Day Trips from Chicago by Train and Bus (No Car Needed)
by Kaitlin Cabaniss
Chicago is the rail hub of the country, which is a grand way of saying you can leave it in any direction without a car. Amtrak runs to Wisconsin, Michigan, downstate Illinois and Missouri from Union Station. The South Shore Line runs a commuter train straight through a national park. Metra reaches Joliet, Naperville, Elgin and Kenosha for $6.75. And about 55 buses a day go to Milwaukee alone. Here are 20 places worth the ride, sorted by how long they take to reach, with what people paid to get there.
We first wrote this page in 2016 with three destinations, and in 2018 we published a companion list of 37 places you could reach from Chicago for under $20. That list hasn’t aged well. Of the 37, seven still sell for under $20 on a typical day, three of them on a handful of tickets. Another seven haven’t sold a single ticket in the past year. And the $1 bus seats it was built around haven’t existed since 2021. So we merged the two, kept the places worth going to, and put the fares back in. Bus and Amtrak “from” prices are live from Wanderu’s route data. Metra and South Shore Line fares are the published prices as of September 2026, and Wanderu doesn’t sell either one.
| Destination | Travel time | From |
|---|---|---|
| Joliet, IL | 50 minutes on Amtrak, about an hour on Metra | $7 Amtrak$6.75 Metra |
| Naperville, IL | About 35 minutes on Amtrak, 35 to 60 on Metra | $9 Amtrak$6.75 Metra |
| Indiana Dunes, IN | About 70 minutes on the South Shore Line | $10 South Shore Line |
| Gary and Hammond, IN | 40 minutes by bus, 35 to 55 on the South Shore Line | $8 Barons Bus$7.75 to $8.25 South Shore Line |
| New Buffalo, MI | 1 hour 10 minutes on Amtrak | $12 Amtrak |
| Michigan City, IN | About 85 minutes on the South Shore Line (67 on the fastest express), 1 hour 20 by bus | $10 Barons Bus$11.50 South Shore Line |
| Kankakee, IL | 1 hour 10 minutes on Amtrak | $6 Amtrak |
| Milwaukee, WI | 1 hour 29 minutes on the Hiawatha, 1 hour 20 to 2 hours by bus | $21 Amtrak$13 Bus |
| Rockford, IL | 1 hour 10 minutes by bus from O’Hare, about 1 hour 50 from downtown | $13 Bus |
| South Bend, IN | 1 hour 40 minutes by bus, about 2 hours 10 minutes on the South Shore Line | $15 Bus$15.75 South Shore Line |
| Champaign and Urbana, IL | 2 hours 30 minutes on Amtrak, about 2 hours 35 by bus | $12 Amtrak$20 Bus |
| Normal, IL | 2 hours 6 minutes on Amtrak | $15 Amtrak |
| Lafayette, IN | About 2 hours 20 minutes by bus | $22 Bus |
| Kalamazoo, MI | 2 hours 8 minutes on Amtrak, about 3 hours by bus | $27 Amtrak$21 Bus |
| Madison, WI | About 3 hours 35 minutes by bus | $24 Bus |
| Springfield, IL | 3 hours 5 minutes on Amtrak, about 4 hours by bus | $20 Amtrak$31 Bus |
| Indianapolis, IN | About 3 hours 40 minutes by bus | $29 Bus |
| Ann Arbor, MI | 4 hours 15 minutes on Amtrak, 4 to 5 hours by bus | $39 Amtrak$30 Bus |
| Grand Rapids, MI | About 4 hours by bus or Amtrak | $33 Amtrak$160 Bus |
| St. Louis, MO | About 5 hours on Amtrak, 5 hours 40 to 6 hours by bus | $29 Amtrak$36 Bus |
Where the trains and buses leave from
- Union Station (225 S Canal St): every Amtrak train on this page, plus Metra’s BNSF, Heritage Corridor and Milwaukee District lines. Van Galder buses to Rockford and Madison stop here too.
- 630 W Harrison Street: the bus station, a ten-minute walk south of Union Station. Greyhound, FlixBus, Barons Bus and Megabus (one Jefferson Lines bus a day to Iowa City, as of September 2026) all board here. Greyhound also stops at 95th and the Dan Ryan on the South Side. Tornado Bus boards at 3501 S California Ave on the Southwest Side.
