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Yeah those pictures didn't excite me enough to venture outside of Downtown Chicago. The Bay Area has way more variety than what Chicagoland has to offer. Don't get me wrong there's some nice burbs out in Chicagoland but the Bay area has more imo.
Where Chicago would win over SF NOW is it's core. SF homeless issue is just too much in the way where you would definitely enjoy Chicago more on a vacation trip.
I don't think they're enough for a tourist to go out to visit them either, but I made that post in reply to the quaint downtowns of smaller municipalities in the Bay Area. Chicagoland has the equivalent to such, but I wouldn't put these as a high priority for anyone traveling to either place as tourists. I don't think the Bay Area has more or better such than Chicagoland, but it does have some very scenic natural environments and vineyards in North Bay and the point of visiting those isn't really the quaint downtowns.
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Originally Posted by 18Montclair
No. Downtown SF is not "sleepy" at all vs Downtown Chicagoand and I dont know where this idea comes from.
In fact, pound for pound, Downtown San Francisco is more vibrant because it's more dense and more compact.
Downtown melds into Neighborhoods seamlessly in SF more so than in Chicago, precisely because of the compact nature of the city. This is both a blessing and a curse as the Tenderloin exposes the rawest problems SF has for everyone to see, its because we cant avoid it as there's nowhere to hide them lol
In fact, I remember looking into daily pedestrian counts years back and Mission and 4th Street in SF had the most pedestrians per weekday day of any spot in either of these 2 cities.
So obviously Chicago is larger but I actually wouldnt say it's more vibrant.
I don't think downtown SF is sleepy, but the greater Loop area has more going on overall. Chicago may be less dense when talking about the entire municipality, but Chicago also covers a lot more land area (~234 square miles to SF's ~47 square miles) and if you took a roughly blobular equivalent physical area of Chicago and its densest contiguous neighborhoods, then on the SF-sized scale, Chicago is denser and more built up, or if you did something equivalent to the northeast quadrant of SF.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-29-2021 at 11:15 AM..
I was in Chicago over the summer and it is a great city, of course, but as a tourist I felt much of the attraction was built around its architecture. There are a couple major museums, Millennium Park, the river cruises (again, built around architecture) and the dining was great, but otherwise I felt it was a better city to live than visit extensively. SF's natural topography alone is half the attraction, never mind the actual things to do in the city.
Even NY can become repetitive after 2-3 days. Most cities don't have enough interesting attractions to see before it becomes a matter of going to "cool" local spots here and there.
The main reason most people seem to suggest multiple days in so many cities is because they assume you want to spend a fair portion of your time in museums. If that's the case, then you can spend multiple days in nearly any large city. But if you're trying to hit the major attractions in most cities, I'd say you can do that comfortably in 1-1.5 days max and probably 2-3 days in NY and LA.
I would say Chicago would take more than 1-1.5 days. The Sears Tower, Millenium Park, Navy Pier, Michigan Ave., the Architectural Boat Tour, Art Institute, Museum of Science and Industry, Planetarium, Aquarium, Big Bus Tour, etc. can't be done in 1-1.5 days unless you are a Marvel character. Chicago has a lot to see, more than SF.
I would say Chicago would take more than 1-1.5 days. The Sears Tower, Millenium Park, Navy Pier, Michigan Ave., the Architectural Boat Tour, Art Institute, Museum of Science and Industry, Planetarium, Aquarium, Big Bus Tour, etc. can't be done in 1-1.5 days unless you are a Marvel character. Chicago has a lot to see, more than SF.
I think aside from that, there's also kayaking the lake and river, and a good deal of nightlife whether it's clubs, lounges, bars, or varied, very different shows. Going to the beaches in summer is also pretty great as the urban beaches in Chicago are fantastic. On a hot summer day, the water's refreshing but not freezing and the beaches are busy. I think it's something that Chicago should push more to attract people. It'd be better if more of the roads near the lake were removed, but that can come with time.
I think aside from that, there's also kayaking the lake and river, and a good deal of nightlife whether it's clubs, lounges, bars, or varied, very different shows. Going to the beaches in summer is also pretty great as the urban beaches in Chicago are fantastic. On a hot summer day, the water's refreshing but not freezing and the beaches are busy. I think it's something that Chicago should push more to attract people. It'd be better if more of the roads near the lake were removed, but that can come with time.
...and beaches in San Francisco are generally ghost towns, even on summer days.
I would say Chicago would take more than 1-1.5 days. The Sears Tower, Millenium Park, Navy Pier, Michigan Ave., the Architectural Boat Tour, Art Institute, Museum of Science and Industry, Planetarium, Aquarium, Big Bus Tour, etc. can't be done in 1-1.5 days unless you are a Marvel character. Chicago has a lot to see, more than SF.
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.
I would not call San Francisco "sleepy" per se. It's just "less" if you get what I mean. Just a lot smaller. San Francisco however is a very vibrant city.
The area of these cities tourists are spending time in are probably around the same size. I'm not sure why we always act as if all 400 sq. miles of a city are of interest to the average tourist when the reality is that that area is probably more like 5 sq. miles. New York is 300 sq. miles but the typical tourist will only see about 11 sq. miles of it. Going much beyond that starts to get into more local stuff that is going to be of more interests to residents than tourists.
Most of the inhabited Bay Area is "monotonous SFH subdivisions with cookie cutter homes and Walgreens every tenth block and surrounded by big box stores", as is most of the US. The difference there is that it's not flat, but that's still not much fun. What Chicago and Chicagoland has a decent amount of are places that are not that and that's in more than just the North Side of Chicago which is also pretty sizable.
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.
Chicago is better for like a 4 day city trip, SF for a weeks long regional trip
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