Rent a Car in Chicago

Downtown Chicago — the Loop, Michigan Avenue, Millennium Park, Navy Pier — is dense and well served by the L train and buses, so a car adds little for a stay confined to the city centre and its lakefront neighbourhoods; parking downtown is expensive and traffic on the Loop's one-way grid is heavy at rush hour.

A hire car opens up the wider region once you're ready to leave downtown. Indiana Dunes National Park sits about an hour south-east along the Lake Michigan shoreline, Milwaukee is roughly 90 minutes north via I-94, and the Wisconsin countryside — lakes, small towns, cheese country — starts not far past that. Closer in, Chicago's own suburbs and Oak Park, home to Frank Lloyd Wright's studio, are a short, easy drive from downtown when transit connections don't line up with your schedule.