Foursquare is one of the newest social networking websites. It lets you share your location with your friends and via Twitter. It can seem a bit stalkerish but it’s fun and not really creepy. It’s pretty easy to use as you just “check in” using your mobile device while you’re out and about.

Foursquare is such “the rage” now that some companies and even cities are awarding special badges for checking out various locations. What’s a badge? It’s just another fun aspect of Foursquare. You can earn all sorts of badges for doing a variety of things like checking in while on a boat or for visiting 25 new places. There are a large number of badges that you can earn. You can find a list of all of the Foursquare badges here. It’s updated on a pretty regular basis and even has inactive or closed badges.

Anyway, back to the title of this post! If you live in or visit Chicago you can earn some special badges via Explore Chicago. You do need to follow them on Foursquare in order to earn the badges, keep that in mind. At the moment you can earn three different Chicago related badges. They are: Chicago Blues, Celery Salt & On Location.

Chicago Blues centers on the blues music scene if that wasn’t obvious enough from the name of the badge. In order to earn the badge you must check in at five of the approved locations. Don’t worry; there are 17 different locations to choose from including the Historic Site of the IL Central Depot: The Black Ellis Island, Roosevelt & Indiana and Rosa’s Lounge.

Celery Salt is all about the Chicago Style hotdog. I can already taste them! As with the previous badge you must check in at five different locations. Again you have a decent list to choose from which includes 12 different locations ranging from Wrigley Field to Portillo’s.

The last badge you can earn centers around films that have been filmed in and around Chicago and gives you a few choices. Your choices are “The Blues Brothers,” “Dark Knight,” Chick Flicks in Chicago, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “High Fidelity.” In order to earn this badge you must pick ONE movie-themed experience and again check in at five different locations that are on the list. A few of the locations are Daley Plaza, The Auditorium Theatre, The University of Chicago, Navy Pier, The Art Institute of Chicago and Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse.

I think I might try and earn the Celery Salt badge on my next trip out to Chicago. I think featuring something like this for a city makes it a little more fun and make it feel like a scavenger hunt. Plus it’s an easy way to get people to visit parts of the city they might not even think about checking out otherwise!