Pokemon GoFest Chicago 2026: Day 0
This year I got a chance to attend Pokemon GoFest in Chicago. Not only am I from that city originally, but I had reasons to visit family. I had an action packed weekend and got a second vacation soon after the first. But before I could attend the event, I had to get to Chicago. And while a majority of my adventure here included flying on a plane, this is not what I wanted to talk about in this post.
Chicago is one of the few cities in The United States with properly working public transportation. And for those of you who have kept up with my blog, I’m a train guy. So what better way to explore Chicago for Go Fest and the days before it than to ride trains around the city? Well for Day 0, that is exactly what I did. Let me showcase where I went before the event even started.
Riding the Blue Line
Right out of O-Hare Airport, I got on the CTA Blue Line. Along the way I got to travel through some tunnels with art on the walls. Chicago has always been a city that has embraced art both in its design and in how engineers make things work. If I had more time or wasn’t surrounded by people, I could have spent quite some time down in those tunnels. But alas, I had places to go and trains to ride.
Something that helps navigating an airport as massive as O-Hare is proper signage. I found that there were several routes to reach the Blue Line and once at the station, my adventure for Day 0 of Go Fest began in earnest. The Blue Line travels from the airport to Forest Park, but for the first day, I had no need to send go to downtown Chicago.
What I got to enjoy instead was riding a train down the median of Interstate 90 and pass all the traffic by. Gas is expensive as of writing this blog post and the last thing anyone should be doing is wasting time and money. I spent neither as I zipped past cars and made my way to the Montrose station. All so I could begin the next and last leg of the days adventure.
Riding the Milwaukee North Line
Not only did I ride the CTA Blue Line which is one of the two Subway Lines in Chicago, but I transfered over at Montrose Street to the Mayfair Metra Station. CTA Trains service Chicago itself while Metra serves the suburbs including the one I was traveling towards. This time I was taking the Milwaukee North Line. And for Day 0 of Gofest, this would be the last train of the day.
As the sun set, it grew harder to get proper photos, but I still managed to get a few pictures of the inside of the train, he exit from Montrose Blue Line, as well as a few stations on my adventure north towards my final destination. Over the next few days I would be riding these two trains quite a bit more and so needed to pick different places for pictures each time.
But this was the shortest and easiest of my days in Chicago. Because next up would be Gofest Day 1.
And if you want to check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4, you can right here.