Chicago is a walking city—not just along the lakefront or river, but through the layers of its architecture, neighborhoods, and hidden interiors. For residents of Optima Signature® and Optima Lakeview®, exploring on foot means stepping into the city’s living history. From grand architectural landmarks to quiet courtyards, walking tours offer a deeper connection to the place we call home.

Discovering Interiors: Inside Chicago Walking Tours
If you’ve ever found yourself gazing up at Chicago’s ornate facades and wondering what lies beyond the lobby doors, Inside Chicago Walking Tours was made for you. Founded and led by architectural historian Hillary Marzec, this local company invites participants to step inside the city’s most captivating interiors—those marble-clad stairwells, gilded ceilings, mosaic floors, and tucked-away corridors that most passersby never see. Each tour unfolds as a kind of urban story, told through space rather than slides, connecting the dots between architectural movements, materials, and the evolution of downtown life.

Over the course of about two hours and a mile or so of walking, you’ll move through an ever-changing sequence of design eras: art deco masterpieces, modernist minimalism, and the quietly revolutionary spaces that link them. The pace is conversational, with plenty of moments to pause and take in the craftsmanship that defines Chicago’s skyline from the inside out. What makes these tours especially memorable is their intimacy—the groups are small, the access is privileged, and the insight is deeply personal. It’s one thing to admire the exterior of the Rookery or the Marquette Building; it’s another to stand within their lobbies and see how sunlight, stone, and steel work together in ways that shaped modern architecture itself.

For residents of Optima® communities in Chicago, joining an Inside Chicago Walking Tour is as easy as stepping out your front door. Many routes begin within walking distance of River North and Streeterville, making it an ideal weekend ritual or an eye-opening outing to share with visiting friends. Beyond entertainment, it’s a reminder that architecture is not just something we look at—it’s something we live within, every day.

Neighborhood Narratives
Of course, not all walking tours are about interiors. Beyond the Loop, the city’s neighborhoods reveal stories of resilience, reinvention, and design in motion. Companies like L Stop Tours mix architecture, local history, and even short “L” rides to give visitors and locals alike a feel for the city’s shifting character—each neighborhood like a new chapter in a continuing story. Brick of Chicago, meanwhile, focuses on the humble beauty of materials themselves, tracing the evolution of Chicago one brick at a time, from bungalow rows to industrial lofts. And if you prefer to wander at your own pace, self-guided walking-tour apps like GPSmyCity allow you to turn any afternoon into a self-curated adventure.

No matter where you walk, you’ll find Chicago’s essence in its details: the rhythm of cornices along Milwaukee Avenue, the cool geometry of Mies van der Rohe’s steel and glass, the warmth of a hand-laid tile in a century-old entryway. Walking invites you to see, not just move—to notice the play of light on limestone or the reflection of a skyline in a shop window.

The Optima® Perspective
For those who live within Optima®’s Chicago communities, walking is already woven into daily life. The buildings themselves are expressions of movement and connection—terraces that open to the sky, glass that mirrors the city around it, courtyards that invite pause. Stepping out from Optima Signature® or Optima Lakeview®, the best of Chicago lies just beyond your threshold: the Riverwalk’s awe-inspiring turns, the grand boulevards of the city, and the intimate side streets where creativity thrives.

Whether you join a guided tour or set your own path, walking through Chicago offers something rare—a living lesson in how architecture shapes experience. Every step reveals another layer of design and human ingenuity, another moment where the city’s past meets its unfolding present, reminding us that connection between place and possibility is the very heart of home.