Top 10 Chicago (Eyewitness Top 10 Travel Guides)

This was a wonderful introduction to Chicago and definitely
made my trip more enjoyable. I have used many of the top 10/eyewitness travel guides throughout the years, and really feel that Top 10 Chicago was one of the best. It captured the best the city has to offer, and was perfect for someone who had less than a week in the city. With the help of my Top 10 guide I made it to 8 of the 10 top sites. One of the best features of this book is its size - it's compact, chock-full of information, and easily fits into any bag/purse. The book also included a very helpful subway/street map and, because the book is so thin, I didn't feel like I was being conspicuous when I referred to the guide in public. DK continues its tradition of
including top-notch photography, and there was also a lot of
background information about each of the Top 10 sites. My
book was a copyright 2004 and all of the information (prices, free museum days, discounts) was still the same ; I would...Read more

What do you need when you are in a big city for the first time and just for 4 days? You need a simple guide, one that you can take with you while you're exploring the area. Using the top 10 system you can find all the highlights in a few seconds. As I need some structure in my exploration too, I used this guide in combination with Frommer's Chicago day by day. It made my visit to Chicago to a success. There will certainly be a next time.

It's occurred to me that even though I've lived in Chicago for a good number of years, I still don't know the city *that* well. I picked this book up on a whim since I've had good experiences with DK travel books in the past and it floored me because of the amount of things I haven't been to and history I felt like I should have known. It's a combination of both me sucking at Chicago history and this being a really good book.

Most travel books suck, but the DK Top Ten books are essentially the most distilled books you can get for a city and make a good book you keep in a pocket or in a bag while exploring.