Mon May 15, 2023 4:49 am
I've heard that the Hilton O'Hare has some of the best views, but I haven't personally stayed there. I have stayed at the nearby Aloft O'Hare in Rosemont (north-facing room) and I got to see Runway 27C arrivals from there, but you would need a lot of zoom (at least 400mm) for decent photos since the aircraft are quite far away.
As for spotting locations, I only have experience spotting at the Schiller Park Metra Station and Rosemont CTA station parking lots. It's just an average spot that will get you run-of-the-mill side approach shots with only the sky as the background. The Schiller Park Station spot is for 28C arrivals and Rosemont CTA station is for 27C arrivals (requires a lot of zoom). 28C arrivals seemed to be less frequent, although it would get quite a bit more of the interesting widebody arrivals compared to 27C. I believe there is one spot by the Delta Cargo area where you can capture aircraft that are on the runway (28C), but I have never been to that spot since it seemed too inconvenient to get to without a car.