- O’Hare Multi-Modal Facility: Van Galder’s main Chicago stop for Rockford and Madison. Take the Blue Line to O’Hare and the airport’s people mover to the facility.
- Millennium Station (under Michigan Avenue at Randolph): the South Shore Line to Indiana, and Metra Electric. Wanderu doesn’t sell either; buy in the app or at the station.
- Ogilvie and LaSalle Street: Metra’s other downtown terminals. A one-way ticket to the far zone is $6.75, a weekday day pass is $13.50, and on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday a systemwide day pass is $7. The fare increase Metra had planned for 2026 was called off after the state’s funding bill for CTA, Metra and Pace passed.
About an hour or less
Joliet, IL
50 minutes on Amtrak, about an hour on Metra
- Chicago to Joliet trainsfrom $7
- Metra$6.75
Joliet is one of the two cheapest Amtrak tickets out of Union Station (Naperville is the other), and it takes under an hour. Three quarters of the Chicago to Joliet Lincoln Service tickets bought on Wanderu in the past year cost under $20, and the typical one was $11. Metra’s Rock Island and Heritage Corridor lines run to the same Gateway Center for $6.75, or $7 for an all-day pass on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday. Metra tickets are sold at the station or in the Ventra app, not on Wanderu.
Route 66 turns 100 in November 2026, and Joliet is where it leaves Chicagoland. The Route 66 welcome center sits inside the Joliet Area Historical Museum, a ten-minute walk from the station, and the 1926 Rialto Square Theatre is around the corner. The Rialto faces the new City Square plaza, which opened in May 2026, and the museum is two blocks from it.
Naperville, IL
About 35 minutes on Amtrak, 35 to 60 on Metra
- Chicago to Naperville trainsfrom $9
- Metra$6.75
Every Naperville Amtrak ticket sold on Wanderu last year was under $20, which is a small sample and a clean one. The Carl Sandburg and Illinois Zephyr stop here on their way to Quincy. Metra’s BNSF Line is the every-hour option at $6.75. The station is a short walk from the Riverwalk, and Centennial Beach, a swimming quarry with a sand beach, is open Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Indiana Dunes, IN
About 70 minutes on the South Shore Line
- South Shore Line$10
The national park with a commuter train running through it. South Shore Line trains leave Millennium Station for Dune Park about hourly on weekdays and every two hours or so on weekends, $10 each way, so a round trip is exactly $20. Add the $15 walk-in pass for the national park (good for seven days), or just $2 if you stay inside Indiana Dunes State Park, which is a separate park with its own gate a mile north of the station.
Four stations touch the park. Dune Park is the main one, with the visitor center 1.3 miles down the Dunes Kankakee Trail. Miller puts you 20 minutes from the Paul H. Douglas Center and its trails. Beverly Shores is a flag stop for Dunewood Campground and Lake View Beach, so tell the conductor. Dune Park is also the only station that lets you bring a bike, on certain weekend trains, which pairs nicely with our guide to traveling with a bike by bus or train. Wanderu doesn’t sell South Shore tickets. Buy them in the station or in the South Shore app.
Gary and Hammond, IN
40 minutes by bus, 35 to 55 on the South Shore Line
- Chicago to Gary busesfrom $8
- South Shore Line$7.75 to $8.25
Barons Bus runs Chicago to Gary in 40 minutes, and every ticket sold on Wanderu last year was under $20, most of them $16.49. The South Shore Line is cheaper still: $7.75 to Hammond, $8.25 to Gary. The news here is the Monon Corridor, a branch that opened on March 31, 2026 with stations at Hammond Gateway, South Hammond, Munster Ridge and Munster/Dyer. Gary’s Miller station is the back door to the Indiana Dunes, a 20-minute walk from the Douglas Center trails. Kids 13 and under ride the South Shore free on weekends with an adult.
One to two hours
New Buffalo, MI
1 hour 10 minutes on Amtrak
- Chicago to New Buffalo trainsfrom $12
The best day trip on this page, and we’ll defend that. Four trains a day out and three back, about 70 minutes, and the station is on Whittaker Street in the middle of a walkable downtown, a few blocks from the public beach on Lake Michigan. Six in ten New Buffalo tickets bought on Wanderu in the past year were under $20. The Wolverine is the day-trip train. Out of Union Station at 6:45am, in by 9am Michigan time, last one back at 9:12pm. Its typical fare was $24 and four in ten of its tickets came in under $20. The Blue Water is cheaper, typically $15, but it leaves Chicago at 4pm, so it’s the overnight option.
