The Chicago suburb of Oak Park isn’t often classed as one of the world’s top travel destinations.
But it has just been ranked among the 50 travel hotspots for 2025, alongside the temples of Kyoto, Japan, and party-loving Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera.
That’s according to Travel Lemming, a website, which lauds Oak Park as the birthplace in 1899 of Ernest Hemingway, one of America’s most influential 20th Century writers.
The suburb of 54,000 residents is home to a Hemingway museum and is also where architect Frank Lloyd Wright settled and worked for two decades.
The list of hotspots comes as travel and tourism fully recovers from the pandemic and becomes a linchpin of the global economy.
Hemingway was born in a second floor bedroom of what is now 339 N. Oak Park Ave, and spent the first six years of his life in the elegant Victorian property.
He went on to write such classics as For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1954.
Lloyd Wright, one of America’s best-loved architects, spent the first 20 years of his 70-year career in Oak Park.
The Chicago suburb of Oak Park is an unlikely addition to the 2025 list of must-see world destinations
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, and went on to become one of America’s most celebrated writers
He designed and built several properties there, including his own home, the Oak Park Studio, now a museum, and the celebrated Walter Gale House.
The suburb has clung to its artistic tradition, and is home to numerous dance and theater companies and hosts cultural festivals.
‘At first glance, you may think that Oak Park is nothing more than an affluent suburb of Chicago,’ says Travel Lemming.
‘But it’s so much more.’
Oak Park ranked 48th on a list that is topped by Lombok, an island in Indonesia known for its stunning vistas of rice paddies, jungle, and volcanic mountains.
El Calafate, in Argentina, came second.
The Patagonia city is a hub for those visiting the nearby glaciers and lakes, as well as those interested in dining on some of the country’s tastiest cuisine.
County Kerry, Ireland, Yoho National Park, Canada, and the underground rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, round out the top five.
Oak Park is not the only US destination to make the top 50.
Austin, Texas, which is famed for its live music and barbecue food, comes in 12th, and Rochester, New York, came 15th.
Page, Arizona, Juneau, Alaska, Butte, Montana, the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, Portland, Oregon, Grand Valley, Colorado, Harbor Springs, Michigan, and Bellingham, Washington, also made the list.
The Victorian house in which Ernest Hemingway was born has been lovingly turned into a museum
A young Ernest Hemingway, pictured alongside his family members in his birthplace of Oak Park, Illinois
The beloved architect Frank Lloyd Wright settled and worked in Oak Park for two decades, building several properties there
Frank Lloyd Wright and his family at their home in Oak Park, Illinois, 1890
The monolithic churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, also made it on to the list of 2025 travel destinations
So did El Calafate, in Argentina, from where visitors head out to see some of the world’s most spectacular glaciers
Hà Giang, in Vietnam, has gained attention for its zig-zagging motorbike loop that coils through the ethereal landscape
Austin, Texas, famed for its live music scene, was the highest ranking US destination on the list
Rochester, New York, ranked surprisingly high at 15, because it ‘packs a punch with historical significance,’ says Travel Lemming
Travel Lemming says there is a serious side to their ranking, which is put together by well-travelled bloggers.
They say their site is under threat from the travel recommendations produced on-the-cheap by artificial intelligence writing bots.
‘We’re encouraging travelers to reject the AI travel planners Silicon Valley wants to shove down our throats,’ says the site.
‘Instead, get your travel suggestions from the same place humans have since the beginning of time: other humans.’
The list comes as ever more people book hotels, cruises, and flights and tourism becomes a bigger money-spinner around the world.
A record $1 out of every $10 spent globally in 2024 will be on travel, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, a non-profit membership organization.
The industry’s contribution to global GDP in 2024 will increase 12.1 percent year-over-year to $11.1 trillion, making up 10 percent of global GDP, says the WTCC’s annual report.
That’s a roughly 7.5 percent rise from the previous record set before the pandemic in 2019.
‘This year we are looking at travel and tourism being a real economic powerhouse globally,’ said Julia Simpson, the non-profit’s CEO.
The sector is expected to support nearly 348 million jobs in 2024, or 13.6 million jobs more than in 2019.
