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It can definitely be done in 1.5 days because I've done it and my name is not T'Challa. The reason why posters say nearly every city takes multiple days to see is because they assume most tourists want to see every single museum and spend hours there. You could probably stretch most visits to a large city out to several days if you spend a lot of time on museum visits. You could probably spend a lifetime in DC trying to see museums.
Even in NY, you can put together a reasonably ambitious itinerary that hits 95% of the major tourist attractions (Times Square, Rock Center, Central Park, St. Patrick's, Brooklyn Bridge, 9/11 Memorial, etc.). You could even squeeze in a short visit to a museum. You just can't spend hours waiting in line to see the ESB or Colbert.
Yes you can quite literally see the sites in like a day. But that’s not fun. People don’t want to see Wrigley, they want to go to a game. People don’t want to see the Sears Tower, people want to go to the observation deck. People don’t want to see Michigan Ave, people want to stop there. Etc etc.
Yes you can quite literally see the sites in like a day. But that’s not fun. People don’t want to see Wrigley, they want to go to a game. People don’t want to see the Sears Tower, people want to go to the observation deck. People don’t want to see Michigan Ave, people want to stop there. Etc etc.
By "people" you mean "you."
In theory, you could take as much time as you want in nearly any large city. But you can have a somewhat leisurely and enjoyable day in pretty much every U.S. city and see 95-100% of the major tourist attractions (with the exception of NYC and LA because they are so large and have more iconic attractions). No, you can't wander into a museum and stare at a single painting for 4 hours, but not all "people" want to do that. The museum thing is kind of a wash anyway since LA, SF, DC, Boston, Philly, etc. all have enough museums to occupy you for a full day if you're so inclined.
There are plenty of vlogs on YouTube where people capture a leisurely day in Manhattan and get to the vast majority of tourist attractions.
I've always been curious to know what percentage of first-time visitors to a city visit a museum. I would imagine Washington, DC would have one of the highest percentages in the world since that is the primary draw for many people to the nation's capital. NYC, Paris and London would be 2nd tier since they have iconic museums with instant name recognition--maybe 50% or so? I think Boston, SF, LA, Chicago and Philly would probably have similar percentages. Philly probably has more people who run up and down the steps of the museum than people who actually go inside.
In theory, you could take as much time as you want in nearly any large city. But you can have a somewhat leisurely and enjoyable day in pretty much every U.S. city and see 95-100% of the major tourist attractions (with the exception of NYC and LA because they are so large and have more iconic attractions). No, you can't wander into a museum and stare at a single painting for 4 hours, but not all "people" want to do that. The museum thing is kind of a wash anyway since LA, SF, DC, Boston, Philly, etc. all have enough museums to occupy you for a full day if you're so inclined.
There are plenty of vlogs on YouTube where people capture a leisurely day in Manhattan and get to the vast majority of tourist attractions.
People is the general population. There is a reason long weekends and Summer Breaks are bigger travel times than regular weekends. Because being somewhere from 10am Sat to 2pm Sun isn’t worth it.
It can definitely be done in 1.5 days because I've done it and my name is not T'Challa. The reason why posters say nearly every city takes multiple days to see is because they assume most tourists want to see every single museum and spend hours there. You could probably stretch most visits to a large city out to several days if you spend a lot of time on museum visits. You could probably spend a lifetime in DC trying to see museums.
Even in NY, you can put together a reasonably ambitious itinerary that hits 95% of the major tourist attractions (Times Square, Rock Center, Central Park, St. Patrick's, Brooklyn Bridge, 9/11 Memorial, etc.). You could even squeeze in a short visit to a museum. You just can't spend hours waiting in line to see the ESB or Colbert.
Driving by or running by sites is not fun at all. Nor very interesting. I am sure you could drive by all the sites in Chicago or NYC in a day and wave, but that is not a vacation, sorry. An afternoon at Wrigley, a walk at Navy Pier and eating at a restaurant and riding a Ferris Wheel, seeing the observation deck at Sears Tower, going to the beach or a street fair, shopping, taking a boat cruise and enjoying the sights is what a vacation is all about. What you are describing is a nerve wracking marathon - one and done.
