<p>To be really honest, none of these locations make any sense to me. DeKalb and Joliet aren’t even suburban Chicago. Willowbrook, Glen Ellyn, Oak Brook and Naperville are far western suburbs, a good hour from downtown on public transportation. </p>
<p>I would try to find as cheap as possible downtown via Priceline, but if that is not feasible, find a cheap hotel near O’Hare and take public transportation that way. It won’t have the feel of a “safe suburb” but the area around O’Hare is perfectly safe, it just caters to travelers. I would not recommend finding a hotel near Midway, though. Bad area unless you know what you’re doing.</p>
<p>You might even call DePaul or UIC and ask if they recommend any hotels in their areas to visitors - those are both city locations.<br>
I didn’t see Hanna’s link, but there is a hostel in the Loop / South Loop that Northwestern uses for training their CTD staff, and it’s perfectly safe.</p>
<p>I wasn’t suggesting a hotel near Midway; I was suggesting parking their car there in an economy lot I know of (that is kind of unknown) which runs $12/day, leave the car there, and stay downtown at a hostel. The Orange Line literally ends at Midway Airport, so it would be easy to hop on and head down to the city, stay there, and leave the car in the economy lot. The economy garage at Midway is $14/day, but you have to take a shuttle bus to the terminal, then walk a solid five minutes to get to the Orange Line. The lot I use is across the street from the Orange Line.</p>
<p>I think staying at the hostel that Hanna suggested and parking your car at the midway/O’Hare airport may be the way to go given your constraint. </p>
<p>The parking lots near the LA airport work like the ones in regular shopping centers. You take a ticket upon entering the lot; when you return, you just insert the ticket to one of their machines and it will calculate how much you owe them and you just pay that amount. I imagine the ones in O’Hare/Midway are similar. </p>
<p>Sometime I wonder, though, what if you lose the ticket for those lots in LA airport? They say you pay the full-day price in this case. But wouldn’t losing the ticket is a good deal then if you are gone for more than 1 day? This loophole seems too obvious on the other hand. ;)</p>
<p>fyi - I use this lot all the time! It’s the cheapest one around Midway, and as you’ll see, across the street from the Orange Line. </p>
<p>With whatever map website you use, do a search for the intersection of W. 59th St. and S. Kilpatrick Ave., Chicago, IL. Zoom in from there. The entrance to the parking lot is on the south side of W. 59th St., halfway between S. Kilpatrick and S. Kolmar Ave. After you enter the driveway, you get a ticket and the gate goes up. Park wherever. Then walk back toward W. 59th St., cross it and follow the signs to the Orange Line.</p>
<p>If you plan to spend all your time in the city it would be better to stay closer in - try checking college web sites (like DePaul, UIC, etc.) and see where they recommend visitors stay - may give you some ideas. </p>
<p>If you do decide to stay in the suburbs re those you listed, these two are about as safe as they come for suburbs:</p>
<p>Willowbrook is not directly on the train route and really doesn’t have a downtown at all but there are inexpensive motels around. If you stayed there I would recommend driving to LaGrange a few minutes away and taking the train from there. It’s a pretty quick train trip in to the city, and the town itself is relatively lively for a suburb, with lots of restaurants. I don’t know the parking situation but you should be able to find free street spaces a few blocks from town.</p>
<p>The two major malls within 15 minutes or so are Yorktown in Lombard and OakBrook Center.</p>
<p>Naperville is much further out but still considered a commuter suburb. I don’t think there are motels close to town. The town has a very upper-class urban feel and a great riverwalk; there seem to be lots of young people hanging around but it will take up a lot of time on the train. The town itself is almost like a mall.</p>
<p>Both LaGrange and Naperville are highly desirable family suburbs (in fact, so are all western suburbs along the train lines from about Brookfield on) so I don’t think your family would mind you staying there.</p>