Explore Illinois roadside attractions and other tourist traps, restaurants, stops, and detours to add to your Illinois road trip itinerary.
An old F-84F Thunderstreak fighter jet can be found in a motel parking lot in Wenona, Illinois. The camouflaged airplane is a fun site to see outside of the Wenona America’s Best Value Inn (formerly a Best Western, formerly a Super 8). Before living at the motel, the parking lot jet plane could be found at various locations around town since the late...
“There’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark out, and we’re wearing sunglasses.” You can find these Blues Brothers Statues in Rock Island, Illinois. The Blues Brothers started out as a Saturday Night Live sketch in the late 1970s where John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd played fedora...
John Dillinger was once a notorious gangster and the FBI’s “Public Enemy No. 1.” His crime spree occurred during the Great Depression, when he and his gang were responsible for robbing banks, breaking out of jail, and killing and injuring numerous men. That all ended on July 22, 1934, when the FBI were tipped off that he was watching the movie “Manhattan...
If you didn’t know where the Walt Disney Birthplace in Chicago, Illinois was, it would be easy to miss. It is, after all, a house. Just an average, plain, nondescript house on a residential street in the Hermosa neighborhood on the North side of the city. But that house was once home to Walt Disney, the animator, voice actor, writer, and film producer who was...
A mythical beast lives on, painted on a limestone cliff, in Alton, Illinois. This is the Legend of the Piasa Bird, who, according to myth, terrorized the Illini Native American tribes many moons ago. 2015 The Piasa Bird is a scary creature, with red eyes, the horns of a deer, outstretched wings, fearsome talons, a snarl of sharp teeth, and a long, scaled tail. 2015...
The Traveler’s Chapel is a tiny church in Nashville, Illinois. Unlike some other small churches that look like shrunken versions of normal-sized chapels, this one looks like a mini log cabin on stilts, with a long wood path leading you from parking lot to prayer. The rustic church lives on a field next to a BP gas station, on Hwy 127, just off the Nashville...
Keep your eye out for this roadside attraction: Tony Tasset’s Eye, a giant eyeball in Dallas, Texas. That’s right, this Dallas tourist attraction is no optical illusion. It really is a 30-foot tall eyeball made from 8,000 to 9,000 pounds of fiberglass, 9,000 pounds of steel, resin and paint. Chicago, Illinois in 2010 The giant eye sculpture was created in...
We were nearing the end of our day-long Chicago road trip. We’d spent all morning visiting the Mr. Bendo Muffler Man, the Leaning Tower of Niles, the Golden Pyramid House, among other Chicago roadside attractions. It was getting dark, but there was still time for our penultimate stop: the giant hot dog topped with fries at Henry’s Drive-In in Cicero...
Are you ready to take an Illinois road trip and find the best Illinois roadside attractions along the way? Whether you’re taking a car trip with kids or a weekend getaway with friends these 15 places to go in Illinois make fun pit stops on the road and great additions to your travel itinerary. I grew up in Illinois and have lived in the state all of my life...
The Robert C. Givins Castle, also known as the “Irish Castle” or just “The Castle,” is a marvel of medieval-inspired architecture at home in the south side of Chicago, Illinois. The building, the only castle in Chicago, sits at the corner of 103rd Street and Longwood Drive in the Beverly community on Chicago’s south side. Since 1942, the...