That’s about a 12-hour day if you want it. This is the gateway to Harbor Country, the string of beach towns along the Michigan shore, and the only one of them with a train.
Michigan City, IN
About 85 minutes on the South Shore Line (67 on the fastest express), 1 hour 20 by bus
- Chicago to Michigan City busesfrom $10
- South Shore Line$11.50
The South Shore Line’s Double Track project cut the express run from Chicago to about 67 minutes and rebuilt the 11th Street station with a new parking garage and waiting area that opened in June 2025. You step off into the Uptown Arts District. Washington Park, with the beach, the 1904 lighthouse and the zoo, is a mile north. The Lighthouse Place outlets are two blocks from the station. Barons Bus also runs here for about $17.50, and that’s the ticket Wanderu sells. Amtrak stopped calling at Michigan City in 2022, so the South Shore and Barons are the two ways in.
Kankakee, IL
1 hour 10 minutes on Amtrak
- Chicago to Kankakee trainsfrom $6
Frank Lloyd Wright’s B. Harley Bradley House, from 1900, is one of the first Prairie-style houses, and it’s a 15-minute walk from the Amtrak depot, which has a railroad museum inside it. Two thirds of Kankakee tickets on Wanderu were under $20. The morning Saluki is the cheap train: its typical fare was $14, and the cheapest Chicago departure on Wanderu all year was a $7.99 seat to Kankakee. The Illini, the City of New Orleans and FlixBus also stop here.
Milwaukee, WI
1 hour 29 minutes on the Hiawatha, 1 hour 20 to 2 hours by bus
- Chicago to Milwaukee trainsfrom $21
- Chicago to Milwaukee busesfrom $13
The densest corridor out of Chicago: about 55 buses a day plus the Hiawatha, seven round trips on weekdays and six on Sundays, and the daily Borealis to St. Paul on top. Milwaukee was the fourth most-booked destination from Chicago on Wanderu last year. The catch is the fare. The typical Hiawatha ticket was $33 and not one sold under $20. The bus is where the cheap seats were, and only with notice: in July and August 2026 the typical bus ticket booked a week or more ahead was about $16, mostly one Coach USA fare. Booked a day ahead, it was $41.
The Intermodal Station is a ten-minute walk from the Third Ward and the Public Market. The Milwaukee Art Museum’s wings still open and close on the lakefront at 10am, noon and closing time (5pm, or 8pm on Thursdays). The old Public Museum reopens in a $240 million building near the Deer District in early 2027 as the Nature & Culture Museum of Wisconsin. Once you’re there, our list of cheap trips out of Milwaukee picks up where this one leaves off.
Rockford, IL
1 hour 10 minutes by bus from O’Hare, about 1 hour 50 from downtown
- Chicago to Rockford busesfrom $13
Nearly 40 buses a day, and most of them leave from O’Hare, not downtown: Van Galder runs about 26 a day from the airport’s Multi-Modal Facility, which you reach on the Blue Line and the airport people mover. FlixBus and Greyhound leave from 630 W Harrison and are the cheap options. Almost half of FlixBus’s Rockford tickets on Wanderu were under $20; the typical fare across both was about $21. Van Galder is faster and pricier at $31 to $36.
Anderson Japanese Gardens is the draw, a 10- to 15-minute cab or rideshare from the Van Galder stop. The best news on this page is Rockford’s: Metra trains to Rockford are due by the end of 2027, two round trips a day via Elgin and Belvidere, the first passenger rail here since 1981.
South Bend, IN
1 hour 40 minutes by bus, about 2 hours 10 minutes on the South Shore Line
- Chicago to South Bend busesfrom $15
- South Shore Line$15.75
Seven buses a day, five of them direct, on Greyhound, FlixBus, Barons and Tornado. Greyhound had the cheap seats, from about $19, though its typical ticket was $28 and Barons runs a near-flat $33.50. The slow cheap way is the South Shore Line all the way to South Bend Airport for $15.75, then a local bus into town. Notre Dame’s campus, the Basilica and the Grotto are open to visitors, and the Studebaker National Museum downtown is the other reason to come. If you like the look of the place, we’ve also ranked every destination from South Bend under $50.
