Hop on Hop off Bus Tours in Chicago

Booking a seat on the Chicago sightseeing bus is a perfect way to familiarize yourself with the city and reduce the time you have to spend touring the most iconic areas of the windy city. Daytime, ghost tours, mob and crime tours, minibus tours, barrel bus tours.... Are you ready to get to know Chicago on wheels?

Chicago's tour buses will take you to the most important attractions of the city and some of them will take you to residential neighborhoods. In addition, compared to the more traditional alternatives, in Chicago you can also choose more special buses:

• Book a seat on the Chicago Big Bus: a two-hour bus tour with free stops on which you can choose between different routes, Classic, Premium or Deluxe.
• Take a tour of Chicago by minibus: you will travel with a maximum of 12 people and make 4 stops. You will be able to photograph places like the Chicago River, Buckingham Fountain, Lincoln Park, the Rookery Building, the Museum Campus or the skyline of the Windy City.
• Take a keg bus beer tour of Chicago: you will cross Chicago by keg bus, tasting different types of traditional beer and soaking up the history of the beverage in this city.
• Take a mafia and crime bus tour of Chicago: enjoy an exciting tour of the crime and mafia of Chicago's streets on a 2-hour tour aboard a comfortable bus while your guide explains true crime secrets about Chicago gangsters such as Al Capone, the Untouchables, the Chicago Mafia, Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti and many more.
• Hire a Chicago ghost bus tour: for two and a half hours, a historian guide will tell you the scariest ghost stories of the largest city in Illinois.

Secondly, there are some that follow the traditional concept of having a guide or audio guide on board the vehicle to highlight the architectural landmarks that surround them, while others are more focused on details of the history of the community. Just as is the case with tours that focus on its gangster and mafia past.

Book a seat on the Chicago Big Bus and discover the most important monuments of the city of Chicago, such as:

• Chicago Theater.
• Grant Park.
• Buckingham Fountain.
• Navy Pier, on the shores of Lake Michigan.
• The iconic Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier.
• Northerly Island, an artificial island, on the shore of Lake Michigan.
• Soldier Field soccer stadium.
• The Adler Planetarium, America's first science museum.
• The Wrigley Building skyscraper.
• The Willis Tower.
• Legendary buildings of the Chicago Loop financial district.
• The Art Institute of Chicago.

In addition, the Big Bus makes strategic stops near major attractions so you can explore downtown at your own pace.

By the way, if you want additional benefits, such as a non-stop night tour to see the Chicago skyline illuminated, choose your Deluxe ticket when you book your seat.

Interesting details

The first bus departs at 10:00 am and the last bus at 5:00 pm. This way, you can use the Big Bus as a convenient means of transportation, hopping on and off as often as you like in the areas that are most convenient for you.

Buses depart every 30 to 45 minutes, so you have choices throughout the day.

If you book a minibus tour of Chicago you will get close to the following monuments:

• Chicago River: where you can photograph the Wrigley Building, Tribune Tower, Marina City, Chicago River, among others.
• Buckingham Fountain: located in Grant Park and considered one of the most beautiful fountains in the world.
• Lincoln Park: which houses a zoo, beautiful gardens, important sculptures and fountains.
• Rookery Building: one of the world's first skyscrapers.
• Chicago Skyline: for one of the best panoramic views of Chicago.
• Museum Campus: located next to Lake Michigan and where you will be able to take unparalleled photos.

In addition, during the trip you will make four stops to take pictures and, if you choose when booking, you can sail aboard a cruise ship with bar.

The Chicagoans' love for beer has reached such an extent that today there are more than 50 options of pubs and breweries in the city. If you are also a lover of this alcoholic beverage, no doubt hiring a beer tour in Chicago in which you will tour the city aboard a keg bus is a top plan for you.

Along the way you will learn about the history of beer and, of course, you will be able to taste multiple varieties of this beverage.

Booking the Mafia and crime tour of Chicago you will visit iconic Chicago buildings such as The Biograph Theater, where multiple murders took place, and the Holy Name Cathedral, where the St. Valentine's Day massacre occurred in 1929, aboard a bus, in a comfortable and relaxed way.

In addition, you will be able to walk the streets of neighborhoods such as Streeterville, the Gold Coast or the Loop where many dark stories of the city's past are hidden.

If you are a lover of mind-blowing stories of organized crime and the mafia, this bus tour is the perfect plan for you.

If horror stories are your thing, book the ghost bus tour and discover the most terrifying legends of the city with a historian guide.

Along the bus tour, you will learn about the most shocking points of the city' s black history:

• The abandoned graves in the old city cemetery.
• The site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
• The ghost ships on Lake Michigan.
• The nooks and crannies of the Fort Dearborn massacre.
• The great Chicago fire.
• The Eastland River disaster.
• The lair of the Devil Baby House of Hull.

A ghostly plan only suitable for the bravest!

Many tourists arriving in big cities are often faced with the problem that they want to see the structure, know about the history behind its construction and photograph it. However, having to walk several blocks to get from one site to another is a real inconvenience. However, a nice and comfortable vehicle is an excellent way to marvel at Chicago' s architecture without having to spend several days walking around the area that can be visited in a couple of hours thanks to these bus routes.

The issue of comfort is the second of the great benefits associated with the best tour buses in Chicago. This is due to the fact that being in a vehicle is something that all families have experienced at some point and for young children it can be a more favorable scenario than having to walk several miles a day to go to the places that interest their parents.

In fact, a bus that has internal air conditioning, has two floors and has no roof are one of those activities to do in Chicago with children during the parts of the trip that are focused on cultural learning of the beauty of this city.

The duration of the tour bus tours in Chicago is adjusted to the type of route offered by the transportation company. There are some that last 2 or 3 hours, others extend for about 5 hours and there are also some that are even available to you on more than one date if you purchase a package with these conditions.

In addition, sometimes the tour group gets off the vehicle to tour the attraction, while in others it remains as a bus tour that is accompanied by a guide or an audio guide with the intention that passengers learn about the historical significance of the environment they are passing through.

The tickets that give you access to the best sightseeing buses in Chicago are quite cheap for the rates that are usually handled for this type of tours in other big cities:

• If you hire a seat on the Big Bus in Chicago you will pay 46 euros.
• If you take a tour of Chicago by minibus you will pay 44 euros.
• Hiring a beer bus-barrel tour of Chicago you will pay 92 euros.
• Taking a mafia and crime bus tour of Chicago costs 40 euros.
• Hiring a ghost bus tour of Chicago costs 51 euros.

Most commonly there is one for morning, one for noon and one for mid-afternoon. Some have night routes, but this is not as usual.

Instead, stop-and-go buses usually have up to 15 vehicles running at the same time and so you can ride whichever one you want. Although as long as it is a time that is within the daily operating time frame.

You also have to keep in mind that the Big Bus includes access to an app that lets you know where the next bus closest to your stop is and how long it takes to get to that point in the city, thus improving the experience and avoiding long waits when you could really be sitting in some cafe or restaurant near this pick-up point.