It’s travel planning time and once again we are going to Chicago. We are in Chicago in 2008 as one of the first out of Ontario trips we took. We had a great time then so this year when we wanted a trip that was going to be an easy family thing this is what first came to my mind.

Flight
I ended up booking our flight on good old Air Canada. I was considering booking with Porter because we are close to downtown and it might have been easier to make it to the Island airport instead of Person. But I’ve read just enough bad things about flying into Midway in Chicago that I decided against it. It would have also been a bit more expensive per ticket. I remember accessibility at O’Hare not being too bad for myself at least so we shouldn’t fun into too much trouble. The plan is to take the L train downtown which I did last time and it worked out just fine.

Hotel

Hotels in downtown Chicago are quite expensive. Especially when you factor in the US dollar to Canadian dollar exchange rates. This kind of make the choice are because you really don’t want to mess it up. I was going to go with a Hilton near the park but when I called to speak with someone about rate they seems a bit unorganized and just wanted to make a sale. Contrast that with when I called the Virgin hotel to ask about accessibility and they were super helpful. This won me over so I went with them. We booked a large two queen bed room so we should be all set. The room has a roll in shower with fold down seat which should be perfect for me too.

Now the scramble is getting passports for the rest of the family as we haven’t been outside of Canada in over 5 years. I look at a lot of document at work each day but trying to navigate government website is still one of the most annoying thing possible. Also going to start planing our main activities. We are going to try and take it easy and not squeeze in too much, maybe just one major thing a day.

More to come.