Two to three hours
Still day trips. Every one of these had tickets booked for a morning train or bus out and an evening one back in the past year, with eight hours or more in between.
Champaign and Urbana, IL
2 hours 30 minutes on Amtrak, about 2 hours 35 by bus
- Chicago to Champaign trainsfrom $12
- Chicago to Champaign busesfrom $20
Champaign was the most-booked destination from Chicago on Wanderu in the past year, ahead of Madison, Indianapolis and Milwaukee. Thank the University of Illinois. Take the train. The Saluki and the Illini both arrive at Illinois Terminal downtown, and the Saluki’s cheapest seats start around $14, with more than one ticket in four under $20. The bus never got there. Not one FlixBus ticket to Champaign sold under $20 all year, and the typical one was $39.
The Krannert Art Museum on campus is free and the second-largest art museum in Illinois. The quad is a 20-minute walk from the terminal, or a short ride on the MTD buses that leave from it.
Normal, IL
2 hours 6 minutes on Amtrak
- Chicago to Normal trainsfrom $15
Four Lincoln Service trains a day plus the Texas Eagle into Uptown Station, which sits on the traffic circle in the middle of downtown Normal with Illinois State University a few blocks away. Fares start at $15 and the typical ticket was $31. Don’t bother looking for a bus: Burlington Trailways, which used to cover this corridor, ended all scheduled service on September 27, 2025, and the two Greyhound tickets sold here last year cost $43 and up. The 1937 Normal Theater, a restored Streamline Moderne movie house, is across the circle from the station.
Lafayette, IN
About 2 hours 20 minutes by bus
- Chicago to Lafayette busesfrom $22
FlixBus and Greyhound both run Chicago to Lafayette in under two and a half hours for a typical $40. Purdue’s campus is across the Wabash in West Lafayette, a 25-minute walk or a short city bus from the stop, and the Wabash Heritage Trail runs along the river between the two downtowns. Amtrak’s Cardinal stops here too, but only three days a week and at awkward hours.
Kalamazoo, MI
2 hours 8 minutes on Amtrak, about 3 hours by bus
- Chicago to Kalamazoo trainsfrom $27
- Chicago to Kalamazoo busesfrom $21
Both Michigan trains, the Wolverine and the Blue Water, stop in Kalamazoo, which gives you four trains a day each way and a downtown station. Typical fares ran $40 on the Blue Water and $49 on the Wolverine; Greyhound was about $40 too and an hour slower. Bell’s Eccentric Café is a ten-minute walk from the station, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts is a few blocks beyond, and the Kalamazoo Mall was the first outdoor pedestrian shopping street in the country.
Three hours and up: worth a weekend
These do get booked as day trips. Madison, Springfield and St. Louis had morning buses or trains out and evening ones back with nine to eleven hours in between. We’d still pack a toothbrush.
Madison, WI
About 3 hours 35 minutes by bus
- Chicago to Madison busesfrom $24
No train, and yet Madison was the second most-booked destination from Chicago on Wanderu last year. Van Galder, sold as an Amtrak Thruway connection, runs from Union Station and O’Hare at one flat fare, $46 for most of last year and about $49 as of September 2026. FlixBus was the cheap option at a typical $36, from about $25. Nothing to Madison sold under $20, so this one is about the day, not the bargain.
Go on a Saturday between April and November and the Dane County Farmers’ Market wraps all the way around the Capitol square. Capitol tours are free, and the Memorial Union Terrace on Lake Mendota is a 20-minute walk down State Street. The first bus gets in around 9:30am and buses back run into the late evening.
Springfield, IL
3 hours 5 minutes on Amtrak, about 4 hours by bus
- Chicago to Springfield trainsfrom $20
- Chicago to Springfield busesfrom $31
The Lincoln Service does Springfield in just over three hours for a typical $38, and the station is downtown. The Lincoln Home National Historic Site (free), the Old State Capitol and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum are all a short walk from it. Springfield is also a Route 66 town, and the road’s centennial runs through 2026. FlixBus takes an hour longer and cost more, typically $48.
