Are you looking to book Chicago’s best interior architecture walking tour, operated by the small business that launched the concept in 2014? Great!
You’re in the right place. There’s nothing “secret” about it.
It’s called “The World Within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop.”
Beware the false claims that use our 10+ years of solid reputation to sell other companies’ tours!
Inside Chicago Walking Tours created and introduced its signature interior architecture walking tour, The World Within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop, when it was founded by Hillary Marzec in 2014. For more than a decade, we've been bringing visitors inside some of Chicago's most spectacular historic buildings, revealing the extraordinary architecture, craftsmanship, art, and stories hidden behind their façades.
Recently, another Chicago tour has appeared under the name “Secret Interiors,” offering a similar interior-architecture-focused experience, including a very similar tour route, schedule, and website language.
Please note that “Secret Interiors” is NOT an Inside Chicago Walking Tours product. Despite claims appearing on some websites that confuse customers and deliberately direct them to book the “Secret Interiors” tour as though it were ours, it is not another name for our “Dazzling Interiors” tour. “Secret Interiors” is neither affiliated with nor operated by Inside Chicago Walking Tours.
You may encounter websites, travel marketplaces, or third-party articles that use “Secret Interiors,” “Dazzling Interiors,” “World Within,” or similar terminology in ways that make different tours appear connected. Please check the tour operator carefully, and know what you’re booking.
The World Within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop isn't simply a tour about Chicago's hidden interiors. It's the Inside Chicago Walking Tours exclusive interior architecture experience, created in 2014 and refined over more than a decade of sharing Chicago with visitors from around the world. We invite you to experience Chicago’s best and longest-running interior architecture walking tours with us.
THe World within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop came first!
Our history is straightforward:
2014: Inside Chicago Walking Tours launches The World Within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop, establishing our interior architecture tour as one of our signature experiences, and pioneering a then-absent tour concept in Chicago of interiors-focused walking tours. Offering six different routes, our The World Within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop quickly becomes our most popular and flagship route.
2014–present: We have continued offering and developing our interior architecture tours, introducing countless visitors to Chicago's extraordinary interiors. We survived COVID — a tremendous feat for a small business in tourism! — and continue to research, create, and operate Chicago’s most engaging, authentic, meaningful experiences of architecture. We operate with integrity and respect for the industry and for our competitors.
Today: Dazzling Interiors remains an Inside Chicago Walking Tours original, and remains (since day one!) our most popular tour.
We are proud of the history we've built and the distinctive tour concept we've developed over the years.
So what is “Secret Interiors”?
“Secret Interiors” is a separate tour offered by a travel agency with roots in New Orleans, Empire Tours & Productions. It is NOT an Inside Chicago Walking Tours product.
The similarity in subject matter is not an indication that the tours are the same, and “Secret Interiors” should not be understood as a new name, replacement name, or alternate title for our Dazzling Interiors tour, despite what some websites are now claiming. Customers are understandably confused and irritated that they are attempting to book our tour, only to find out they accidentally booked another company’s product.
Inside Chicago Walking Tours also offers other tours within our popular The World Within series, and some of those tours may use the words “secret” or “interiors” in their titles. Those are our own separately developed tour experiences and should not be confused with tours offered by other companies.
Why does this matter?
We are a small, locally owned Chicago business. We pioneered the concept of interior architecture tours because we believe Chicago's greatest architectural stories aren't always told from a boat or a bus — they're inside the buildings and amongst the people. Through years of hard work and dedication — and always operating with respect for our competition and the utmost integrity as a business — we continue to develop and offer Chicago’s most popular interior architecture tours.
For more than a decade, we have invested substantial time, resources, and independent research into creating authentic, distinctive experiences that reveal the interior architecture of Chicago in meaningful ways. Along the way, we have built relationships with building owners, security personnel, tenants, management, and neighbors, while developing the expert storytelling, firsthand knowledge, and personal local perspective that make our tours truly unique and inimitable.
We built this business from the ground up—long before the rise of AI made it easier to replicate content, ideas, and even the appearance of expertise. Unfortunately, that technology can also make it easy for newer competitors to take shortcuts, rather than invest in years of their own research, relationship-building, and original work required to create something genuinely new. We believe small businesses like ours deserve credit for the countless hours, immense creativity, and developed expertise behind the experiences they pioneer—not to have that work used as a shortcut to someone else’s success. It’s difficult to compete with large companies with tons of money, deliberately flooding the internet with thin affiliate pages, doorway page schemes, and SEO spam. They have a whole team behind their takeover strategy. We have one person. She makes all the tours; she makes her website; she creates relationships with all the buildings and their people. She employs people who also work with respect and integrity. She and her guides have made Inside Chicago Walking Tours the success that it is: original content, honest work practices, and a deep knowledge of Chicago and a passion for sharing their love for it.
We've watched the concept of interior-focused Chicago architecture tours become increasingly popular since we launched it in 2014, and we're thrilled that more people want to explore the city's incredible interiors. However, we want to clarify to customers that when they book the “Secret Interiors” tour, or perhaps stumble upon the coming-soon "Complete Interiors” tour, despite what some online sources are now falsely claiming, these are NOT OUR TOURS. The World Within: Dazzling Interiors of the Loop is our flagship tour: it is more than a decade old, well-established, and a very popular tour showcasing beautiful architecture interiors in downtown Chicago. It is the tour that got us a “Best of the Best” award from TripAdvisor, putting our tour in the top 1% of all activities listed on TripAdvisor worldwide. The “Secret Interiors” tour (and the “Complete Interiors” tour soon to be offered by a former employee of the company offering the “Secret Interiors”) is a seemingly similar tour that unfortunately causes serious customer confusion.
We hope this clarifies the matter, and we appreciate your support of our small business.
