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The University of Chicago looks like it has been sitting in Hyde Park for hundreds of years. Gothic stone buildings, ivy-covered courtyards, towers that feel like they belong at Oxford or Cambridge.

But when we stopped there on the way to the airport, we had no idea what we were actually looking at.

In this episode of Great Travel School Podcast, we're exploring the University of Chicago and discovering how a university founded in 1890 deliberately created a campus that looked centuries older than it really was. We'll look at the Gothic architecture, the influence of Oxford and Cambridge, and the ambitious vision behind creating one of America's great universities almost from scratch.

But underneath all of that beautiful architecture is a much bigger story.

We'll go beneath the stands of the university's old Stagg Field, where, in 1942, Enrico Fermi and a team of scientists built Chicago Pile-1 and achieved the world's first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. That experiment became part of the Manhattan Project and helped usher humanity into the atomic age.

We'll follow what happened next, from the development of the atomic bomb to the scientists who began questioning the consequences of the technology they had helped create and the founding of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in Chicago.

And along the way, we'll return to a question that has followed us throughout this entire season: How much history can be hiding inside a place before we ever think to ask what happened there?

In This Episode

• University of Chicago
• Hyde Park
• Gothic Revival architecture
• Oxford and Cambridge
• John D. Rockefeller
• William Rainey Harper
• The World's Columbian Exposition
• Stagg Field
• Enrico Fermi
• Chicago Pile-1
• The Manhattan Project
• The atomic age
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
• The Doomsday Clock

About Great Travel School

Great Travel School explores art, architecture, history, and culture—one city at a time—through podcasts, educational resources, and student travel experiences.

Planning a Trip to Chicago?

The University of Chicago is worth wandering even if you don't know anything about its history. Walk through the Gothic quads, and head toward the site of the old Stagg Field, where Henry Moore's Nuclear Energy now marks the location of Chicago Pile-1.

And while you're in Hyde Park, you're also close to several places we've explored this season, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the remnants of Chicago's 1893 World's Fair.

It's one of those parts of Chicago where completely different chapters of the city's history suddenly start connecting.

Kindred Code

I'm not sponsored by Kindred, I genuinely love the service and wanted to share it with you.

If you use my referral code to sign up, you'll receive 5 free nights to try Kindred, and I'll receive 2 referral nights. If you're thinking about trying home swapping, using my code is a great way to support the show while getting a great travel perk for yourself.

Thanks for joining me on Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us.

And that's a wrap on Chicago. I'll see you next season as we keep exploring art, architecture, history, and culture, one city at a time.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

Kindred Code – Details Below

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Episode Slides

Frank Lloyd Wright is one of the most famous architects in American history. But before Fallingwater, the Guggenheim, and a career that would span more than seven decades, he was a 19-year-old kid who arrived in Chicago looking for work.

In this episode of Great Travel School Podcast, we're following Wright from Chicago to Oak Park and beyond to explore how he helped reinvent the American house. We'll look at the birth of Prairie Style, why Wright wanted architecture to grow naturally from the landscape, and the tiny design details, from horizontal lines to carefully colored mortar, that completely changed the way a house could look and feel.

But Wright's story isn't just about architecture. We'll follow the extraordinary, and often messy, life behind the buildings, from his early years working for Louis Sullivan to his relationship with Mamah Borthwick Cheney and the horrifying tragedy at Taliesin. We'll see how Wright's career nearly disappeared before one house built over a waterfall launched one of the greatest comebacks in architectural history.

Along the way, we'll ask a bigger question: What happens when someone decides the old rules no longer make sense, and starts imagining an entirely new way to live and create?

In This Episode

• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Chicago and Oak Park
• Louis Sullivan and Adler & Sullivan
• Prairie Style
• Organic architecture
• Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
• Unity Temple
• Robie House
• Mamah Borthwick Cheney
• Taliesin
• Fallingwater
• Johnson Wax Headquarters
• Taliesin West
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
• Marin County Civic Center

About Great Travel School

Great Travel School explores art, architecture, history, and travel—one city at a time—through podcasts, educational resources, and student travel experiences.

Planning a Trip to Chicago?

You don't have to go far to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Chicago. Head to Oak Park, where you can visit his Home and Studio, tour Unity Temple, and walk streets filled with houses where you can actually watch the Prairie Style taking shape. Then make your way to Hyde Park to see the Robie House, one of the clearest expressions of Wright's idea for a distinctly American home.

Kindred Code

I'm not sponsored by Kindred, I genuinely love the service and wanted to share it with you.

If you use my referral code to sign up, you'll receive 5 free nights to try Kindred, and I'll receive 2 referral nights. If you're thinking about trying home swapping, using my code is a great way to support the show while getting a great travel perk for yourself.

Thanks for joining me on Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

Kindred Code – Details Below

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TikTok

Substack

Episode Slides

The Field Museum is famous for dinosaurs, ancient artifacts, and millions of objects from around the world. But how did all of this stuff end up in Chicago?

In this episode of The Great Travel School Podcast, we're picking up where the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition left off. We'll explore how objects collected and displayed at the fair helped create the Field Museum, how museums have historically decided what counts as art and what gets classified as an artifact, and how those decisions continue to shape the way we see cultures around the world.

We'll also meet SUE, the most famous T. rex in the world, uncover the extraordinary legal battle that followed her discovery, and look at remarkable works from Indigenous North America, ancient Peru, Africa, and the Pacific.

Along the way, we'll ask a bigger question: Who gets to tell the story of the objects inside a museum—and what changes when we learn to look at something we don't recognize and think, Tell me everything?

