences—not a plaque read aloud.
Most of it is true. The extra mischief is just a wink at the end, but the story is what carries the walk.
Have questions? Just ask.
Curious about something you heard? Want to know more about a place? Ask us anything — we have a lot to say. It's more fun when it's a conversation.
Ready?
Download the app, head to the starting point, and press play. The stories start themselves.
Get the AppBefore you go
Quick answers
How much is this tour?
$7.99 as a one-time purchase in the iOS app. The Chicago city pack is $14.99 and includes every currently available tour in the city.
Can I use it with spotty cell service?
Download the tour audio on Wi-Fi before leaving. Cached narration plays without streaming; map tiles and other online features may still need a connection.
Do I have to start at a specific time?
No. Start when it suits you, pause for a detour or meal, and resume later. Check the opening hours of any venue you personally plan to enter.
Are admission tickets included?
The purchase covers the Bad Historian audio experience. Transportation, food, and admission to third-party attractions are not included.
Other Chicago Tours
The Loop & North Side
Bootleggers, Bullets & Baloney
Al Capone ran a hundred-million-dollar beer empire, bathed three times a day, and lost it all to a tax form. A singer got his throat cut for switching nightclubs. A bank robber broke out of jail with a pistol carved from wood. Walk Prohibition-era Chicago from the Green Mill — where you can still drink in Capone's booth — down to the vanished hotels of the South Side, past the massacre site that's now a lawn and the cathedral where a man was gunned down in daylight. Most of it is documented. A few small things I slipped in myself. See if you can spot them before the reveal.
Museum Campus
Museum Campus: Landfill of Dreams
Everything on this campus stands on ground Chicago manufactured out of a burned-down city. A marble temple holds the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex on Earth, found because somebody got a flat tire. An aquarium a thousand miles from the sea got filled by hauling a million gallons of ocean up from Key West in railroad tank cars. There's the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, a two-thousand-year-old Roman column Mussolini sent as a thank-you gift, and a downtown airport a mayor erased with bulldozers at one in the morning. Walk the lakefront from Buckingham Fountain to Soldier Field. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small things I mixed into the fill myself. See how many seams you can find before I show you.
The Loop & Magnificent Mile
Steel, Stone & Ego
Chicago burned to the ground in 1871 and stacked the strangest concentration of ambition in America on top of the ashes. A newspaper tower studded with 149 pieces chipped off other people's landmarks. An office whose steel skeleton went up in fifteen days. A brick tower so heavy it sank twenty inches into the mud, so you step down into 1891. Two round concrete towers — the tallest apartments on Earth the day they opened — bankrolled by a union of janitors. And forty stories up, a goddess of grain with no face, because the sculptor assumed no one would ever build high enough to look her in the eye. Walk the Magnificent Mile into the Loop to Cloud Gate. Nearly all of it is documented. A few small details are mine, set into the true ones where they blend in. See how many seams you can find before the reveal.
Downtown
The Postcard Tour
Chicago's greatest hits — and the stories behind them. A river that flows backward, buildings covered in stolen rocks, towers that look like corn cobs, and a giant bean made by a man who wishes you'd stop calling it a bean.
The Best Free Day in Chicago
$7.99 · one-time