City guides
The cities
Each guide starts where the train gets in: the airport and the station, how to get around on local transit, where to stay near the platform, and what’s worth doing.
Chicago
IL
The transit city: L trains overhead, Amtrak beneath, architecture everywhere.
Detroit
MI
Rust and renaissance: the city where American industry met music, and is meeting art.
Grand Rapids
MI
Beer City, Art City — and a Pere Marquette ride from Chicago to Lake Michigan's eastern shore.
Kansas City
MO
Barbecue smoke, jazz echoes, and the romance of the rails.
Milwaukee
WI
Beer halls, a lakefront, and an art museum with wings that open. Ninety minutes from Chicago on the Hiawatha.
Minneapolis–St. Paul
MN
Minneapolis–St. Paul, two personalities — a Beaux-Arts capital and a creative river town, stitched together by one light-rail line.
St. Louis
MO
Where the rails converge. Four Lincoln Service departures a day from Chicago, and the Arch waiting at the other end.