We would be flying out of Chicagos' O'Hare airport to Barcelona. I am just amazed at the travel time. Anywere from 15-18 hours. Very fragmented and spending long hours in airports overseas. Is there a better way to get there?

I think you can go direct from Chicago to Madrid..and then Barcelona. Or Chicago to Paris or London. I don't know about the prices, though. Keep in mind that you can travel practically whenever it suits you in Europe and there will be a flight to Barcelona. But maybe you need to have separate tickets for that..not Chicago-Barcelona all in one ticket.

I forgot to add..I don't think it can be done in much less than 15 hours, maybe 13 or 14.

Which airline(s) or travel websites are you using? You can fly ORD/LHR/BCN using AA/IB and get there in 11 hours.

There are Lufthansa connections (via Frankfurt or München) which take 12:15 and cost 616 Euros.

If you look up flights at www.kayak.com, you can compare all the routes. You can also filter the routes by number of connections and layover times to find the ones that are the most time-efficient. But don't leave yourself too little time to connect to your intra-European flights.

Travelpat:

You could also make the most of having to take an indirect route to Barcelona and stop over for a night in one of the cities through which you've got to fly - e.g. Madrid.

Have you looked at Chicago-London-Barcelona with BA? That might be a little shorter, and wouldn't involve backtracking (as would flying east to Germany or France and then back to Spain).

You could also use itasoftware.com and their month-long view for the lowest prices.

The fastest itinerary I could find is 12 h and 15 minutes with a change in London

Check Iberia or US air. Both about 10 hours of flight time with a small wait time in between