Yes you can quite literally see the sites in like a day. But that’s not fun. People don’t want to see Wrigley, they want to go to a game. People don’t want to see the Sears Tower, people want to go to the observation deck. People don’t want to see Michigan Ave, people want to stop there. Etc etc.
Guess if Ferris Bueller can do Wrigley for a game and the Art Institute and ride in the German Heritage parade in one day? He saw Chicago and been there done it all is how you see it.
Guess most see Boston in a day??? or is it just Chicago? Sure if they only have a day or two. They pick and choose asking for a itinerary. Why threads pop up asking if only a couple days in a city? Like the NYC video posted.
Still any key museum is generally a 1/2 to full day adding meals and walking etc. Got to go out then for the evening. Tourist walk in walkable downtowns to attractions or buses and trains and other means if they can or need to point A to B.
I honestly do not know why you think even tourist do not want to "SEE" Wrigley Field off season (just to walk by it)? As it is still a Iconic (now) on the National Registry of landmarks list as is Fenway. Even between home games and off-season? How many days a year are home games even? Not many. You think all the bars by Wrigley and down Clark St just all close? Heck no. Since Covid crackdowns ended. They are HOPPING. Of course especially weekends. Summer over and all not 7 days a week now. Wrigley has some concerts also off-season going on also. City limits them cause of providing police protection. Owners want more concerts and of course. Some neighbors may not.
Maybe Fenway bars close off-season? I doubt it and you think visitors have no ideas to just SEE Fenway if in town in Boston? Not that it is a key to being world-class. These stadiums still matter as historic legacy structures. Many who have any interest in baseball, will still want to see these classics of Americana.
Gives me a reason to post the video for Halloween down Clark St next to Wrigley Field off-season as restrictions ended. This video clearly shows locals party off-season.
Wrigleyville bars for Halloween video. Sure mostly metro young people this night.
Still year-round by Wrigley are bars open. A off season visitor can still see Wrigley and visit its legacy bars and newer ones if they visit Chicago off-season.
Wrigley lit up in backround after 2:00 min mark and down Clark St bars hopping for Halloween last month.
Even if you're visiting when the Cubs are out of town, or during baseball's October-March off season, Wrigleyville is a worth a visit. This easy walking tour will show off one of Wrigleyville's hidden architectural gems. Clark Street is one of the great sightseeing streets in Chicago, so take a stroll in the urban atmosphere where hippies, punks, comics, artists and urban professionals all mix it up together.
Will they choose Wrigley or Fenway if absolutely no interest or a European soccer fan etc.? Perhaps no. Many North Americans sure.
On NOT GOING TO SEE OLE SEARS TOWER. Or Big John and like just no interest in walking and merely uber or taxi and back to hotel?.
Most still want to see the building for the building too. We luv us a skyline view because of the buildings, architecture. Seeing it on foot point A to B. Don't you think visitors to walk to see landmarks even if they did not go inside?
Bus tours are for seeing buildings too. Boat tour down the Chicago river and in Lake Michigan. Go on till too in early winter. Long past summer.
People go to N Michigan Ave and never go up Big John and no top of Big Willy Sears). Seeing the 100 story John Hancock is still of value to them year-round.
Why is one city being singled out again as to diminish its sights in any way possible?
A building or old stadium alone, does not make a city world-class. Still a sum of its institutions of legacy, history and notoriety are still eye-candy, even not going inside. They earned place for each or their city's renown for what they mean to a city and a Nation.
Guess if Ferris Bueller can do Wrigley for a game and the Art Institute and ride in the German Heritage parade in one day? He saw Chicago and been there done it all is how you see it.
Guess most see Boston in a day??? or is it just Chicago? Sure if they only have a day or two. They pick and choose asking for a itinerary. Why threads pop up asking if only a couple days in a city? Like the NYC video posted.