Indianapolis, IN
About 3 hours 40 minutes by bus
- Chicago to Indianapolis busesfrom $29
The third most-booked destination from Chicago on Wanderu: FlixBus and Greyhound run all day for a typical $49 to $53, with fares from about $34. Amtrak’s Cardinal takes five hours and runs three days a week, so this is a bus town. The bus drops you downtown on the Cultural Trail, the eight-mile bike and walking loop that links the canal, White River State Park and the Monon Trail. Newfields, the art museum and its 152-acre grounds, is a short ride north.
Ann Arbor, MI
4 hours 15 minutes on Amtrak, 4 to 5 hours by bus
- Chicago to Ann Arbor trainsfrom $39
- Chicago to Ann Arbor busesfrom $30
The 2018 version of this page had Ann Arbor at $19.92. It isn’t anymore. The typical Wolverine ticket last year was $71, and the bus was $52 to $54 on Greyhound and FlixBus, from about $31. Go for a weekend. The Amtrak station and the bus stop are both on Depot Street. From there it’s a 20-minute walk to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (free), Nickels Arcade and Zingerman’s Deli, which will happily take whatever you have left.
Grand Rapids, MI
About 4 hours by bus or Amtrak
- Chicago to Grand Rapids trainsfrom $33
- Chicago to Grand Rapids busesfrom $160
Amtrak’s Pere Marquette is one train a day and it leaves Chicago at 6:30pm, so it’s a weekend trip by design. FlixBus runs during the day for a typical $46. Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is the headline, and Grand Rapids has been calling itself Beer City for a decade with the breweries to back it up. ArtPrize takes over downtown every fall.
St. Louis, MO
About 5 hours on Amtrak, 5 hours 40 to 6 hours by bus
- Chicago to St. Louis trainsfrom $29
- Chicago to St. Louis busesfrom $36
Four Lincoln Service trains a day plus the Texas Eagle, straight down the old Chicago & Alton line. The typical Lincoln Service ticket was $51, from about $28, and it drops with notice: booked two weeks out, the typical fare was $44. The bus is slower and cost more, $60 typical on FlixBus. Gateway Station is a 20-minute walk from the Arch grounds.
The Arch, City Museum (a ten-story playground made of salvaged buildings) and Forest Park, where the zoo, the art museum and the history museum are all free, make this the big-city weekend on the list.
The rest of the 2018 list
Seven of the 37 places on the old under-$20 list didn’t sell a single ticket from Chicago in the past year. Coralville, Burns Harbor, Benton Harbor, La Porte, Merrillville, Dyer and Homewood are gone. Burlington Trailways, which carried the Iowa and western Illinois routes, ended all scheduled service on September 27, 2025, which took Kewanee’s bus with it. Moline still has Greyhound, at a typical $42. Louisville and Cincinnati are still bookable, but at five and a half to six hours and typical fares of $64 to $71, they left the under-$20 conversation a while ago. These Amtrak stops are still bookable and still cheap-ish; they’re small towns on the way to somewhere else, so we’ve listed them rather than written them up.
- Dwightfrom $14
- Pontiacfrom $12
- Lincolnfrom $18
- Mendotafrom $11
- Princetonfrom $12
- Kewaneefrom $16
- Rantoulfrom $12
- Nilesfrom $20
- Dowagiacfrom $25
- St. Josephfrom $20
The idea lives on in our under-$20 guides for other cities, where the fares still cooperate.
Places on other lists you can’t reach without a car
Starved Rock State Park, Lake Geneva, Galena, Door County, Saugatuck, Shipshewana and Brown County are on most day-trip lists for Chicago. None of them has a train or a direct bus from the city, however the other lists phrase it. Holland and St. Joseph, Michigan do have an Amtrak stop, but the only train is the Pere Marquette at 6:30pm, which makes them overnights. Two that surprise people the other way: Kenosha and Elgin both show up on road-trip lists and both are ordinary Metra rides for $6.75.
