Go Chicago

A Chicago visitor guide that points to passes and tour companies

Go Chicago is a travel guide website for Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, built around the tagline "Stay, Shop, Eat and Play!" It neither runs tours nor sells tickets itself. Its pages describe attractions, tour types and local tour companies, and send readers to other sites to buy, mainly Go City's Chicago passes. Every page carries the same disclosure: "This site contains affiliate links and I may be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on the links. This in no way increases your cost." So a purchase made through it is a purchase from Go City or from the tour company, not from Go Chicago. Its coverage is Chicago and nearby suburbs such as Oak Park, which it places about 10 miles west of downtown. Its menu has sections for tourist passes (the Go City Chicago All-Inclusive Pass and Chicago CityPASS), museums, hotels, restaurants, architecture, shopping and news.

The pass pitch and coupon codes

The homepage says: "Looking for a Go Chicago Pass or Explorer Pass by Go City? Get a discount at the official site." It offers the coupon code GO5CMANTIS for an extra 5% off "even if they are having a sale", valid when "Purchase by September 30th", and warns that readers "must click through from this page." A second code, CMGOCITY5, appears on the Frank Lloyd Wright page. The site's summary of the All-Inclusive pass is "29 Attractions and Tours for one Price", "SKIP LINES at the biggest attractions" and "Most people save about 35%". For the Explorer Pass it says buyers seeing 3, 4 or 5 attractions over a few days "save about 25%" on walk-up prices. These figures are the guide's own claims about another company's product.

Tour types and the companies it names

The tours overview sorts Chicago tours into bus, boat, bike, walking, food and architecture tours, and names companies for each. The bus page explains the difference between narrated sightseeing tours of the North Side or South Shore, hop-on hop-off buses, night tours along the Magnificent Mile, and themed food and drink tours, some family-friendly and some for adults only, noting that depending on the company "the tours can include food and drink or only transportation." Among the named companies:

• Gray Line, which "offers 5 different tour options in Chicago", including the Chicago Grand City tour, the Chicago North Side tour and the Historic Chicago South Shore tour.
• Big Bus Chicago, with open-top double-decker hop-on hop-off buses.
• City Cruises Chicago (listed under City Experiences Seadog), with "75-minute architecture tours", dinner cruises and speedboat rides from Navy Pier and the Chicago River.
• Shoreline Sightseeing, which the page says has run lake and river tours "for 80 years".
• Tall Ship Windy, sailing from Navy Pier on an approximately 150-foot schooner, with a Lakeside Architecture Sail and a Skyline Sail.
• ExperienceFirst, with walking tours on architecture, mob history and haunted themes, described as known for small groups.
• Chicago Crime Tours, a bus tour of crime scenes linked to John Dillinger and Al Capone.

The bike page adds Bike n' Roll, whose bike tours include a Lincoln Park Bike Adventure, a Bike at Night Tour, a Friendly Neighborhoods Bike Tour and a Bike and Brewery Tour. The page says the brewery tour is 21+ and the others are family-friendly, and that Segway tours "require that all participants be at least 12 years of age". It also mentions Bobby's Bike Hike, whose tours include an Old Chicago Gangster Bike Tour, a Halloween "Fright Hike", a kid-specific tour and Bikes, Bites, and Brews tours, City Segway and the Chicago Architecture Center, a non-profit whose favorites include its river cruise and an Art Deco Skyscrapers tour.

Attraction guides, with practical detail

The attraction pages go further than the tour overviews. The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio page explains that the site is owned and operated by the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust, which runs daily tours, and that Wright lived and worked there for nearly 20 years from 1889. Its tips say the home is open for tours every day from 10:00am to 4:00pm, that there is free street parking and access by the CTA Green Line or the Metra West Line, and that photography is allowed but tripods and selfie sticks are not. On accessibility it is specific: most of the Studio is wheelchair accessible, but the Home is not, because every entrance has stairs. It notes the home is included on the Go Chicago Card and the Explorer Pass, but adds that "at $18, it's better to just pay admission" than to spend an Explorer choice on it, and gives the Trust's phone number and website. The history section covers Wright doubling the house in 1895, adding the Studio in 1898, keeping his studio there until 1910, and the site's designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1976, and it singles out the children's playroom with its vaulted ceiling and Arabian Nights mural.

The bike page describes the 18-mile Lakefront Trail from Ardmore Street to 71st Street, passing the Lincoln Park Zoo, Soldier Field, the Museum of Science & Industry and Navy Pier, and a loop through Millennium Park, Maggie Daley Park and Grant Park.

What it does not settle

Because Go Chicago only links out, it has no booking, cancellation or refund terms of its own; those belong to Go City or the tour company chosen. The tour overviews rarely give prices, durations or group sizes for the named companies (the 75-minute architecture cruise is an exception), so those details have to be checked on each company's site. The coupon dates are printed without a year, and the site does not say when its pass summaries were last updated.

Go Chicago suits first-time visitors who want an overview of Chicago's tour options, from lake cruises to mob history bus tours, and some candid advice on whether a Go City pass is worth it for a given attraction. The Frank Lloyd Wright page is a good example of that advice. Travelers ready to book should treat it as a starting point and confirm prices and terms with the seller.