Illinois’ creative spirit has deep roots, and its expressions old and new are to be found all over the state’s surprisingly diverse geography. Hit the road with us and discover spectacular scenery, unique history, inimitable artistry and proud communities.
Beyond Chicago’s city limits, creativity is to be found all over Illinois, not least in nature. Not, as is often supposed, purely pancake-flat prairie land, it’s home to some 64 state parks and seven scenic byways, and boasts some striking landscapes that offer great hiking, horseriding and nature-watching opportunities. In Shawnee National Forest, the towering rock formations of Garden of the Gods afford endless wilderness views, while Starved Rock State Park combines monumental, weather-sculpted sandstone landscapes with rich settler history.
Illinoisans’ work in tandem with nature has also produced some ravishing gardens, notably Rockford’s wildly picturesque Anderson Japanese Gardens and Chicago Botanic Garden, set on nine islands to the north of the city in the upscale lakefront village Glencoe. But in many ways the state’s most remarkable man/land collab is the UNESCO World Heritage-designated Cahokia Mounds, site of an ancient Native American settlement that was once the largest north of Mexico, and whose massive earthworks, in 2,200 acres of serene parkland, wrap its illuminating history in sweeping views across the Mississippi. The mystery-shrouded site is one of many ways to engage with indigenous heritage – other manifestations of an increasingly progressive cultural dialogue include Schaumburg’s Trickster Cultural Center and the Gichigamiin Indigenous Nations Museum in Evanston, whose bold programming recently included the moving contemporary art exhibit No Rest: The Epidemic of Stolen Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirits.
Another scenic standout are the rolling, forested hills of Jo Daviess County in the state’s far northwestern corner. Among these lies Galena, a tiny, historic lead-mining town whose beautifully preserved original buildings, 85 per cent of which are on the National Register of Historic Places, make it one of the state’s biggest visitor draws. Turning 200 in 2026, it’s also home to an ebullient LGBTQ+ community. “People call it Gay-lena,” laughs Alex Arroyo-Karnish, co-owner with his husband Geoff of Main Street’s Galena Bakehouse, an Illinois Made brand and one of 50-plus queer-run businesses in the town. “We’ve had nothing but acceptance and support since we moved here from New York in 2019. And we were invited that same year to launch a Pride Picnic that’s really embraced by the community and people from lots of other cities.” Scott McKinsey, Artistic Director of the distinctly risqué Galena Shakespeare Festival, echoes the sentiment. “We work with trans and non-binary actors and really explore the ambiguity of sexual identities in the plays,” they say. “And Galena audiences couldn’t be more here for it.”
This story first appeared in The Experientialist Awards Issue 2025, available in print and digital.
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Like the Bakehouse boys, artisanal food and drink producers statewide are finding enthusiastic audiences for their products. Distilleries in particular are an Illinois forte, with small-batch, provenance-savvy production methods even empowering farmers to reclaim land from large-yield commercial agriculture to raise organic crops. “Our grain is grown by Illinois farmers, milled by Illinois workers, and we’re Illinois distillers,” says Bob Windy, co-owner of Peru’s Star Union Spirits – another Illinois Made producer – based in the beautiful old Deco Westclox factory. Local born, Bob moved back to the LaSalle County town after decades of living in Chicago to be part of the regenerative new wave of craft manufacturing that’s characterfully revitalising small cities all over the state. “Every place now wants to have a local winery or distillery these days that does something unique to its location, and we’re so happy to fit that bill. We now make more than 100 drinks and they all are a little different, each with its own story behind it.”
One of Illinois’ most celebrated creators is the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed more than 1,100 buildings, many of them now UNESCO World Heritage Sites, over his extraordinary 70-year career. The defining pioneer of the Prairie School movement, Wright is mainly associated with Chicago and the neighbouring village Oak Park, where he was based for most of his career and built many houses, but other beautiful examples, open to visitors, are to be found across the state. Rockford is home to Laurent House, remarkable as a trailblazer of adaptive, wheelchair-friendly design. The state capital Springfleld has the Dana-Thomas House, one of the best-preserved examples of Wright’s ‘organic architecture’, containing more than 100 pieces of custom furniture and some 250 artworks in glass.
Aside from its significance as the former home of Abraham Lincoln, Springfield is also notable for its prime location on Route 66, America’s fabled ‘Mother Road’, which turns 100 in 2026. Crammed with cute, kitschy Americana in the form of diners, mini-museums and vintage roadside signage, the cross-country highway’s Illinois stretch continues to magnetise American Dreamy-eyed visitors in their droves, and today also offers a poignant new perspective on the landmark road. Opened in 2019, Route History Museum ingeniously tells stories through virtual reality videos of African Americans who sought sanctuary from the South’s Jim Crow laws during the Great Migration, and found brave allies and safety in Springfield and other Illinois communities. “There are still so few places in this country that focus on African American history,” says co-owner, researcher Dr Gina Lathan. “And we wanted to give people a positive view of the black experience in Springfield.”
Our road trip ended in Edwards-ville, an affluent college town close to the majestic Great River Road, which hugs a bank of the Mississippi beneath towering limestone cliffs said to have sheltered the ferocious piasa bird of Native American mythology. Here, nature reserves and wide-open green spaces draw birdwatchers, hikers, cyclists and kayakers, and while some cities in the area have an elegiac, post-industrial atmosphere, an artsy, entrepreneurial, community-forward and surprisingly queer-friendly regenerative energy can be felt that’s a lot of fun to discover, and pure Illinois.
Stars of this indie-vibed scene include Edwardsville’s breezy Café Birdie, more than half of whose staff, the owner mentions with visible pride, are LGBTQ+, Old Herald Brewery & Distillery in Collinsville, which has made of a disused newspaper HQ a buzzy restaurant with live bands in the yard and, in street art-rich Alton, our pick for Illinois’ best-named business, the ‘metaphysical supplies’ store It’s Raining Zen.
Photography courtesy of Illinois Office of Tourism
