Playground

If you’re staying at the Starved Rock campground, this spot is genuinely useful to know about. It’s an accessible playground with a big open grass field right there for kids to run loose — and being this close to the trails, it fits naturally into a day of outdoor exploring. Nothing fancy, but the space is real and the setting does a lot of the heavy lifting. Families with younger kids especially seem to appreciate having somewhere to burn energy without packing up and driving anywhere.