Day Trips

• Children’s Discovery Museum 4 floors of amazing adventures for kids. Well worth the 45 minute drive.

• Miller Park Zoo It’s not very large, but makes a nice day trip. Big playground outside the gates. There’s no concessions at the zoo, so be sure to pack lunch.

So much to do and see. Just a 90 minute drive—spend a day or a weekend. You can even take the train right from Champaign.

• Art Institute of Chicago Museum
• Shedd Aquarium
• Chicago Field Museum
• Museum of Science & Industry
• Navy Pier
• Shopping on Michigan Avenue
• Brookfield Zoo
• Six Flags Great America

• Kickapoo State Park About 30 minutes east, just before Danville. Has lots of hiking/biking trails, some fairly hilly, in a very wooded setting. They have a permanent nine-hole frisbee golf course and horse-riding trails, and rent out watercraft for tooling around in the park’s waterways.

• Kennkuk County Park Contains three nature preserves, watercraft rentals, and seasonal hunting.

• Children’s Museum of Illinois
• Decatur Scoville Zoo

• Children’s Museum of Indianapolis Voted one of the best children museums in the country! It’s large and very cool. Has a carousel inside. Really a great day trip for the family.

• Broadripple Village Has really interesting, funky shopping, art galleries and restaurants.

• Shopping at the Fashion Mall Keystone for all those fun higher end stores & catalog shopping, Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn.

• Circle Center Mall (downtown Indy) – fun for guys too – top floor has different themed bars, great restaurants & shopping for all range of budgets.

• Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve Lake, fishing, golf course, playground, covered bridge & HILLS! And paved wooded and prairie trails for walking/biking, botanical gardens are both neat for kids.

• Early American Museum (within Lake of Woods Forest Preserve) North Route 47, 1 mile north of I-74. Check into classes for kids.

• Pickle Tree Farm Great ice cream (pick your mix of toppings & they extrude hard ice cream into semi–soft), some food is good but a really neat place for gifts –home decor, kids, seasonal, kitchen condiments, etc.

• Allerton Park 1,500 acres of formal gardens, nature areas, and Robert Allerton’s manor house, all of which was bequeathed to the University of Illinois. The estate is used as a conservation area devoted to education, research, and recreation. The park also has more than 10 miles of hiking/running trails, including a 5-mile loop that goes through woods, alongside a river, and past dozens of metal and ceramic sculptures.

• While in Monticello have lunch at the casual Brown Bag Deli. Great sandwiches.

• Leiper’s Furniture Alone worth a trip to Monticello. (check hrs. – closed on Sundays) And in case the kids want to play while you shop, there is a great city playground right across the street.

• Monticello Railway Museum Railway museum with a working engine that travels to downtown Monticello and back. Great family outing on a nice sunny day. Haunted train rides are fun for kids at Halloween.

• Knight’s Action Water Park Right off the interstate. It has a water park, miniature golf, bumper boats…

• Abraham Lincoln Home and Old State Capitol Both free (suggested donation). The home is restored back to when Lincoln left for Washington. The surrounding neighborhood is also brought back to 1860. The Old Capitol has docents in period costume to show you around and to argue pre-Civil War politics. They even put wavy glass in the windows so you can’t see any hint of the 21st century outside. Lincoln’s law office and post office across the street are also open for tours. Very cool for history buffs.

• Periwinkles Another neat place (without kids) – custom furniture – 3 brightly painted separate buildings all different decorating styles and one is a gift shop. (If you go to shop – there are also 2 cute unique shops and a neat little Bistro for lunch in a hidden Talbots strip mall - call Robin Pletcher)

• City Museum Creative children’s museum, very unique. Appeals to kids of all ages but to adults with any Peter Pan spirit. Be prepared to crawl through some wild spaces through this old 10 story warehouse. Totally whacked-out goofy trip for school age kids. Check out the pictures on their site.

• The Magic House aka St. Louis Children’s Museum - rated #1 in US for child appeal by Zagat family travel guide. Amazing place for curious kids and has great pretend play activities for toddlers. Perfect way to spend the day with a 2 & 4 year old. Also has an Infant play area too. Worth the trip to St. Louis alone!

• Forest Park Huge (larger than Central Park in NYC) public park with miles of running/walking/biking pathways, a large, nice (and free!) zoo, golf course, opera house, art museum, a great adult/children’s science museum, tons of open space for picnics and gatherings, and a boathouse with rental watercraft.

• Fitz Great kid friendly restaurant and fun for adults too. Soda bottling factory in the restaurant to watch while making their own Root beer, orange & grape pop. Nice variety of food and cater to kids with food served in an old time car & smiley face french fries.

Wolf Park is a nonprofit education and research facility which was established in 1972 to study and learn from wolf behavior, particularly reproductive and inter-pack social behavior. It is open to the public for daily guided tours and events such as Howl Night and Wolf/Bison demonstrations.