Still any key museum is generally a 1/2 to full day adding meals and walking etc. Got to go out then for the evening. Tourist walk in walkable downtowns to attractions or buses and trains and other means if they can or need to point A to B.
I honestly do not know why you think even tourist do not want to "SEE" Wrigley Field off season (just to walk by it)? As it is still a Iconic (now) on the National Registry of landmarks list as is Fenway. Even between home games and off-season? How many days a year are home games even? Not many. You think all the bars by Wrigley and down Clark St just all close? Heck no. Since Covid crackdowns ended. They are HOPPING. Of course especially weekends. Summer over and all not 7 days a week now. Wrigley has some concerts also off-season going on also. City limits them cause of providing police protection. Owners want more concerts and of course. Some neighbors may not.
Maybe Fenway bars close off-season? I doubt it and you think visitors have no ideas to just SEE Fenway if in town in Boston? Not that it is a key to being world-class. These stadiums still matter as historic legacy structures. Many who have any interest in baseball, will still want to see these classics of Americana.
Gives me a reason to post the video for Halloween down Clark St next to Wrigley Field off-season as restrictions ended. This video clearly shows locals party off-season.
Wrigleyville bars for Halloween video. Sure mostly metro young people this night.
Still year-round by Wrigley are bars open. A off season visitor can still see Wrigley and visit its legacy bars and newer ones if they visit Chicago off-season.
Wrigley lit up in backround after 2:00 min mark and down Clark St bars hopping for Halloween last month.
Even if you're visiting when the Cubs are out of town, or during baseball's October-March off season, Wrigleyville is a worth a visit. This easy walking tour will show off one of Wrigleyville's hidden architectural gems. Clark Street is one of the great sightseeing streets in Chicago, so take a stroll in the urban atmosphere where hippies, punks, comics, artists and urban professionals all mix it up together.
Will they choose Wrigley or Fenway if absolutely no interest or a European soccer fan etc.? Perhaps no. Many North Americans sure.
On NOT GOING TO SEE OLE SEARS TOWER. Or Big John and like just no interest in walking and merely uber or taxi and back to hotel?.
Most still want to see the building for the building too. We luv us a skyline view because of the buildings, architecture. Seeing it on foot point A to B. Don't you think visitors to walk to see landmarks even if they did not go inside?
Bus tours are for seeing buildings too. Boat tour down the Chicago river and in Lake Michigan. Go on till too in early winter. Long past summer.
People go to N Michigan Ave and never go up Big John and no top of Big Willy Sears). Seeing the 100 story John Hancock is still of value to them year-round.
Why is one city being singled out again as to diminish its sights in any way possible?
A building or old stadium alone, does not make a city world-class. Still a sum of its institutions of legacy, history and notoriety are still eye-candy, even not going inside. They earned place for each or their city's renown for what they mean to a city and a Nation.
I think you totally misunderstood me. What I mean is when people visit you can absolutly technically see the whole city in a day. But Tourists don’t just run up to Wrigley take a picture and run back down to Navy Pier look at it and run to the next thing.
When people go to Wrigley they do the ballpark tour of go to a game. A baseball game is like 5+ hours between The pre game festivities and the actual game. It’s like 1/2 a day. So if you do Wrigley you can do like one other thing that day. You’re not doing Wrigley the Art Institute. Sears Tower, and Navy Pier in one day
Same thing with the Sears tower it can technically be done in like 5 minutes but most will spend time there to go to the observation deck.
If you think you can do Chicago in a day all you’re doing is going through a Google image catalog
Bay Area has much better suburbs than Chicago. Chicago burbs aren't particularly interesting, although the North Shore is at least architecturally more interesting and more scenic. Commonly cited places like Forest Park, Oak Park, Wheaton, Wilmette, Park Ridge are big snores. Naperville is just a colder Plano. Places like Bolingbrook might as well be in Indiana.
I like the city of Chicago, but the burbs are flat and monotonous. And worse, there's very little nature to access outside of the lake. Bay Area is a different experience in that regard.
