Chicago’s Indie Hotels
Chicago is as famous for Wrigley Field and deep-dish pizza as it is for its neighborhoods. See the Windy City in style by making one of these boutique hotels your home base.
> Hotel Lincoln: In the heart of Chicago’s leafy, stroller-pushing Lincoln Park neighborhood, just minutes north of downtown, all ages find their Sweet Home Chicago at this 1920s-era inn that reopened in 2012 with 184 family-friendly guest rooms across from Lake Michigan.
Guests benefit from local staff who point out their area favorites, such as Second City Comedy Club. “We guide guests to the parts of Chicago we enjoy,” hotel manager Onal Kucuk says.
> The Godfrey: Located within walking distance of Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile and Chicago’s densest concentration of contemporary art galleries, the 16-story Godfrey Hotel rises like a steel-and-glass stack of Legos in the River North neighborhood, adding to the city’s rich architectural lexicon as the first staggered steel truss building in town.
Don’t miss: Free Saturday gallery walks are organized by Chicago Gallery News.
> Renaissance Blackstone: A classic Chicago gem across from Grant Park in the Loop—the city’s central business district—the Blackstone first opened in 1910. Since then, the beaux-arts beauty has hosted every president from William Taft to Jimmy Carter.
A restoration in 2008 revealed gilded walnut paneling and brass banisters in the lobby. Docents from the nearby Chicago Architecture Foundation lead daily walking tours through the North or South Loop.
- Nat Geo Expeditions
This piece, written by Ceil Miller Bouchet, first appeared in the December 2014 issue of National Geographic Traveler magazine.
