Chicago

Some of Mason and I’s best friends live in Chicago, and we’ve been talking about a trip there for forever. I hopped on the internet on a Wednesday and found tickets to Chicago for $60 a person ROUND TRIP! I called Mase, and we booked tickets on the spot to go to Chicago that Friday and fly home Monday night. Full disclaimer, if you find tickets online for $60 round trip, don’t expect the first class luxury suite seats. We flew Frontier and American, which were both nice airplanes, but when they say they’ll be cutting the corners on a few things, they really mean they are chopping some corners off. It’s totally bearable on a five hour flight if you prepare.
We left Friday at midnight and got into Chicago at five am Saturday. Luckily, we have the nicest friends pretty much ever, and they picked us up and gave us a place to stay. They live in the suburbs, so we bought weekend train passes and rode the train in and Uber-ed around, which is way cheaper than attempting the drive and trying to find and pay for city parking.
We were worried that two days in the city wouldn’t be enough, but our friends are totally Chicago savvy and knew all the overrated places to avoid and the good, free places to hit up on a quick trip.
Everything was so perfect, gorgeous for Christmas time, we kept it budget friendly, and still had a good time.
Chicago deep dish is the best and I could probably eat only that for the rest of my life, the city has everything you could think of, there’s a lot of legit, fun, free things, and Christmas was a great time to be a tourist. But, I gotta keep it real here, it’s freezing. Not just cold or a little bit of winter weather, it’s like a crazy cold phenomenon you’ll only experience in the Midwest. 
Budget traveling is totally do-able, especially just for two, and it’s definetly worth the airline compromises of small seats and personal items only. There’s too much of the world to see to skip out on red-eyes and quick trips!😘