This guide covers the big public places along Chicago's lakefront: Navy Pier, the Art Institute of Chicago and the three museums of the Museum Campus, the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium. Two of them grew out of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the other three opened in the decades that followed, and together they line up neatly along one walk by the lake.
Navy Pier
Navy Pier opened on 15 July 1916 as Municipal Pier, a working pier for freight and passenger ships that also offered Chicagoans space for leisure by the lake. It was designed by the architect Charles Sumner Frost and stretches about 3,300 feet into Lake Michigan. In 1927 it was renamed Navy Pier to honour the naval veterans of the First World War.
Its later life was just as varied. In the Second World War it became a US Navy training centre, and about 18,000 naval aviators learned to land on two aircraft carriers converted from lake steamers, the USS Wolverine and USS Sable, out on the lake. After the war the University of Illinois held classes here, the beginning of what became the University of Illinois at Chicago. The pier was redeveloped and reopened in 1995 as a place for entertainment, and it is a Chicago Landmark. It is the first stop of our scavenger hunt.
- The Centennial Wheel, opened in 2016 for the pier's 100th anniversary; at 196 feet it is taller than the wheel it replaced.
- The Crystal Gardens, an indoor botanical garden under a six-storey glass atrium.
- The far east end, with open views back to the skyline and out over the lake.
The Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute was founded in 1879 as the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts and took its present name in 1882. Its Beaux-Arts building on Michigan Avenue, by the Boston firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, was built for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition as the World's Congress Auxiliary Building, on the understanding that the museum would move in afterwards, which it did. In 2009 the Modern Wing by Renzo Piano opened, making it the second-largest art museum in the United States.
The collection holds some of the best-known pictures in American life: Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, Grant Wood's American Gothic and Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. The museum is one of the stops of our scavenger hunt.
- The two bronze lions by Edward Kemeys at the entrance, unveiled in 1894; the city often dresses them up for big occasions.
- The Thorne Miniature Rooms: 68 tiny rooms at a scale of one to twelve, showing interiors from the Middle Ages to the 1930s.
- The reconstructed Trading Room of Louis Sullivan's Chicago Stock Exchange, demolished in 1972, and the Nichols Bridgeway that links the Modern Wing with Millennium Park.
The Field Museum
The Field Museum began as the Columbian Museum of Chicago, set up in 1893 to keep the collections assembled for the World's Columbian Exposition. The department store owner Marshall Field was its first major benefactor, and it was renamed after him in 1905. In 1921 it moved into its present Classical Revival building at the south end of Grant Park, designed by Daniel Burnham's office.
Its star is Sue, the most famous Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in the world, named after the fossil hunter Sue Hendrickson who found it. Sue was unveiled in 2000 in Stanley Field Hall, the great central hall, and in 2018 moved to a suite of its own upstairs in the Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet. Its place in the hall was taken by Máximo, a cast of the titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum, long enough for its head to reach the first-floor balcony. The Field Museum is a stop on our scavenger hunt.
- The man-eating lions of Tsavo, which attacked railway workers in Kenya in 1898.
- Inside Ancient Egypt, with a three-storey replica of the mastaba tomb of Unas-Ankh and real mummies.
The Shedd Aquarium
The Shedd Aquarium opened in 1930, a gift to the city from John G. Shedd, who had worked his way up to lead Marshall Field's company; he died before it opened. Built by Graham, Anderson, Probst and White to match its classical neighbours, it was one of the first inland aquariums with a permanent saltwater collection, and in its early years sea water was brought in by special railway cars. The Abbott Oceanarium opened in 1991 and the Wild Reef in 2003. It is a stop on our scavenger hunt.
- The sea creatures carved into the building: dolphins, octopuses, turtle shells, waves and Poseidon's trident.
- The view through the glass wall of the Oceanarium, where the aquarium water seems to run straight into the lake.
The Adler Planetarium
The Adler Planetarium opened on 12 May 1930 as the first planetarium in the United States. It was funded by Max Adler, a former executive of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and designed in Art Deco style by Ernest Grunsfeld Jr. It stands at the tip of Northerly Island, on a peninsula reaching into Lake Michigan, and it was named a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Inside, alongside the domed theatres, you can see the Gemini 12 space capsule and a collection of antique scientific instruments. It is the last stop of our scavenger hunt.
- The twelve-sided building in rainbow granite, with a bronze zodiac plaque by Alfonso Iannelli at each corner.
- Henry Moore's sculpture Man Enters the Cosmos, which also works as a sundial, and the view back across the water to the skyline.
How to see them in one walk
Start at Navy Pier and follow the lakefront path south across the river on the Roosevelt bridge. Turn inland through Maggie Daley Park and Millennium Park to the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue, then walk south through Grant Park past Buckingham Fountain. Keep to the lake shore until you reach the Museum Campus, where the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium stand close together. Each museum deserves hours on its own, so pick one or two to go inside and admire the others from the outside, or split the walk over two days.
See Chicago with World City Trail
Our Chicago scavenger hunt turns the lakefront into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from Navy Pier to the Adler Planetarium, and all five places in this guide are among them, along with the Roosevelt bridge, Maggie Daley Park, Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain and Queen's Landing. At each stop you solve a puzzle and hear a short story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Chicago, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Chicago scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Chicago →
Play the outdoor escape game in Chicago →
Facts checked in October 2026.