I'm voting for SF too, but are the Bay Area suburbs really any more interesting as towns? Most of the housing is just the same generic Mediterranean style (or other standard American styles), and the suburban downtowns there seem on par with Chicagoland ones. I can't see the average tourist spending much time in the suburbs of either metro, unless they're doing a winery tour at Napa I guess.
Bay Area has much better suburbs than Chicago. Chicago burbs aren't particularly interesting, although the North Shore is at least architecturally more interesting and more scenic. Commonly cited places like Forest Park, Oak Park, Wheaton, Wilmette, Park Ridge are big snores. Naperville is just a colder Plano. Places like Bolingbrook might as well be in Indiana.
I like the city of Chicago, but the burbs are flat and monotonous. And worse, there's very little nature to access outside of the lake. Bay Area is a different experience in that regard.
I think it's understandable that you're saying that you find the suburbs flat, but the post I was replying to was about having nice, quaint downtowns and not the surrounding topography. Chicago does in fact have a comparable and likely greater number of nice, quaint downtowns in its suburbs than the Bay Area does.
I agree that Chicago suburbs have less dramatic topography and natural bits than the Bay Area suburbs. I will say that it's not just the really, really big lake it has though as it also has a lot of smaller lakes and rivers/creeks which isn't that common in the Bay Area. That's certainly not specific to Chicago suburbs, but coming from California, having a ton of small lakes is kind of interesting though not general tourism interesting outside of the big lake.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
By "people" you mean "you."
In theory, you could take as much time as you want in nearly any large city. But you can have a somewhat leisurely and enjoyable day in pretty much every U.S. city and see 95-100% of the major tourist attractions (with the exception of NYC and LA because they are so large and have more iconic attractions). No, you can't wander into a museum and stare at a single painting for 4 hours, but not all "people" want to do that. The museum thing is kind of a wash anyway since LA, SF, DC, Boston, Philly, etc. all have enough museums to occupy you for a full day if you're so inclined.
There are plenty of vlogs on YouTube where people capture a leisurely day in Manhattan and get to the vast majority of tourist attractions.
He means me, too. I definitely have people I know who tried to tag as many of the major sites as quickly as possible and call it a day. That's fine, that is a certain kind of visitor. I don't do that, and I can spend a pretty fully day at the Art Institute of Chicago whereas I think there's a good deal of people who can probably just skip the museum entirely or at most just take a picture of the exterior. I will say that the general collection of the museums in Chicago is more appealing to me personally and maybe overall better than that of San Francisco.
Also, the idea that that video of a day in NYC is a leisurely day is, eh.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-30-2021 at 07:15 AM..
Driving by or running by sites is not fun at all. Nor very interesting. I am sure you could drive by all the sites in Chicago or NYC in a day and wave, but that is not a vacation, sorry. An afternoon at Wrigley, a walk at Navy Pier and eating at a restaurant and riding a Ferris Wheel, seeing the observation deck at Sears Tower, going to the beach or a street fair, shopping, taking a boat cruise and enjoying the sights is what a vacation is all about. What you are describing is a nerve wracking marathon - one and done.
You need to understand the context of my statement. A poster said that San Francisco is so small that it would become boring and repetitive after 2-3 days. In response, I asked what city would not become boring or repetitive after 2-3 days since very few cities (London, Paris, etc.) have SOOOOO many major attractions that you simply can't get to them all in 3 days. Then I said that in nearly all American cities, you can see almost all of their major attractions in 1 to 1.5 days. The exceptions, I stated, were NYC and Los Angeles because they are gargantuan cities with more famous landmarks than probably all other U.S. cities combined.
The reality is that if you were to write up a list of major attractions in SF and Chicago (just the city propers) it would probably take the same amount of time to get through them. The fact that Chicago is much larger is mostly irrelevant because most "people" are not trying to go and see blighted neighborhoods or uninteresting mid-density neighborhoods that make up a large proportion of the city's 223 sq. miles. Chicago may be a significantly larger city than SF, but the average tourist is only interested in a very tiny sliver of it, as is the case with London, NYC, etc.
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