McCormick Place Lot B

Yes it’s only a parking lot (no hookups!), yes it’s extremely expensive. But where else are you going to park this close to downtown?! We parked just for the day and only paid $25 since we stayed less than 16 hours. It’s walking distance to the McCormick Place metro (which cost $2/ticket to go downtown), and we felt our RV would be safe here considering Chicago can be pretty rough in some places. If you go to their website you can “reserve” a spot, but we just showed up with no reservation and there was essentially endless parking spots. I wouldn’t reserve online if you’re just there for the day in case your plans change and you decide to leave early!

We stayed here in October 2020 and July 4th weekend, 2021 while visiting my daughter. If you want to be close to downtown Chicago with your RV this is a great option. As others have commented, there are areas where trucks are parked and could be noisy but we have always parked away from them and never had an issue. Our only issue with noise was July 4th weekend when the fireworks never seemed to stop. You can walk or ride your bike to Lake Shore Trail along Lake Michigan and easily visit any of the downtown attractions. Or call an Uber to pick you up right from the parking lot unless you want to drive your own vehicle. This is not a camping spot it's a parking spot and there are absolutely not hook-ups so be ready to bring what you need and take everything with you. They don't allow "leisure camping" so no setting up camp but I've pulled out a chair and enjoyed the morning with a cup of coffee with no problem. We've seen some people drop their RV and drive off then come back to hook-up and leave several days later. The website to reserve a stay is: mcccormick.parkingguide.com

UPDATE FROM 6/2022 STAY. Still a great location for visiting Chicago with the trailer but this stay surprised us with a lot more semi-trucks in the lot. It was a busy concert weekend in Chicago and so there were many Prevost tour busses and semi-trucks with equipment for the stadium concerts. But even without all the extra trucks and buses the lot was much busier than our previous stays. We will still use this location when visiting Chicago because it's the only location in the city where you can bring an RV and for $38/day.

I can't believe that people are rating this place anything above ONE star. This is a Semi-Rig Parking Lot. It's noisy and YOU GET NOTHING. I've paid much less than the $35 and gotten way more. The thing is, in Chicago this is the only place to park an RV. There are other places but they're a few miles away. There are no marked RV spaces and some of the trucks run the engines for hours. The trucks are coming and going ALL NIGHT LONG. Walmart would rate a 10 next to this place. I've stayed here twice.......my first time and my last time all at the same time.

We had a great experience staying in the truck marshaling lot south of McCormick Place. We found that the $35 per day fee covered 24 hours each day for us. We arrived around 5 PM on a Thursday and left just before 5 PM on Saturday. Noise level was certainly acceptable to us. The lot is situated between Lakeshore Drive and the metro line. Once we were asleep neither of those caused us any problem. There was a little traffic of which we were aware during the night in the lot itself. We were fortunate that the weather was nice enough that we did not require use of air conditioning. There were about a dozen RVs in the area when we were there. Many came in during the late evening and left the next day. About eight were there the entire time we were.

Who knew you could “camp” in Chicago!? This gets 5/5 for location, safety, and convenience. We were literally only here to sleep, as we spent the whole day exploring the city. We live in the Chicago suburbs; staying in the city rather than heading home after a long day was so awesome!
A few tips:
1. Take the metra train downtown from inside McCormick place. So cheap and convenient!
2. It’s loud (trains + helicopters) and bright at night. Put blankets on your windows and sleep with white noise.
3. Easy access to the bike path - it’s beautiful!
4. We walked to McCormick (3 minutes) for fast food breakfast.

No non-sense convenient boondocking to take in the city! We parked and got Uber everywhere. Close to everything but not really walkable — so we used Uber to take us to the train in the morning and then back in the late evening. We were able to put out our slides and it was great to come back and crash at the end of a long day in Chicago. It’s just a paid parking lot for semis and bus/trolleys that are out of service You are right in the city and just off I-55 so it is loud — if our windows were closed and we ran the air — you couldn’t really hear it. We used ear plugs and it was fine if we wanted to leave the windows open. It felt safe and secure and there was an attendant. We made reservations and paid in advance but think you can pay there also. Would do again!

We have stayed here in the past (we have a Class B RV) - it is nothing more than a parking lot - that said, you can not park in Chicago for $35 a day any where else, so it's a bargain. The last time we stayed, it was $35 for 24 hours (they started the clock when you pulled in), it seems that this has changed. NOW, It is $35 a day (so if you get there at 11:30 on a Friday night, you pay $35 for Friday). When making a reservation, you have to enter your arrival and departure time which puts one on a time schedule (we prefer fluid plans). The subway is close and so is the lake. We have family in Chicago, so staying in the McCormick lot is cost effective.

