The Best Ways to Experience Chicago During SHRM24

Chicago is the host city for SHRM24, and there is no shortage of things to do and sights to see while you’re in town. There will be a lot of great sessions and speakers at SHRM24, along with new friends to meet and old friends to greet while you’re here. But try to squeeze in some time to enjoy some of the amenities of this great Midwestern city.

Grab a slice of deep-dish pizza, or catch a ballgame. Take a selfie at the Cloud Gate statue in Millennium Park, where you can play The Bean Scavenger Hunt. Or maybe you feel like chillin’ at one of the city’s blues bars. There’s always something fun to do in Chicago with its myriad attractions:

*A Chicago River architecture cruise. See the city’s iconic buildings via the waterway that winds through its streets. There’s also a fireworks cruise that lasts 45 minutes to 2 hours.

*Food tours. Explore the city while sampling some of its many food choices. Have a hankering for a tomato pie? There’s a tour for that, as well as an underground doughnut tour, a biking food tour, and the opportunity to explore Chinatown or the West Side through food. Googling these tours will reveal multiple options.

*Catch a ballgame. The Cubs play the New York Mets at 1:20 p.m. June 21, June 22 and June 23 at Wrigley Field. The Chicago White Sox play the Los Angeles Dodgers at 7:10 p.m. June 24, 25 and 26 at Guaranteed Rate Field. Or if you’re looking for something sports-related that gets you out of the summer heat, check out the Chicago Sports Museum.

*Channel your inner Dorothy. L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz in Chicago. Two sites—Oz Park and Humboldt Park—celebrate his legacy and both can be enjoyed through a virtual tour. Statues in Oz Park depict the book’s beloved characters. Humboldt Park, the neighborhood where Baum lived when he wrote the American classic, has its own yellow brick road. 

*Delve into Chicago’s Prohibition history. You can revisit the city’s Prohibition era through the Chicago Gangster and Food Walking Tour, the Gangsters and Ghosts Walking Tour or the Chicago Crime and Mob Bus Tour. Looking for a cocktail lounge that evokes that era? Check out The Green Mill Jazz Club, a favorite haunt of Al Capone where musicians such as Billie Holiday performed. This is a cash-only jazz joint, and it doesn’t take reservations.

*Explore top-notch museums. The Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Museum of Science and Industry are favorite attractions. Fans of the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” can even follow in the footsteps of Ferris and his pals through a special tour at the Art Institute of Chicago.

If time allows, consider adding any of these to your list: the Adler Planetarium; the Chicago History Museum; the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, the oldest independent African American museum in the U.S.; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; or the National Museum of Mexican Art, one of the largest Latino cultural organizations in the U.S.

*Enjoy the theater. On the marquee during SHRM24 are “Blue Man Group,” “Drunk Shakespeare,” “Six” and “The Kite Runner.”