In This Episode

• Field Museum of Natural History
• World's Columbian Exposition of 1893
• SUE the T. rex
• Máximo the Titanosaur
• Moche portrait vessels
• Native North American ledger art
• Pacific tapa cloth
• Benin Bronzes
• Art vs. artifact
• Museum collecting and colonialism
• Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories
• Repatriation and NAGPRA
• Non-Western art and art history

About The Great Travel School

The Great Travel School explores art, architecture, history, and travel—one city at a time—through podcasts, educational resources, and student travel experiences.

Planning a Trip to Chicago?

The Field Museum is one of Chicago's essential museums—but don't go just to see SUE. Take time to explore the galleries beyond Stanley Field Hall, from Native North America to the ancient Americas, Africa, and the Pacific. And as you walk through them, ask the question at the heart of this episode: Who made this, what did it mean, and how did it end up here?

Kindred Code

I'm not sponsored by Kindred, I genuinely love the service and wanted to share it with you.

If you use my referral code to sign up, you'll receive 5 free nights to try Kindred, and I'll receive 2 referral nights. If you're thinking about trying home swapping, using my code is a great way to support the show while getting a great travel perk for yourself.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review—it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

Kindred Code – Details Below

Website

TikTok

Substack

Episosde Slides

The buildings are gone, but the impact of Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition is everywhere. In this episode of The Great Travel School Podcast, we'll explore how a six-month world's fair transformed Chicago into a global city, inspired millions of visitors, and ultimately gave rise to one of America's greatest collections of museums.

In This Episode of the Great Travel School Podcast, we'll explore why Chicago was chosen to host the 1893 World's Fair, the story of the legendary White City, How the fair introduced millions of people to science, art, and history, the lasting legacy that became Chicago's Museum Campus, why history is often more complicated than we first imagine.

In This Episode

• World's Columbian Exposition (1893)
• The White City
• Jackson Park
• Museum Campus
• Field Museum
• Shedd Aquarium
• Adler Planetarium
• Museum of Science and Industry
• Daniel Burnham
• Frederick Law Olmsted
• Ferris Wheel

About The Great Travel School

The Great Travel School explores art, architecture, history, and travel—one city at a time—through podcasts, educational resources, and student travel experiences.

Planning a Trip to Chicago?

Don't just visit Chicago's museums—learn the story that connects them. Start at Museum Campus, then head south to Jackson Park, where the White City once stood. You'll discover that some of Chicago's greatest attractions exist today because of a world's fair that ended more than 130 years ago.

Kindred Code

I'm not sponsored by Kindred—I genuinely love the service and wanted to share it with you.

If you use my referral code to sign up, you'll receive 5 free nights to try Kindred, and I'll receive 2 referral nights. If you're thinking about trying home swapping, using my code is a great way to support the show while getting a great travel perk for yourself.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

Kindred Code – Details Below

The Sears Tower: How Chicago Reached the Sky

Most people think the Sears Tower (now the Willis Tower) is famous because it was once the tallest building in the world. But its real legacy is the engineering breakthrough that changed skyscrapers forever.

In this episode of The Great Travel School Podcast, we'll explore Chicago architecture, Chicago history, and the innovations of structural engineer Fazlur Khan to discover how one simple idea transformed skylines around the world.

In This Episode

• Why Chicago became the birthplace of the skyscraper
• The engineering problems early skyscrapers had to solve
• Fazlur Khan and the revolutionary bundled tube design
• Why the Sears Tower changed architecture forever
• Would you step onto The Ledge?

Mentioned in This Episode

• Willis (Sears) Tower
• John Hancock Center
• Home Insurance Building
• Chicago Architecture Center River Cruise

About The Great Travel School

The Great Travel School helps curious travelers explore art, architecture, history, and culture—one city at a time—through podcasts, educational resources, and student travel experiences.

Connect

• Website: greattravelschool.org
• TikTok

Planning a Trip to Chicago?

The Skydeck at Willis Tower is one of Chicago's most unforgettable experiences. Pair it with an architecture river cruise to understand why Chicago became the birthplace of the skyscraper.

Kindred Code

I'm not sponsored by Kindred—I genuinely love the service and wanted to share it with you.

If you use my referral code to sign up, you'll receive 5 free nights to try Kindred, and I'll receive 2 referral nights. If you're thinking about trying home swapping, using my code is a great way to support the show while getting a great perk for yourself. Thank you!

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

You don't have to love baseball to love Wrigley Field. I certainly didn't.

In this episode, we're exploring how a little ballpark built more than 100 years ago became the heart of an entire community. Along the way, we'll uncover the surprising history of Wrigley Field, the hand-operated scoreboard, the famous ivy, the Curse of the Billy Goat, and the generations of fans who turned a baseball stadium into one of America's most beloved landmarks.

Because this episode isn't really about baseball. It's about history, tradition, and the unexpected ways we fall in love with places. Especially when we experience them through someone who already has.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

If you're only going to visit one museum in Chicago, make it the Art Institute.

In this episode, we're exploring how a city that was barely 40 years old built one of the greatest art museums in the world. We'll walk through the museum's fascinating history, stand in front of some of its most famous masterpieces (including A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Nighthawks, and American Gothic) and discover the stories that make them so much more than paintings.

Because the best part of visiting the Art Institute isn't trying to see everything. It's learning how to slow down, get curious, and let great art reveal itself.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.

Send us Mail!

In this episode, we're exploring the history of the Chicago River itself before diving into the buildings we remembered most from the Architecture River Tour. From the birthplace of the skyscraper to icons like Marina City, Tribune Tower, Aqua, and more, you'll discover the stories that unlocked Chicago for us.

Thanks for joining me on The Great Travel School. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love for you to follow the show and leave a review, it really helps other curious travelers find us. I'll see you next time as we continue exploring Chicago, one story at a time.