Places carmelaland Wants to Go

This overgrown Illinois water park offers a whole new type of adventure.

This spectacular track has run continuously since 1882.

"The Most Boring Road in the State."

This freshwater spring fills with 10,000 gallons of water per minute.

A military museum and library dedicated to the citizen soldier.

The beloved home to all publications indie, erotic, and punky.

One of the largest pieces of scientific equipment ever carried on a NASA space shuttle sits in a Chicago alley.

This bronze sculpture on a former squash court marks the secret origins of the Atomic Age.

One-of-a-kind preserved ruins of an abandoned 1880s church in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

This small, but long-running hobby club has built one of the largest model rail lines in the US.

These abandoned grain silos and tunnels are an urban exploration dream.

A shining sculpture made of 3,115 lights, the number of visible stars in the Northern Hemisphere.

Combination beer garden and music venue in the heart of Wicker Park.

First planned industrial community in the United States.

Built to house a chapter of the Knights Templar, this grandiose building is a relic of Freemasonry in Chicago a century ago.

These pretty kitties killed and ate as many as 135 railway workers.

At Chicago's revered Field Museum, visitors are invited to learn about and literally explore DNA.

A European-style bath house in Chicago.

Chicago's North Park Village was once the largest municipal sanatorium in the country.

This $3 million model train takes you through Chicago, Seattle, and the thousands of miles in between.

Former meatpacking facility turned vertical farm and sustainable business complex.

All of Chicago's wood-paved streets are long gone but two alleys remain.

This museum celebrating the almighty dollar lets visitors literally stand in the shadow of a million bucks.

A century-old hotspot for jazz, frequented by everyone from Charlie Chaplin to Al Capone.