City: Chicago, IL

Category: Parks & Recreation

Telephone: (773) 256-0903

Insider Pick:

Description: Venturing along the paved paths and quaint bridges of the 600-acre Jackson Park reveals a welcomingly unkempt variety of woodland, prairie, shrubland, and several lagoons—anglers can find a shady, quiet spot for tossing a line here. The hum of cars whirring down adjacent Lake Shore Drive is drowned out by the voices of ducks, geese, and birds—bird-watching is big, in fact, with a count of about 250 species that make a migratory landing here. Keep walking and you’ll come upon the Osaka Garden, a Japanese-style garden that was originally envisioned by Frederick Law Olmsted in his landscape plan for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. After several dips into near disappearance and subsequent resurrections, the Osaka Garden is once again a lovely stop with decorative stones and bridges (some graffiti too, unfortunately). An 18-hole, par-70 golf course is located at Richards Drive (773-667-0524), and Jackson Park is also the east-side bookend to Washington Park, connected by the Midway Plaisance, the site of midway exhibits at the World’s Fair. Though the attractions are all gone, if you look north, you’ll get a backside view of the grand Museum of Science and Industry, the only remaining building built for the fair.