Please help with Short driving trip from Chicago
 

Please help! My husband and I have decided to take a last minute trip starting Saturday and lasting for about a week. We would prefer mot having to drive more than ten or eleven hours. Since we live in the Chicago area, I would like something outdoor/nature oriented (as opposed to museums and such) but am open to amy ideas. Does anyone have any ideas on a last minute getaway? Thank you so much for your suggestions!

You might find an idea that interests you on this thread:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p?tid=35008164

I would drive up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and explore Lake Superior, or maybe go down to the Ozarks and relax by a lake.

Take a look into the Great River Road Drive. Head out 90 to 20 through Galena to Dubuque and head North. Long as you are there check out the Great River Museum in Dubuque (I know you said no museums but this is truly nature oriented). Maybe even stay a day and enjoy a riverboat dinner cruise or the dog track/casino.

Continue North on the WI side toward Prarie Du Chien and LaCrosse, maybe cross at Winona, MN to see that side.

In that region you can do other River trips including renting a house boat for a couple days. If that floats your boat ;-)

Go as far North as you wish, if you want to head home you could end in Eau Claire (Check out the Leininkukal factory in Chippawa Falls, not sure if they still do tours)and catch the expressway all the way home or stop in Madison if you have never been.

The above is a pretty liesurly week with no real long driving days.

How about a trip all along Michigan's west coast? There are plenty of fun places to visit all along our shoreline. My favorites are Saugatuck, Holland, Grand Haven, Pentwater, Manistee, Frankfort, and the entire Leelanau Peninsula. The Sleeping Bear Dunes and also the Manistee National Forest are great places to hike.

Here are some web sites to get you started... let us know if you want more info.

www.michiganswestcoast.com
www.michigan.org

How about a trip to Door County, WI. Or maybe the WI Dells.

UP is great too. Copper Harbor. Love it!

We live in the western 'burbs and spent a few days last month on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. We started in Madison, WI because our son had orientation/registration at UW. But I think, starting from here, it would come pretty close to your time requirement.

It would very definitely meet your outdoor/nature oriented requirement. In the stretch from Duluth to the Canadian border there are 8 state parks. All of them have hiking trails. And all of them are beautiful!

But there are also nice places to stay (lots of camping too if you prefer that) and lots of restaurants.

Thank you everybody for your quick replies to my post. I really appreciate your time and suggestions. Now I will get busy doing a little research. Thank you again!

CAPH52, how long do you think it would take to drive from Lemont to Duluth (about)? And do you think it is worth it? Thank you.

It'd probably take you about 10 hours to get to Duluth. Since you said you were looking for more of an outdoors experience, you'd probably want to go past Duluth to the North Shore. Depending on where you decide to stay, it could take you anywhere from another half an hour to another 90 minutes. Duluth is very nice though too.

I definitely think it's worth it. It's beautiful country. But I can't really make that judgment for someone else!

How soon are you planning to go? The first thing I'd recommend doing is to make sure that you can get a reservation for somewhere to stay. If you click on my name, you'll find two or three threads that discuss hotels, etc. And you might want to take a look at trip reports that cmcfong and Tiff posted as they both give good info about places to stay, etc.

If it were me, I'd consider making it a two day drive. There are some nice places to stay along the way there and back. And then you could take your time, stopping for views along the way.

I'm still working on posting my trip report (A Big Campus, a Great Lake and a Mighty River) and haven't gotten to that part yet, but we stayed in Red Wing, MN on our way back. Very nice little town! And the drive along the river from there to LaCrosse was really pretty.

http://northshorevisitor.com/ is a good web site for North Shore info.

Good luck with your decision! I'll be glad to do my best to answer any other questions you might want to ask.

Thank you for all the info CAPH52. We are leaving Saturday so I don't know if that is enough time to find a hotel. We may have to rethink this and shoot for something a little closer. Thank you again.

I don't want to sound pushy. You know best what you need to do! But, before you give up, why not try a couple of places? That link I gave you has a link to the Best Western in Grand Marais. They just might have something. Especially if you stop on the way up and don't get there until Sunday. I'm guessing the weekends would be the hardest time to find a room.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope you have a very nice trip!

We live in the Chicago area. Some trips we have enjoyed that have been under 10 hour drives are:

St. Louis (about 5 hours)

Mackinac Island (about 7 hours)

Wisconsin Dells (about 3 hours)

Thank you CAPH52 and tl91. I have heard good things about St. Louis. That surprises me so I may have to check that out also. Thank you again.