Seth Putnam is a journalist, editor and print consultant based in Chicago. A graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, he got his start as a hard-news reporter at a small daily newspaper in Mississippi and covered politics for the Kansas City Star before moving to the Windy City to freelance for regional and national magazines. He completed the John Muir Trail in 2017 and once swam among piranhas in the Amazon River. REI member since 2015.
One of the largest—and oldest—forest preserve systems in the nation surrounds Chicago like an evergreen wreath.
Hundreds of miles of foot and bike paths ar...
For a notably flat state, the Chicago metro area has quite the Napoleon complex.
There’s “Highland” Park, Chicago “Heights,” Palos “Hills,” Park “Ridge,” and...
If Babylon was remembered over the millennia for its hanging gardens, perhaps Chicago will be known for its floating ones.
Urban Rivers, a nonprofit founded ...
Long before it was Steelworkers Park, the little plot of slag at the confluence of Lake Michigan and the Calumet River was part of South Works: a U.S. Steel man...
There are precious few places in Chicago’s urban sprawl where you can truly lose yourself in green space.
West Ridge Nature Preserve is one of them.
Where...
If you were a bird soaring above Chicagoland, your eagle eyes might spot a thick, green band: the perimeter where metro fades to country.
This is the “Outerb...
