Nature and Camping Trips to Take From Chicago

One common knock against the Chicago area is that “real” nature seems far away. Apart from Lake Michigan — arguably the region’s best natural attribute — it’s sprawling suburbs and monotone fields of corn in every direction. I have subscribed to this idea for years.

But it’s not actually true. If you’re looking for nature within a short drive of the city, as I recently discovered, it’s possible to piece together a nature-focused itinerary through the suburbs north to south, traveling from the border with Wisconsin to the border with Indiana. It is certainly not backcountry, but I was surprised at how much of the natural world we found. There was also a big advantage: bountiful restaurant options. It made for a weekend that scratched the nature itch without the labor of camp cooking.

Forty-five miles northwest of the city, our first stop, Volo Bog State Natural Area features “the only open-water quaking bog in Illinois,” according to its website. Briefly, this means that it is a body of acidic water mostly covered by a floating mat of vegetation. In some places, the mat is so thick it can support trees like tamarack, a type of larch. In the middle of this floating forest is a small pond of open water, the last remnant of what was a much larger lake before the bog took over. It’s called a quaking bog because that’s what happens to the vegetation when you step on it.

We were able to walk through this unique ecosystem thanks to the Volo Bog Interpretive Trail, a floating boardwalk that wound through the park. I enjoyed the open water center the most. It transported me to a different place. For a few minutes at least, bog birch, sphagnum moss, highbush blueberry and water lilies replaced traffic, electrical lines, agricultural fields and subdivisions. It was like a little outpost of Canada’s boreal forests in the Chicago suburbs. The trails were even long enough that my children started complaining about all the nature they had to walk through.

After brushing off ticks, we drove a few minutes to Fratello’s Hot Dogs in the town of Volo, where we feasted on Chicago-style hot dogs, cheeseburgers and fries that were perfect examples of the genre. And my strawberry milkshake — with pieces of cut up strawberry so big they clogged my straw — was the perfect accompaniment to our family’s relaxed drive to another wetland, this time a fen, which is a close relation to a bog.

Clocking in at 43.1 acres, Ferson Creek Fen Nature Preserve…