Hotels By City: Cheap Hotels, Hotel Guides & Hotel Blogs

If you have kids who like trains, one of the coolest things you can do in Chicago this Christmas season is go to the Botanic Garden. The Wonderland Express, located at the site's Regenstein Center, is full of holiday fun and fantasy.

 You'll travel through rooms and halls decorated with gingerbread houses and wreaths of candy, along with Christmas trees (of course). Then you'll come to the trains--traveling through and around evergreen displays, ...

Starting Friday, you can celebrate Halloween right here in the city. The 11th annual Chicagoween festival will take place Oct. 12-Oct. 31 at Daley Plaza. The civic center plaza features many events throughout the year, from markets to political rallies--but for the last half of October, it'll play host to a ghostly, ghoul-filled event that's the centerpiece of Chicago's Halloween celebration, and it'll be renamed Pumpkin Plaza. Rumor has it this ...

August is always chock full of fun in Chicago, and one of the reasons is this weekend's 49th Annual Chicago Air & Water Show. The great thing about this exciting event is that you don't have to be in one particularly crowded area to see the planes and boats, although it does help if you're near the lakefront. In the past few years it always seems like we're always at baseball games ...

The summers are just packed in Chicago. Every weekend, especially in August, seems full of festivals of every kind--food fairs, art fairs, concerts, Venetian Night, fireworks, the air and sea show. The place to be this Friday, Saturday and Sunday is Lollapalooza, of course. I plan to go, and so about 50 percent of all the people I know. The other 50 percent are going to avoid the city like ...

Did you know that the next "Survivor" season is being cast in the Chicago area this Saturday? Hundreds of (possibly insane) hopefuls will be at the Brookfield Zoo July 7 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. for an open casting call. We're not exactly sure what the audition consists of--maybe an interview and some physical challenges of some kind? In any case, you have to be over 21 to participate, and ...

Chicago radio station 93XRT is a great source for concert information. Check out their listings here.

Chicago is a great place to be on the 4th of July.  The fireworks over the lake are fantastic, and the hustle and bustle of the Taste of Chicago is enough to keep anyone busy.  The City of Chicago puts on a huge fireworks display tonight, visible anywhere you have a view of the air above the lake near downtown.  I'm sure there are people staking out a good spot ...

When I first moved to Chicago, I thought the Taste of Chicago, held every summer at the end of June and the beginning of July, was such a cool event. After all, one of the best things about living in this town is trying out new restaurants. To have so many vendors (over 70 this year) available all in one place with delicious samples wherever you look--well, my only problem ...

If you're coming to Chicago between June 29 and July 8, you'd better be going to the Taste of Chicago. How could you miss a sampling of foods from more than 70 restaurants, dancing the calories away at a variety of concerts with free admission, the entire Chicago Country Music Festival and a crazy long list of performances, demonstrations and events at the Taste's various stages?

If you're a health nut, you ...

All this week, the Gen Art Chicago Film Festival will bring to Chicago a series of independent films - and some of their stars, too.

If you're in it for the celebrity elbow-rubbing, come see Heather Graham on Tuesday, June 26; Alan Cumming on Friday, June 29, or a number of other actors and filmmakers during the festival.  

If you're in it for the films, you can catch Broken, a film about a haunted L.A. waitress; ...