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Cell Block
Older Crowd, Fetish
Cell Block is Boystown's premier leather and fetish gay club. The main front bar has a dance floor where anyone can let go and have fun with a casual leather dress code. If you're more of a serious leather fan, the back bar opens on Friday and Saturday nights for some more mature fun. This space has a strict leather dress code and hosts events catering to multiple fetishes such as monthly puppy patrol parties.
Jackhammer
Bears, Fetish, Cruising
For bears and leather fans with and a fun atmosphere. Jackhammer has a friendly vibe, with multiple levels where anything goes and you can have a fun night of dancing with other leather fans, bears, and their admirers. Jackhammer creates a unique environment that offers the community a safe and welcoming space that attracts a diverse mix of the global LGBTQ fetish community seeking a no-attitude bar.
Lucky Horseshoe Lounge
Dancers
Lucky Horseshoe Lounge in Boystown is open seven nights a week for plenty of boys dancing on stages throughout the venue. This enduring male adult club also has more fully clothed bartenders serving relatively inexpensive drinks, and there are plenty of places to sit back and enjoy the show. The interior is nothing fancy but the dancers are the main attraction, drawing a mixed aged male crowd.
Touche
Bear, Older Crowd, Fetish, Cruising
Touche is one of Chicago's few surviving gay bars that caters specifically to the leather community. Plenty of themed events are on offer here, specific to leathermen, bears, and more. Touche has a neighbourhood bar vibe with draught beers on tap, pool table, darts, and pinball machines, but it also offers a less traditional back room where you can spend time with the leathermen you just met...
Chicago
Cruising bars in
Marquette Park
Mixed Ages, Cruising
Marquette Park is the largest park on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, and is located in the city's Chicago Lawn neighborhood. In the park, across the bridge close to Holy cross hospital, there are a number of hidden places you can go into and have some fun in. Gets good when it's getting dark out.
Steamworks Baths Chicago
Men Only, Cruising
Steamworks is a sauna and although it's a private venue, a monthly membership is cheap and gives you access to loads of fun. There are various sizes of private rooms, with a TV in each for watching appropriate movies and having some discreet time. Public play spaces include a gym where you can show off.
LaBagh Woods
Mixed Ages, Cruising
Located at the southern start of the popular North Branch Trail to the northwest of Chicago, LaBagh Woods is host to diverse natural areas, including wooded landscapes and wetlands. This park is popular with suburban guys looking for a little quick action after work on their way home. There are lots of well used trails through the woods with private areas for action.
Humboldt Park
Mixed Ages, Cruising
Located in the heart of the Humboldt Park Community, Humboldt Park totals 197.26 acres and is home to a large, historic fieldhouse with a fitness center, two gymnasiums and meeting rooms, as well as an inland beach and the historic lagoons and boat house. There are lots of locations in the park to find some privacy as well as the individuals there can be quite forthcoming. There are walkways thru the entire area of the park to cruise but you can normally find some action around the buffalo statues. Even though the park officially closes at 11pm it's mainly late night action here and you can often find things happening until the early hours. Head West on Division until you reach the second block of the park then turn right up the walkway between the buffalo statues.
Edgebrook Woods
Mixed Ages, Cruising
Edgebrook Woods Forest Preserves is a sizeable green area to the northwest of Chicago. It's a wooded area where most of the action takes place at the far end of the park road in the roundabout parking area. There is a restroom pavilion almost hidden in the woods when trees are in full bloom.
Chicago
Other cruising spots in
Recommended gay friendly hotels in Chicago
There are some fantastic hotel choices for LGBTQ+ travellers to Chicago, Illinois, with many gay friendly hotels. Choose whether you'd rather stay near the Boystown queer neighbourhood, convenient of the nightlife, or stay in the centre of the city where most of the attractions are located. GayMapper has great hotel deals across Chicago, Illinois, check out our gay friendly recommendations below. You can support GayMapper by checking out our hotel deals as this helps us to keep the site updated with all this useful information!
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