See Superman, A Pink Elephant, How It Plays In Peoria: 5 IL Road Trips

ILLINOIS — A mid-sized state with nearly 58,000 square miles, Illinois is a road tripper’s paradise with beautiful scenery, history, culinary delights and attractions.

The state is the sixth largest in population, with more than half of Illinois residents living in the Chicago metropolitan area.

Here are downstate road trips and one that’s close to home for Chicago metro residents:

Explore ‘Underrated’ Southern Illinois

CNN Travel named the southern tip of Illinois among its Most Underrated Destinations last year, saying the area “still looks and feels a lot like Illinois did in the early 1800s when the infamous Trail of Tears passed this way and a youthful Abraham Lincoln was still splitting rails.”

Shawnee National Forest is a good base for people who want to enjoy natural surroundings. The 160-mie River to River trail, which starts in Elizabethtown and ends in Grand Tower, includes shorter hikes that penetrate the rocky primeval outcrops of the Garden of the Gods and Giant City State Park.

For a bit of whimsy, head to nearby Metropolis, the real one, not the fictional city in the “Superman” franchise. The Super Museum with more than 70,000 items from the life’s work of longtime Superman enthusiast and collector Jim Hambrick has gathered multiple laurels as one of the top small-town attractions in America and is a favorite for television news, travel and lifestyle shows.

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Be sure to take selfies in front of the enormous Superman statue, a 15-foot tall, 4,000 pound hunk of bronze muscle, and the bronze Lois Lane statue memorializing Minneapolis-born actress Noel Neill, who played the role in the original “Adventures of Superman.” The iconic “Metropolis Planet” globe is also part of the sculpture.

Other small towns within Shawnee National Forest are worth a visit, too. Some of the best steaks in the Midwest are reportedly found at The Red Onion in Equality.

Shawnee National Forest is about 330 miles south of downtown Chicago via I-57S.

Take The Family To Champaign

Champaign, a small city of not quite 90,000 people, formerly named Midwest Living’s “Greatest Midwest Food Town,” offers cuisine for all tastes with a booming farm-totable scene and wine bars that cater to refined tastes. Come here for the beer, too. Champaign-Urbana has a hopping microbrewery scene.

The Virginia Theatre is a great place to catch a concert, film festival or movie. (Buddy Guy’s “Damn Right Farewell” is June 26.)

The Champaign-Urbana area also has excellent art and science museums. Sculptures rise from the prairie in parks throughout the city. Be sure to visit the 1,517-acre Robert Allerton Park, a National Register of Historic Places-listed site and one of the American Institute of Architects’ 150 Great Places in Illinois.

Don’t skip the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana campus, whose serene grounds include the gorgeous Japan House which is surrounded by calm and quiet gardens available for a restorative stroll. Tea ceremonies, ikebana classes and calligraphy workshops regularly take place inside.

Champaign is about 35 miles south of downtown Chicago via I-57S.

How Does Peoria Road Trip Play?

You may have grown up hearing “How will it play in Peoria?” — a figure of speech that originated in the early ’20s and ’30s during the U.S.vaudeville era. At the time, Peoria was an important stop on the vaudeville circuit, and if an act did well there, it was a good bet it would be a hit nationwide. Since then, the Illinois River city has become an important test market for products and ideas.

There’s plenty for the kids to do, such as a trip to Peoria Zoo or the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum or the Caterpillar Visitors Center, where guests are taken on a virtual ride in the bed of a massive, 2 ½-ton mining truck.

The Peoria Riverfront Museum houses a collection of fine art and a natural history collection, and has a planetarium and a sculpture garden. Outside the museum is the Peoria Holocaust Memorial, on permanent loan from and cared for by the Jewish Federation of Peoria. Volunteers conduct tours of the memorial upon request.

The Luthy Botanical Garden offers a tranquil setting, regardless of the season. The 5-acre site offers more than a dozen themed gardens, magnificent floral displays, a conservatory and rotating sculpture exhibits.

Peoria is located about 170 miles southwest of Chicago via I-55S.

See A Pink Elephant

If you want to explore an unusual place, try the Pink Elephant Antique Mall on historic Route 66 in Livingston. A huge pink elephant outside hints at what’s to be found in an around the converted high school gymnasium — one fiberglass giant after another.

More than 50 antique dealers are set up inside the converted high school gymnasium who offer everything from antique furniture, jewelry collectibles, glassware and memorabilia to candies, home goods and home decor.

Retro shops include The Mother Road Fudge Factory and Candy Shop and the Twistee Treats Diner, a kitschy 1950s-themed diner in a Twistee ice cream cone-shaped building.

Livingston is about 260 miles south of Chicago via I-55S.

What’s Summer Without A Beach?

If getting out of the city isn’t an option, Chicago’s North Shore is a great weekend getaway for couples, families and friends. It has the requisite sandy beaches (with lifeguards) that are No. 1 on the fun checklist.

There’s so much more — the Chicago Botanic Garden, movie theaters, shopping and, for the kids, Historic Wagner Farm and the Kohl Children’s Museum.

The Botanic Garden is one of the best botanical gardens in the United States, and it’s meant to be explored — climb a waterfall garden, discover hidden rooms inside an English walled garden, cross bridges over sparkling lakes, visit a Japanese Garden, and ride trams chugging across trestles and bridges of the Model Railroad Garden.

For local eats that won’t break your budget, try Hackney’s on Lake, a North Shore institution for more than 80 years. Its signature burger, the Hackneyburger, had been named “best burger” so many times that one magazine said it was retiring the award.

Depending on the timing, you may be able to catch a Ravinia Festival concert. The summer long music series features concerts every week and sometimes multiple times in a week.

5 More Illinois Road Trips

• Travel Route 66 From Chicago To St. Louis
• Tour The Land Of Lincoln In Springfield
• Starving For Fresh Air? Starved Rock Will Replenish You
• Step Back In Time In Picturesque Galena
• Find Adventure At 6 Flags In Gurnee