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About: Chicago Detours is a boutique tour company that tells Chicago stories through in-person tours, virtual tours, and custom content for corporate groups and special events. We are passionate about connecting people to places and each other through the power of storytelling.

Chicago’s Radical History and the Origins of Labor Day
Labor Day weekend is usually filled with cookouts, cold drinks, and last-minute summer trips, yet the origins of Labor Day could not be less tranquil.

Three Cheers for These Historic Bars Near the Mag Mile
Guests on our Historic Chicago Walking Bar Tour often ask for the guides’ recommendations for other historic bars near the Mag Mile. So we polled

Cruise on a Piece of Local History with Chicago Fireboat Tours
Our team of Chicago tour guides recently got the chance to take a sunset cruise with our new partners at Chicago Fireboat Tours. We’ll be

Five Fun Things to Do Near McCormick Place
McCormick Place can often feel like a very nicely-appointed island in the South Loop. Its relative distance from downtown’s hot spots can leave both visitors

Five Creative Ideas for a Chicago Girlfriends Getaway
A girlfriends getaway to Chicago is not foreign here at Chicago Detours. We are a female-owned and operated business. We know all about the importance

Witness the 1919 Chicago Race Riot in Jun Fujita’s Photos
This week marks the 100th anniversary of the 1919 Chicago race riot. One mostly-forgotten man’s camera captured the city’s violence and tension with a firsthand

Best Neighborhoods for Historic Chicago Pub Crawls
We love good Chicago historic pub crawls. Just ask the guests from our Historic Chicago Walking Bar Tour. Or the 1893 World’s Fair Tour with

Five Things to Do in Chicago’s Financial District
Chicago’s Financial District, centered on LaSalle Street in the Loop, is the fulcrum of the heartland’s economic engines. Looming skyscrapers form a canyon-like effect down

Four Truly Patriotic Forgotten Chicago Figures You Must Know
We’re celebrating the Fourth of July by acknowledging four forgotten Chicago patriots. These long-gone American heroes dedicated their lives to those truths we hold to

Chicago Gay Neighborhood History
I started thinking about how Chicago being the “City of Neighborhoods” has intersected with the city’s LGBT history. Chicago’s Boystown neighborhood made history in 1997

Questions from the Historic Chicago Walking Bar Tour
Our guides accumulate a lot of knowledge in the course of learning and guiding our Chicago walking tours. Still, we all get questions that stump

Best Chicago History Podcasts
I am a pretty serious podcast enthusiast, consuming hours of podcasts each week during my daily commute on the trusty ‘L.’ As a lover of