The Chicago suburb of Oak Park isn’t often classified 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-hungry Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera.
That’s according to Travel Lemminga website that touts Oak Park as the 1899 birthplace of Ernest Hemingway, one of America’s most influential writers of the 20th century.
The suburb of 54,000 residents is home to a Hemingway museum and is also where architect Frank Lloyd Wright settled and worked for twenty years.
The list of hotspots comes as travel and tourism fully recover from the pandemic and become a linchpin of the global economy.
Hemingway was born in a second-floor bedroom at what is now 339 N. Oak Park Ave, and spent the first six years of his life in the elegant Victorian building.
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 most beloved architects, spent the first twenty years of his seventy-year career in Oak Park.
The Chicago suburb of Oak Park is an unlikely addition to the list of must-see world destinations for 2025
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park and became 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 famous Walter Gale House.
The suburb has held on to its artistic tradition and is home to numerous dance and theater companies and hosts cultural festivals.
“At first glance, you might think that Oak Park is nothing more than an affluent suburb of Chicago,” says Travel Lemming.
‘But it’s so much more.’
Oak Park ranks 48th on a list led by Lombok, an island in Indonesia known for its breathtaking vistas of rice fields, jungle and volcanic mountains.
El Calafate, in Argentina, came second.
The city of Patagonia is a hub for those visiting the nearby glaciers and lakes, as well as for those interested in dining on the country’s tastiest dishes.
County Kerry, Ireland, Yoho National Park, Canada, and the underground rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, round out the top five.
Oak Park isn’t the only American destination to make the top 50.
Austin, Texas, famous for its live music and barbecue food, comes in at 12th, and Rochester, New York, at 15th.
Page, Arizona, Juneau, Alaska, Butte, Montana, the Universal Orlando Resort in Florida, Portland, Oregon, Grand Valley, Colorado, Harbor Springs, Michigan and Bellingham, Washington, were also on the list.
The Victorian house where Ernest Hemingway was born has been lovingly transformed into a museum
A young Ernest Hemingway, pictured with his relatives in his hometown of Oak Park, Illinois
Beloved architect Frank Lloyd Wright settled and worked in Oak Park for twenty years, building several buildings there
Frank Lloyd Wright and his family at their home in Oak Park, Illinois, 1890
The monolithic churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, also made it onto the list of 2025 travel destinations
This was also the case at El Calafate, in Argentina, from where visitors venture out to see some of the most spectacular glaciers in the world
Hà Giang, in Vietnam, has attracted attention for its zigzagging motorbike loop that meanders through the ethereal landscape
Austin, Texas, famous for its live music scene, was the highest-ranking U.S. destination on the list
Rochester, New York, ranks surprisingly high at 15th because it “packs a punch of historical significance,” says Travel Lemming
Travel Lemming says there is a serious side to their rankings, which are compiled by well-traveled bloggers.
They say their site is under threat from the cheap travel advice produced by artificial intelligence writing bots.
“We encourage travelers to reject the AI travel planners that Silicon Valley wants to shove down our throats,” the site says.
“Instead, get your travel suggestions from the same place people have been since the beginning of time: other people.”
The list comes as more people book hotels, cruises and flights and tourism becomes an increasingly big money maker worldwide.
By 2024, a record of every ten dollars spent worldwide will go to travel, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, a nonprofit membership organization.
The industry’s contribution to global GDP in 2024 will increase by 12.1 percent year-on-year to $11.1 trillion, accounting for 10 percent of global GDP, the WTCC annual report said.
That’s an increase of about 7.5 percent over the previous pre-pandemic record in 2019.
“This year we see travel and tourism as a true economic powerhouse worldwide,” said Julia Simpson, CEO of the nonprofit.
The sector is expected to support nearly 348 million jobs by 2024, or 13.6 million more jobs than in 2019.