Travel

Conference Location

The conference will be held in the Thomas M. Siebel Center, in the University of Illinois Computer Science Department. The Siebel Center is located at the corner of Matthews and Stoughton Street in Urbana; see this map.

Parking is available in the parking structure directly to the north of the Siebel Center or in numerous university lots in the area. Most are free on weekends, but check the blue signs posted at the front of each lot to determine if parking regulations are "enforced" M-F, or seven days a week.

Once you arrive at the Siebel Center, registration is in the main lobby as you come in.

By car

Champaign-Urbana is located near the intersection of routes I-74 and I-57.

Please be aware that Parents' Weekend was scheduled on-campus after we the date was fixed for this conference. This might make parking more tricky. In general, watch for the blue signs in front of parking lots which indicate when the lots are free; most are free on weekends, but some are reserved 24/7.

Rail Service

Amtrak, which has two routes: the "City of New Orleans" train running Chicago-Memphis-New Orleans, and "Illini Service," which runs Chicago-Carbondale. In addition, Amtrak has a service in Bloomington, IL from St. Louis. (See the flights section for more information on Bloomington.) Both Chicago and St. Louis have numerous connecting trains.

Bus Service

Air Service

When booking air travel, don't forget to use Kayak to compare airfares from many sites simultaneously. And definitely don't forget to try Student Universe, which has special student-only airfares.

  • CMI: Champaign is served by Willard Airport, code CMI. The local busses include service to and from the airport.
  • BMI: Bloomington, IL is about 45 minutes away from Champaign and is frequently much cheaper --- please check fares there.
    • E-mail gstc@math.uiuc.edu with your itinerary and we will set up carpooling or group shuttles. We'll try to coordinate arrivals and have one person rent a car and drive a group back to Champaign.
    • You can also use Lincolnland Express, but their fares are very pricey (around $40 each way).
  • ORD and MDW: These are the big Chicago airports; MDW can be particularly cheap because it is served by Southwest. Make sure to check at their website, since they're not listed by most search engines. Also check out JetBlue.
    • Chicago airports are served by both Suburban Express and Lincolnland Express, running about $40 each way. You may also be able to use public transportation and then take Amtrak.
    • If there is demand, we can try to arrange carpooling from Chicago; note that we will also have some students coming from universities in the area. E-mail gstc@math.uiuc.edu if you're interested in finding a ride. However, we can't make promises at this distance.
  • IND: The closest "major" airport is actually Indianapolis, a bit under two hours away. We can try to arrange carpooling if this looks like a good option for you, but again, it may be limited by how many people travel through there.