How to pay less (what 10,000 bookings say)
We looked at every Chicago departure booked on Wanderu between September 2025 and September 2026, more than 10,000 tickets. Four things held up:
- The $20 day trip is mostly gone. Fewer than three tickets in a hundred came in under $20. The ones that did were Joliet, Kankakee, New Buffalo and Gary, plus the cheap seats on the Champaign, Rockford, Milwaukee and Normal routes. Budget $30 to $50 for most of this page and you’ll be right more often than not.
- Bus fares fall with notice. Amtrak’s short trains barely move. Milwaukee is the clearest case. In July and August 2026 the typical bus ticket bought 7 to 13 days ahead was $16, and more than half of those were under $20. Bought a day ahead, it was $41. That particular fare has since closed, but the shape holds. To Champaign, FlixBus dropped from $43 the day before to $30 two weeks out. The Hiawatha and the Champaign trains moved a few dollars at most, so booking the train the morning you decide to go costs a few dollars, not a few tens. The long trains are the exception: St. Louis dropped from about $60 a day ahead to $44 two weeks out.
- There is no cheap month. We checked the three biggest corridors, and every swing in the monthly numbers traced back to a bus company adding or dropping a fare, not to the season. Go when you want to go.
- Train or bus? Depends where you’re going. Train to Champaign, Normal, Joliet, Kankakee and New Buffalo. Bus to Rockford and South Bend, and to Milwaukee if you plan a week ahead. Madison and Indianapolis are bus-only whether you like it or not.
For the version of this advice that works from any city, read our guide to finding the cheapest tickets.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best day trips from Chicago by train?
From Union Station: Joliet (50 minutes, typically $11), Kankakee (70 minutes, the Saluki typically $14), New Buffalo (70 minutes, the Wolverine typically $24), Milwaukee (89 minutes on the Hiawatha, typically $33), Normal (2 hours 6 minutes, from $15), Kalamazoo (2 hours 8 minutes), Champaign (2 hours 30 minutes, the Saluki from about $14) and Springfield (3 hours 5 minutes). Add Metra for Naperville and Joliet at $6.75, and the South Shore Line for the Indiana Dunes at $10.
What are some good 2-hour getaways from Chicago?
Milwaukee, New Buffalo, Michigan City and the Indiana Dunes, Rockford, South Bend and Kankakee are all under two hours from downtown Chicago by train or bus. Normal and Kalamazoo are just over. Milwaukee has the most departures by far, about 55 buses and 7 to 8 trains a day. New Buffalo is the one with a beach a few blocks from the station.
How do I get to Indiana Dunes without a car?
Take the South Shore Line from Millennium Station to Dune Park, $10 each way, about 70 minutes. The national park walk-in pass is $15 for seven days; the state park next to it charges $2 to walk in. Miller station is closer to the Paul H. Douglas Center trails, and Beverly Shores is a flag stop for Dunewood Campground. Wanderu doesn’t sell South Shore Line tickets; buy them in the app or at the station.
Is the bus or the train cheaper from Chicago?
The train, to Champaign, Normal, Joliet, Kankakee and New Buffalo. The bus, to Rockford and South Bend, and to Milwaukee only with a week or more of notice: in summer 2026 the typical Milwaukee bus fare booked 7 to 13 days ahead was $16, against $41 a day ahead and $33 on the Hiawatha. Madison, Indianapolis and Lafayette are bus-only in practice.
Do I need a car for day trips from Chicago?
Not for anything on this page. Every destination here has a train or a bus from downtown Chicago or from O’Hare, and we list the ones that need a car separately so you can skip them. Two places that show up on road-trip lists but don’t need a car are Kenosha and Elgin, both on Metra for $6.75.
What are good weekend trips from Chicago by train or bus?
St. Louis (about 5 hours on Amtrak), Indianapolis (3 hours 40 minutes by bus), Ann Arbor (4 hours 15 minutes on the Wolverine), Grand Rapids (about 4 hours) and Springfield (3 hours 5 minutes on Amtrak) are the ones on this page people book most. Madison works as either, at 3 hours 35 minutes by bus.
The “from” prices on this page refresh from Wanderu’s route data: each is the cheapest fare recently available on that route, the same figure its route page shows. What you pay depends on when you book. “Typical” fares and shares are Wanderu bookings from Chicago, September 2025 to September 2026, per ticket, the full price paid. Metra and South Shore Line fares are the published prices as of September 2026, and Wanderu doesn’t sell either one.
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