Festival Park

If you’re in downtown Elgin with little kids, this is honestly the spot to know about. The water feature is the main draw in summer — younger ones especially lose their minds for it — but there’s also a solid climbing structure, a seesaw, and some musical equipment that keeps the 2-to-8 crowd busy long after they’ve dried off. It sits right along the river, so the views are legitimately nice, and the open grass field gives kids room to just run. The restrooms are clean and stocked with a changing station, which if you’ve got a baby in tow, you already know how rare that actually is. Parking is there, the path is good for a post-playground walk — it checks a lot of boxes without making a big deal about it.