Family-Friendly Fun in Chicago

Chicago is a great city for families. Most of the big sights work for kids and adults alike, the lakefront is one long playground, and a surprising amount of it is free. Toddlers, tweens and teenagers all have something here. This page is about what to do. For where to stay, getting around with a stroller and what it all costs, see plan a family trip to Chicago.

Museums built for kids

If your kids are under about 10, start at the Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier. Everything in it is meant to be climbed, dug into or splashed, from Dinosaur Expedition to Water City. Check the hours before you go, because they're short, and the museum is closed on Tuesdays. Tickets are $25 for visitors and $21 for Illinois residents, kids and adults alike, and babies under 1 get in free. Our things to do at Navy Pier page has the details.

The Shedd Aquarium is the museum kids ask for by name. The beluga whales and dolphins in the Abbott Oceanarium are the draw, and next door the Polar Play Zone is set up for younger kids, with penguins, more underwater beluga windows and a starfish touch pool. From May through October, kids can pet cownose rays at Stingray Touch on the South Terrace. It's also the most expensive museum in town, so read our Shedd page on tickets before you go.

Down in Hyde Park, the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry can fill a whole day. Older kids go for the U-505 submarine, the coal mine and the indoor tornado in Science Storms. The Idea Factory is the museum's play space for its youngest visitors, and The Great Train Story, a huge model railroad, holds the attention of all ages. Our five best exhibits page will help you plan.

Two more worth knowing about. The Field Museum has the dinosaurs, and it's free for Illinois residents every Wednesday. In Lincoln Park, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum has the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven, a warm glass room full of live butterflies. And don't write off the Art Institute as an adults-only stop. Kids under 14 get in free every day, and the Thorne Miniature Rooms keep plenty of them busy. The rest are in our museum guide, and the free museum days page is worth a look if you live in Illinois.

Theatre for kids

Many of Chicago's theatres stage shows that work for families, and one company makes nothing else. Chicago Children's Theatre spent its first 10 years performing wherever it could find a stage. In 2017 it opened its own home, The Station, in a 1948 police station at 100 S. Racine Ave. in the West Loop, which it bought from the city for $1. The main stage, with 149 seats, sits where the jail cells used to be. Kids love that part. There's a free parking lot beside the building, or take the Blue Line to Racine or the Green or Pink Line to Morgan. The company also runs Red Kite shows and classes for kids on the autism spectrum.

The old version of this page also recommended Adventure Stage, a kids' company at Northwestern Settlement House in West Town. Its website now points to the settlement's programs, and no public season is posted, so check with the settlement before you plan around it.

Parks, fountains and the zoo

Chicago's parks are the best place to let the kids run. Start in Grant Park. In Millennium Park, kids pull faces at their reflections in the Bean, and at the Crown Fountain they stand under the glass towers waiting for the faces on the screens to spit water at them. The water runs from May into mid-October, weather permitting.

A few minutes' walk east, Maggie Daley Park is the part of Grant Park kids remember. Its 3-acre Play Garden is free and open 6am to 9pm. It's split into areas by age, with a big metal play ship and a slide crater for kids 5 to 12, and a play boat and a summer spray area for ages 2 to 5. Next to it are a climbing wall, an 18-hole mini golf course where you putt under a 6-foot Willis Tower ($14 for adults), and in winter, the skating ribbon.

The free Lincoln Park Zoo is open every day of the year. Older kids can catch the free keeper talks, like the seal training and the penguin feeding, while younger ones head for the Farm-in-the-Zoo, where they can help groom the goats, and the Pritzker Family Children's Zoo, with its underwater view of the beavers and otters. The train and the Endangered Species Carousel cost extra. In summer, add a couple of hours on the sand at one of the beaches. North Avenue Beach is a short walk from the zoo, and Foster Beach, farther north, is calmer.

The Magnificent Mile

Shopping with a cranky kid in tow doesn't sound like much fun, but the Magnificent Mile has a few stops aimed right at them. American Girl has a two-level store in Water Tower Place, at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Chestnut Street. Upstairs there's a café where kids eat with their dolls (reservations aren't required, but it fills up at lunch), a doll hair salon and ear piercing, while mom and dad whip out the charge card for the latest doll accessories. The LEGO store and the Chicago Sports Museum are in the same mall.

Two things from the old version of this page are gone. Hershey's Chicago has closed, and the old Ghirardelli shop around the corner is now a Hotel Chocolat. And the carriage ride down Michigan Avenue is history, because the city banned horse-drawn carriages starting January 1, 2021.

Up high and out on the water

Teenagers who are too cool for the zoo will still step out onto the glass Ledge at the Skydeck, 103 floors up in Willis Tower. Kids 3 to 11 pay less than adults, and it's on both CityPASS and Go City. At Navy Pier, the heated gondolas of the Centennial Wheel make it a year-round ride, and in summer the rest of Pier Park adds a carousel, a drop tower and mini golf.

A boat is another easy win. The water taxis are cheaper than a cruise and double as a river tour, and Kayak Chicago runs guided paddles on the river. In summer, the free Wednesday and Saturday night fireworks at Navy Pier are a good way to finish a day, if yours stay up that late. See our sightseeing tours page for the boat companies.

When it rains

Head for the museums, or make a long afternoon of the Children's Museum and the pier. On cold days the free Lincoln Park Conservatory, a short walk from the zoo, is warm and green and small enough for short legs. More ideas are in things to do on rainy days, winter activities and free and cheap things to do in Chicago.

Photo by wallyg