Travel Tuesday takes us to Chicago Botanic Garden to see Shimmering Summer, an exhibit I visited on June 22, 2026. Some places feel familiar even when years have passed.
The Chicago Botanic Garden is one of those places for me. When we lived in Chicagoland, visiting CBG was a family favorite. We’ve wandered the Japanese Garden in every season, brought out-of-town guests here, admired bonsai trees older than most countries, and spent countless hours discovering something new around the next bend. Now that Charlotte is home, returning feels a little different. There’s the comfort of seeing beloved places that never seem to change, and the joy of discovering something completely unexpected.
This visit offered both.
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The Japanese Bridge That Invites You to Slow Down
I started with the Grand Tram Tour, which turned out to be the best decision of the day. As we rolled along, our guide Keith shared stories about the Garden’s 385 acres. It is amazing to think that while the Chicago Horticultural Society dates back to 1890, this exact spot was just a flooded marsh until landscape architects transformed it into a gorgeous living museum of islands and lakes in the early 1970s.
Keith listed all the impressive numbers, including 28 garden areas and nine islands, but what I kept coming back to wasn’t the history or the statistics. It was a bridge.
Specifically, the yatsuhashi, the traditional zigzag bridge in the Japanese Garden.
Keith explained that it’s designed intentionally to slow visitors down. I’ve crossed it before, and it always affects me. Something about being forced to change direction every few steps quietly interrupts whatever you’re carrying in your head. In Japanese Zen tradition, it’s believed that evil spirits can only travel in straight lines, so the angles serve as a spiritual safeguard.
But practically? Every stone invites you to shift your angle and discover the garden from a fresh perspective.
The Bubbles That Mirror and Reflect Possibilities
That theme of shifting perspectives carried right into the summer exhibit, Evanescent, by Australian art studio Atelier Sisu. Giant iridescent bubbles rise from the landscape, reflecting the sky, trees, flowers, and visitors in constantly changing colors.
As a photographer, I was drawn to how the reflections shifted depending on where I stood.
The bubbles became mirrors. Move a few feet, and the image changed. Move a little more, and the entire scene transformed.
What Bubbles and Bridges Teach Us About Visibility
As we left the Japanese Garden earlier in the tour, Keith called the landscape a “hide and reveal” experience. The sights are never shown all at once. You have to slow down. You have to look twice.
I kept thinking about that as I watched the bubbles and thought about the bridges.
If you are leading a team, running an association, or trying to build visibility for your brand right now, you know exactly what it feels like to be pressured to move fast and in a straight line. You’re expected to show everything, everywhere, all at once.
But maybe the most meaningful views, and the most impactful leadership strategies, only appear when we slow down enough to notice them. Sometimes the view changes before the destination does. Sometimes what we’re looking for isn’t missing. We simply need a zigzag bridge to change our angle, or a shimmering bubble to give us a new reflection.
Have you visited the Chicago Botanic Garden? What’s a place you’ve returned to over the years that still inspires you? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.
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