[tdb7893]

I liked to bike the lake there, the lakefront in Chicago is pretty underestimated by people who don't live there. For hiking there's the dunes or Starved Rock but those are super busy a lot of the year (and at this point I've been to both a million times). I ended up needing to drive at least like 2.5 hours into Wisconsin for long hikes, which is a longer drive than I want for just a day trip. That means for the outdoors I up mostly just went birding in parks in the city, generally Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary or Jackson Park, which were really nice but not the same vibe as a good hike (there are some birding groups that will meet around the city that were nice to go with).