Planes, Trains and Automobiles: The Thanksgiving Road to Chicago

Neal Page has two days to get home to Chicago for Thanksgiving and one last obstacle: rush hour. He loses a race for a cab to Kevin Bacon's character, bribes a man for another, then watches Del Griffith swoop in and take it. Del, a shower-curtain-ring salesman, will be Neal's companion for the rest of the trip. Park Avenue is still the broad, north–south boulevard that runs parallel to Madison and Lexington; the taxi race is long gone.

At LaGuardia the storm has wrecked the schedule. Neal's flight is delayed, and Del — the man who took his cab — is waiting in the same terminal, chatting to anyone within range. When they finally board, Neal's first-class seat has been reassigned to coach, right beside him. LaGuardia began public service in 1939 and is named for former mayor Fiorello La Guardia; a multibillion-dollar rebuild finished in January 2025. It still handles mostly domestic flights.

Visitor guidance: A working airport; the terminals are open to travellers.

The blizzard closes Chicago, so the plane lands in Wichita, Kansas, and one room is left. Neal and Del share it and a double bed, inadvertently swap credit cards at check-in, and wake to find their cash stolen. The real motel is the Braidwood Inn, 45 miles southwest of Chicago on I-55; it later became a Days Inn and is now the Sun Motel at 140 South Hickory Street. The film's Wichita is pure geography — the building is in Illinois.

Location precision: The film's Wichita hotel is the Braidwood Inn, now the Sun Motel, 45 miles southwest of Chicago.

Visitor guidance: The Sun Motel still stands at 140 South Hickory Street.

With the planes grounded, Neal buys train tickets and the two set off in separate compartments, until the locomotive breaks down near Jefferson City, Missouri, and leaves the passengers stranded in a field. The station where they catch the train was filmed in South Dayton, a village in western New York, at Pine Street and Railroad Street. South Dayton had 564 residents at the 2020 census, and the railroad that built it arrived in 1875.

Location precision: The film sets the station on the Wichita-to-Chicago line; the scenes were filmed at South Dayton, New York, at Pine Street and Railroad Street.

Visitor guidance: A small village on the former railroad; the depot corner is at Pine Street and Railroad Street.

At Lambert, Neal's luck hits bottom. The rental car he reserved is not in the lot, so he unleashes an expletive-filled tirade on the clerk, then insults the taxi dispatcher and gets punched in the face. Del rolls up in a rental car and offers a ride. The airport scenes were filmed at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, named for aviator Albert Bond Lambert; it is Missouri's largest and busiest airport, 14 miles northwest of downtown, with nonstop service to more than 60 destinations.

Visitor guidance: A working airport; the terminals and rental counters are open to travellers.

Del drives, takes a wrong-way exit, then discards a cigarette and burns the rental car to a shell. With his credit cards destroyed, Neal trades his watch for a motel room and leaves Del outside in the snow — then relents and lets him in. The motel is the El Rancho at 36355 North Highway 41 in Gurnee, north of Chicago toward Wisconsin. It is the low point of the trip and the turning point: Del's rambling apology finally gets through.

Thanksgiving morning, and the burnt car is still moving — until a state trooper pulls them over and impounds it as unroadworthy. A truck driver takes pity and gives them a ride to Chicago in the refrigerated trailer. The speeding stop was filmed outside the old courthouse in Woodstock, Illinois, now the Old Courthouse Arts Center at 101 North Johnson Street. The 1857 Italianate building now shares its square with restaurants, an art gallery and a pottery shop.

Visitor guidance: The Old Courthouse Arts Center at 101 North Johnson Street faces the Woodstock square.

Neal finally reaches Chicago and thanks Del at a Loop 'L' station; they part as friends. Then, on the train, Neal replays Del's odd remarks and goes back. He finds Del alone on the platform, and Del admits he has no home and has lived on the road since his wife died eight years earlier. The scene was shot at LaSalle/Van Buren, which opened in 1897 and is one of only two Loop stations that keep their original look. The Board of Trade is a block north.

Visitor guidance: A working station on the Loop, still handling trains in the heart of downtown Chicago.

Neal brings Del home to Thanksgiving dinner in Kenilworth, a North Shore village 15 miles north of downtown Chicago. The Pages' house is at 230 Oxford Road, facing Warwick Road, and it remains a private home. In the film, Neal introduces Del to his family. Kenilworth was founded in 1889 as a planned community and is the wealthiest neighbourhood in Illinois.