Discover Dupage: Nature, Trails, and History

Dupage combines expansive natural areas with accessible history and unusual discoveries. Anyone looking for a vacation rental or vacation home can tailor their trip to their own interests: highlights include trails through forests, prairies, and wetlands, historic farms and mills, and museums with a regional focus. This makes it possible to vary your daily plans between exercise, nature observation, and culture.

Forest Preserves and Trails for Different Days

The Forest Preserve District of DuPage County encompasses 60 forest preserves and five educational facilities. Altogether, more than 175 miles of trails are available. These include lightly traveled footpaths as well as wider limestone and asphalt trails. These differences help you choose your activities without every outing having to have the same character.

For planning purposes, the interactive trail map provides information for each trail about parking, directions, and amenities. At St. James Farm, the trails pass through natural areas of the preserve and can be used by hikers, cyclists, horseback riders, and cross-country skiers. The area includes more than 100 acres of woodland, prairie, and wetlands within a 595-acre property. The 2.3-mile restored section of Spring Brook is also part of this landscape; the stream is a tributary of the West Branch DuPage River.

Nature Observation with Special Details

Blackwell features gently rolling terrain with oak and hickory forests, prairies, grasslands, and wetlands. This landscape attracts a wide variety of native wildlife. At the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center, injured, orphaned, and ill native wildlife receive medical care. The 0.5-mile Coyote Loop adds six interpretive stations about native flora and fauna to the visit.

The Morton Arboretum covers 1,700 acres. Along 16 miles of roads and trails through woodlands, gardens, and prairies, you can place another focus on plants and landscape areas. Mayslake encompasses 90 acres, including 13 acres of wetlands, 9 acres of lakes and ponds, and 15 acres of savanna and restored prairie. Travelers with dogs will find a fully fenced off-leash area there with more than four acres of mowed lawn and a double-gate system. Mayslake Hall is closed due to master plan work.

Mills, Farms, and Museums

Graue Mill and Museum is the only operating waterwheel-powered gristmill still in operation in Illinois. Programs on milling, spinning, and weaving illustrate life between 1850 and 1860. Kline Creek Farm conveys what life was like on a working farm in the 1890s. Restored farm buildings, historically costumed interpreters, and former tools and techniques bring this focus to life. Depending on the season, activities there include planting heirloom vegetables, milking cows, tending orchards, carrying out work in the wagon shed workshop, or harvesting ice from Timber Lake.

Naper Settlement is a 13-hectare open-air museum with historic buildings, exhibitions, and history demonstrations. At the DuPage County Historical Museum, an HO-scale model railroad depicts the railways and landmarks of DuPage County on more than 2,000 feet of track. Cantigny combines gardens and trails with the Robert R. McCormick Museum, the First Division Museum, a visitor center, an education center, and a golf course. St. James Farm also preserves a gable-front-and-wing farmhouse from a late-19th-century farmstead complex. The Portiuncula Chapel is a replica of the original in Assisi, Italy.

Choose Accommodation to Match Your Travel Interests

When choosing your accommodation, it is worth first deciding on your preferred travel rhythm. If you would like to explore numerous trails and landscape areas, natural areas and the information in the interactive map can serve as the starting point for your planning. For days focused on cultural history, mills, farms, open-air museums, and collections are available to choose from. Anyone wishing to combine different interests can select the location of their vacation rental or vacation home based on which of these visitor experiences will be the focus of the trip.

Fishing is another possible activity: Unless otherwise posted, it is permitted in all lakes and ponds of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, as well as in both branches of the DuPage River, Salt Creek, and its tributaries. Cantigny is certified as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary and offers organized bird-watching walks. This creates different travel profiles, ranging from nature observation and exercise to history and regional education.

More Places for Planning Your Trip

As additional places to consider for your selection, you can consider Roselle, Addison, Downers Grove, Itasca, Lombard, Naperville, Villa Park, Oak Brook, Bloomingdale, Carol Stream, Wheaton, Wood Dale, Lisle, Glen Ellyn, Bensenville, Warrenville, Medinah, Glendale Heights, Darien, Elmhurst, Westmont and Woodridge as additional options.

For the broader travel overview: Illinois.