(Guest Post by Holly Watson)
My fiancé and I enjoy taking road trips whenever we can. Chicago is one of our favorite destinations, so recently we decided to head there for a three-day weekend. We’re saving money for our wedding and couldn’t afford a lavish trip but we needed a vacation before our honeymoon, which is still months away.
Thanks to a little planning and a budget, we were able to enjoy our outing without depleting our savings account.
Knowing how much I like to visit The Art Institute, my parents bought me a membership for my birthday, which enabled me and fiancé to go to the museum for free. We saw exhibits about Japanese kimonos, Indian art, African art, and Marc Chagall’s “America Windows,” an exhibit that was featured in one of my favorite movies: “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” We each spent under $20 at the gift shop, taking home a Seurat poster for my fiancé and a purple glass vase for me. We kept our costs low for the rest of the day by dining with relatives at their home and spending the night, which left us with only one night to cover with a Chicago hotel stay.
The next day, we got a late start and headed for Millennium Park in the early afternoon. We took a free self-guided audio tour, which was a great way to learn more about the park – from the Crown Fountain to the McCormick Ice Rink. Unfortunately, we were in Chicago too early to go ice skating, but we’re hoping to get back before the year ends. Our visit to the park also included taking in a couple of exhibits. I was a big fan of “Interconnected,” a collection of sculptures by Mexican artist Yvonne Domenge. My fiancé preferred “Design for a Living World,” a photo display that featured the work of photojournalist Ami Vitale. We were chatting about both on our way to dinner, an expense we had budgeted for, but passed a bodega on the way back to our hotel and chose to duck in for sandwich fixings, which we then enjoyed back at our hotel with a night of HBO.
We didn’t have much time on Sunday as we had to make it to the train station to get home, but we did have time to take our dinner leftovers (and some brunch supplements) and sit by the Buckingham Fountain for a little while. We hope to be there at night sometime to see the spotlights that accompany the fountain’s hourly show but I do have to say it’s still impressive during the day. We were sad, as always, to bid goodbye to Chicago but so happy that we were able to get away without breaking the bank. Given the variety of free things there are to do in the city, we’ll be sure to plan another visit soon.
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About the author: Holly Watson is a self-proclaimed fashionista who is studying towards her doctorate in literature. She enjoys blogging about fashion, traveling and saving money! You can follow her daily thoughts on Twitter @hollyemily7.
(Photo by bryce_edwards)
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