If it came from outer space, the Adler Planetarium’s got it – meteorites to touch, public telescopes to view the stars, 3-D lectures to learn about supernovas. But the best thing about the Adler is more down-to-earth – its front lawn, offering tremendous city views. Pack a picnic, arrive before dusk, and watch the skyline’s lights turn on. This site...

The second-largest art museum in the country, the Art Institute houses treasures from around the globe, including a fantastic selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings. Top billing goes to Georges Seurat’s pointillist A Sunday on La Grande Jatte and Grant Wood’s American Gothic. The Modern Wing hangs Picassos and Miros on its 3rd floor. Wherever you enter (i.e. Michigan Ave...

Located on Navy Pier, the Children’s Museum features exhibits where kids can climb a schooner, excavate dinosaur bones, bowl in an imitation alley, and generate hydroelectric power (much more fun and splashy than it sounds). Follow up with an expedition down the Pier itself, home to a Ferris wheel, swing, carousel and fountain to splash in, among other child-friendly treats....

DePaul University’s new art museum is compact enough to browse in less than 30 minutes. Most of the galleries host changing exhibits of 20th century works. Pieces from the permanent collection – by Claes Oldenburg, cartoonist Chris Ware, architect Daniel Burnham and more – hang in a second floor room. It’s definitely worth a swing through if you’re in the...

Collections of dinosaurs, gems, bugs, mummies and enormous taxidermied lions fill the halls at the sprawling Field Museum. The star of the show is Sue, the largest Tyrannosaurus rex yet discovered. Grab a map at the entrance and make a plan about what to see. Top draws include the Evolving Planet exhibit (home to most of the dinos and real,...

Hiding in the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, this little museum is good for a quick look-see. The most amusing exhibits include a giant glass cube stuffed with one million $1 bills (demonstrating the size of so much money, which weighs 2000 lb), and a counterfeit display distinguishing real bills from fakes. There’s a nifty photo opp where you can...

The Museum of Science and Industry is enormous, packed with a WWII German U-boat ($12 extra to tour it), a life-sized coal mine shift (another $12), a Boeing 727 airplane, chicken hatchery, palatial doll house, and a tsunami that rolls toward you, among many other exhibits. Make a plan of attack for what you want to see, because it’s a...

Though it’s often overshadowed by the big-money institutions downtown, the Museum of Mexican Art – the largest Latino arts center in the U.S. – wins big raves. The vivid permanent collection includes classical paintings, shining gold altars, skeleton-rich folk art, beadwork, and exhibits on the Mexican Muralist Movement (helpful for understanding the paintings that decorate the Pilsen neighborhood’s walls). The...

In Lincoln Park near other freebies including the zoo, conservatory and Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, this kid-oriented museum has a year-round butterfly haven (2nd floor), rooftop garden with bird boardwalk, and marsh filled with turtles and frogs (1st floor). For the adults in the crowd, it also hosts cool nature-focused photography and art exhibits.

University of Chicago archaeologists have stuffed their museum with exotic Near East artifacts. Ancient societies from Egypt, Nubia, Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia get their due. Highlights include a 17-foot, 6-ton statue of King Tut and a replica stone carved with Hammurabi’s famous code of laws (‘eye for an eye’). Oodles of mummies, clay tablets, canopic jars and papyrus scrolls...

The collection, housed at the University of Chicago, holds 5000 years worth of fine arts. Highlights include 20th century paintings and sculptures, central European expressionism, and East Asian art. De Goya, Warhol and Kandinsky and just a few of the prominent artists hanging around. Frank Lloyd Wright’s table and chairs show off here too. It only takes a half-hour or...