This is a loud, busy, pot-holed parking lot where tractor trailers congregate to do their load trade-offs and sleeping and business stuff and making a lot of truck noise like idling and braking and honking and dropping loads.

But damn, it is close to downtown. You can pop through the underpass of the convention center by bike or foot, cross under the highway, and find yourself on the LakeSide bike/ped trails that will lead you all the way up the shoreline of Chicago. If you don't carry a bike with you, you can rent one at a Divy Station on the trail.

Follow the truck route to get to the Truck Marshalling Yard and enter through the first entrance gate (on the left) - Truck Marshalling. We paid $35.00/night coming in with our towed attached to the mothership. Make sure to ask for an 'in-out' pass if you have a towed you want to be able to take in and out of the lot.

The two gates do not keep track of each other - neither knows what the other is doing or supposed to be doing so just go in the first one so you don't need to do weird turning radius moves when the second is closed (big rigs would have a hard time fitting through the second gate anyways).

Lot is pretty level, although a bit pot-holed in places. After the gate it's up to you to find a spot that works best for your needs.

If there is an event, expect the lot to fill with both trucks and cars pretty rapidly. Also expect a tow truck to spend the day randomly rearranging the cars for no apparent reason other than the tow truck driver must think it's funny. (We didn't personally have our towed or mothership rearranged). Basically, get here after 5pm if there is a day event.

Make sure to give yourself a bit of 'breathing room' when you park. After having a Tour Bus park stupidly close to us on the driver's side (we were worried our generator/water heating element exhausts might sully him!) and then taking out another RV's mirror when he pulled out to leave (he parked between us and the other RV - it was weird) and us having to emergency style back our rig up so he didn't also take out our nose, we decided to park our towed to the side of our rig rather than in a car parking space. Basically, protect your rig - no one else here will care to. We also watched an RV towing a small trailer get stuck trying to get out of the lot one morning and back into a pick-up truck. Ugh. It's one giant insurance claim waiting to happen.

But, the location of this place can't be beat. It's worth the noise and hub-bub if you're looking for easy access into the city.

We decided to park at the McCormick Place Lot B for our Chicago stay. We made our on-line reservations and followed everyone’s advice for getting into the lot…no problem! It’s very easy to get to and parked. However, the problem came at the entrance station when the gate attendant called his boss and charged us an extra $23 per day. Evidently, you are required to pay separately for your RV and your tow vehicle – therefore instead of the $35 per day we already paid with our reservation, we ended up paying an additional $23 per day at the gate. That is a grand total of $58 per day to boondock in parking lot between an expressway and a busy set of railroad tracks.

Groggy and dazed from our drive into the city and not wanting to forfeit the $35 per day we already paid, I proffered my credit card to pay the difference. Once we got parked in our assigned spot and I had time to think through the gate interaction, I started to get angry. After talking to some other RVers in the lot (Class A motorhomes with toads who paid only the $35), I was pretty hot and decided to make a phone call and ask some questions. After getting the run-around from the guy on the phone, I went to the office to talk to the manager.

Interrupting five employees from sitting on their butts and thumbing their cell phones, I stated my case and wanted to know if there was a mistake? No, there was not a mistake. Evidently, the policy is that a tow vehicle and trailer are counted as two separate vehicles and therefore require two charges. I mentioned that everyone we’ve ever talked to have only paid one fee for an RV (regardless of tow vehicle or toad). They responded that there must have been a mistake by the cashier at the gate. Some more back-and-forth with the Head Clown and I eventually gave up and I walked out unsatisfied and angry. We planned on adding days to the back-end of our reservation, but won’t now…we’ll move to a county park a little further out and except the commute.

Everyone else has already discussed the positives of this location and they are all true. We had no problem finding a level spot to park and it is an easy walk to the Metra Station at McCormick Place. Although, while this is a wonderfully convenient place to stay during your visit to Chicago (two Metra stops to the Museum Campus stop and three to Millennium Park), I’m not sure the $58 per night cost is worth it. May be we were just super-unlucky. Maybe they changed their policy the day we arrived. Maybe we just got ripped off…but this was our experience.

Bottom line: If you get the right cashier at the gate and they only charge the $35, then it’s a great place to stay when visiting Chicago--I would have given it 4-stars. But, if you don’t get lucky and get the guys we had, then I’m not sure $58 per night is worth the convenience...