A Chicago tour company telling stories of Chicago neighborhoods since 2010

A Chicago Tour Company

Our Story a.k.a. the History of Us!

Chicago Detours is a boutique Chicago tour company that tells neighborhood stories through in-person tours, virtual tours, and custom content for private group events. We customize fun and meaningful experiences that connect people to places and each other through the power of storytelling.

DETOURS BY THE NUMBERS

2010

The Chicago Detours began

1 st

hyperlocal tourism company in the country!

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in-person and virtual tour guests

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reviews with average rating of 4.5/5

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Custom-designed walking, bus and boat tours in downtown and Chicago neighborhoods

Curated virtual events with 300+ hours development

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donated to a youth theater program that shares stories of our neighborhoods

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blog posts about Chicago history, architectural design and things to do

our journey as a Chicago tour company

Founder Amanda Scotese created Detours as a Chicago tour company with a mission to bring people to explore Chicago stories and places that even locals didn’t know.

Before Chicago Detours, she worked in travel for many years, including a decade as a Tour Guide and Guidebook Researcher with Rick Steves’ Europe.

We designed walking, bus and boat tours of downtown and Chicago neighborhoods.

Amanda and the Chicago Detours team cultivated a reputation as having the best Chicago tour guides, with five stars on Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor and Yelp.

We supported education in history and architecture with our Community Initiatives.

Voted Runner-up for “Best Tour of Chicago” in the Chicago Reader’s annual poll.

We celebrated our 10th anniversary as a Chicago tour company!

We used our background in visual storytelling, our expertise in Chicago architecture and history, and a decade of curating corporate events to launch our virtual tours for special events.

Our virtual tours were featured in Entrepreneur, Inc. Magazine, WBEZ and many more.

We officially launched our place-based storytelling and content production services, including video, animations, and all kinds of media for telling Chicago stories.