8 Illinois Road Trip Stops You’re Making a Mistake to Skip
Think an Illinois road trip means Chicago, then a straight shot down I-55 to St. Louis?
It shouldn’t, if you ask us.
Illinoisans keep their own list of places worth the extra exit, and many of them sit less than an hour off the interstate.
These are the Illinois road trip stops worth pulling off the highway for.
Cozy Dog Drive In
Springfield’s Cozy Dog Drive In has served up Illinois’s claim to the corn dog almost the same way since 1946.
Founder Ed Waldmire Jr. came up with the recipe while he was stationed with the Army, then sold his first batch at a beach house on Lake Springfield the summer World War II ended.
That’s where it began.
Drivers who take the interstate bypass around Springfield often never see Old Route 66’s diners at all, let alone this one.
Cozy Dog still sits at 2935 South 6th Street, open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
It closes on Sundays, so plan the stop for a weekday or a Saturday.
Gemini Giant
A 30-foot fiberglass spaceman nearly left Illinois for good in 2024, until Wilmington’s own historical museum stepped in to keep the Gemini Giant standing over Route 66.
The spaceman had held his silver rocket outside the Launching Pad Drive-In for six decades, until the restaurant closed and he went up for auction.
The Joliet Area Historical Museum stepped in.
He stayed put.
The museum paid $275,000 for him at auction, then donated him straight back to the city.
City crews moved him about a mile down the road to South Island Park in November 2024, where he still poses for photos today.
I-55 drivers take the Wilmington exit for gas and never learn a Route 66 landmark sits one turn away.
Starved Rock State Park
Illinois carved eighteen sandstone canyons into Starved Rock State Park along the Illinois River, and the one many visitors picture first is closed this year.
More than two million people visit every year, drawn by canyon trails and seasonal waterfalls carved by glacial meltwater.
LaSalle Canyon is widely considered the park’s signature photo spot, the waterfall most people have seen before they ever park the car.
It’s closed for 2026.
Drivers who hike straight to that trailhead find it blocked and turn back toward the highway, never learning that quieter canyons sit open a short drive down Route 71.
Admission and parking cost nothing at any Illinois state park, including this one.
Checking the park’s trail status before setting out saves a wasted trip this year.
Skip the Wrong Trail at Starved Rock
Starved Rock is in the middle of an $18 million, multi-year trail overhaul that closed several canyons in 2026, including LaSalle and Tonty.
St. Louis and Aurora Canyons and the east-end trails off Route 71 stayed open through the work, and the state’s closures page lists what’s currently affected.
Cahokia Mounds
Outside St. Louis, Illinois protects a World Heritage Site that many road-trippers only glimpse from the highway: Cahokia Mounds.
UNESCO named the mounds a World Heritage Site in 1982.
Cahokia was North America’s largest pre-Columbian city, home to an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people at its peak between A.D. 1000 and 1350.
It’s free to enter.
Visitors can still climb Monks Mound, the largest man-made mound north of Mexico, up more than 150 steps to the summit.
The site’s interpretive center closed for four years of repairs and has been reopening in phases through 2026, though the mound and trails never closed.
A suggested donation helps cover the site, but Illinois never turns anyone away, and many road-trippers still never take the exit.
World’s Largest Catsup Bottle
A water tower in Collinsville, Illinois, turned into one of the state’s strangest landmarks: The World’s Largest Catsup Bottle.
Built in 1949 to supply water for a nearby catsup-bottling plant, the 170-foot tower never held a drop of catsup.
It held water, never catsup.
A local preservation group saved it from demolition in the 1990s, and the bottle earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.
Drivers on I-55 and I-70 spot it from a distance and keep driving instead of taking the Collinsville exit.
Psst! Planning the drive? Sort this table by region or search it for the stop closest to your route.
Garden of the Gods
Garden of the Gods sits in the wildest scenery southern Illinois has to offer, sandstone bluffs that look like they belong out west.
Wind and water carved the rock formations inside Shawnee National Forest over millions of years, and the quarter-mile Observation Trail loops past several of them.
The view earns the drive.
The park sits far from any interstate, deep in rural Saline and Hardin counties, which keeps casual travelers from ever finding it.
The Observation Trail stays open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the campground runs year-round nearby.
Casey
Twelve Guinness World Records live inside one small Illinois town, and Casey keeps adding to the collection.
A local businessman built the world’s largest wind chime in 2011 to draw traffic to his wife’s tea shop, then kept going with a 56-foot rocking chair, a giant mailbox, and an oversized pitchfork.
Casey never stopped building.
All of it sits within about three miles of Interstate 70’s Exit 129, an easy loop on foot or by car.
Interstate 70 runs right past Casey, and many road-trippers never take the exit that leads to a giant rocking chair a block off Main Street.
Super Museum
Metropolis calls itself Superman’s official hometown in Illinois, and the Super Museum backs that claim with a fifteen-foot bronze statue and thousands of collectibles.
The museum holds more than 70,000 pieces of Superman memorabilia, gathered by one collector, Jim Hambrick, since the 1970s.
The town commits fully.
Metropolis sits south of Interstate 24, off the direct route between Nashville and St. Louis, so many drivers pass without ever seeing Superman Square.
The museum opens daily from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and general admission runs $8 for adults.
Illinois Route 66 Turns 100 in 2026
The Mother Road got its start in Illinois a century ago: Route 66 turns 100 this year.
Illinois carries 301 miles of the original highway, the very first stretch drivers hit heading out of Chicago.
The centennial runs through 2026.
Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926, linking Chicago to Los Angeles across eight states, with Illinois sitting at the start of all 2,448 miles of it.
The Great Race rolls through Springfield June 15 to 19, 2026, sending 120 antique automobiles down more than 2,300 miles of the old highway.
