Best Campgrounds near Melrose Park, IL

Really great park! It had a lot of really nice trails that were fairly easy to follow for being sand. The beach was well maintained, and had lifeguards during certain hours, which gave me a little bit of extra comfort in bringing my kids to the lake. It had really nice bathroom facilities, and changing room facilities there. There was also a café, but I did not go into that.

The visitor center is nice, fairly large and the workers were very friendly. They had one of the nicer programs that I have been to in the state.

The park sites were nice, most of them had grass and trees, but a few of them like sites 98 through 102 did have sand on them, which is kind of cool. It was also the nicest showers that I’ve been to to date.

The only reason I rate this park a three is that it’s very close to train lines and the trains going through and blasting their horns all night long. If you’re a heavy sleeper and can deal with that, you’ll be just fine but us tent camping there was nothing to block the sound, and it kept waking me up. Nothing the park does wrong, clearly, but something to think about.

The lake and dunes are spectacular and live up to the hype. The 3 dune challenge is not really a challenge if you are moderately healthy but it is fun and scenic! The cool soft sand feels fantastic, definitely best hiked barefoot. The campground itself is pretty typical of a state park- decent spacing, level sites and well kept. It is electric only but that didn't really bother us- we just showed up with the water tank full and other tanks empty and enjoyed ourselves. Our site was right between the playground and beach trailhead, but still private. The best sites are the ones on the outside from the beach trail to the nature center. These are up against the dunes and have some shade. The middle sites are more exposed and much less private. The campground was pretty full but had a nice communal family feel to it. The beach and dunes are the star of this show, but the campground is a good supporting actor.

This was the Memorial Day pick for 2025, first off when it hits curfew its super quiet, there are a lot of playground areas for the kids, the pool was working and it was heated, the price for 5 bundles of wood is reasonable and we used a lot because this was a cold windy weekend.

One complaint was the lady in registration didn't give me a window card which I didn't think about til the security person wouldn't let me get back to my campsite, this was after I got back from taking my wife out for breakfast. I had to go back into registration to get one.

The second complaint was they didn't cut the grass so there was a mix of tall grass and dandelion stems.

The third complaint was since there's no full hookup, they needed someone to control the traffic that comes from two different directions going to the dual dump stations. There's no honor system, especially on a holiday weekend, my assistant, my wife, reminded the driver that we were waiting before he got in the other line. I tried to be nice to them, which I am always in public, and told the drivers wife they needed a traffic controller, but I got the snob treatment anyway. The guard shack was right there too but they just stand there and bs while this is going on,

This campground is between two major cities and I won't go back because of that, too many stick your nose up, dirty look types around that park.