The city of Chicago is conveniently located near an abundance of outdoor adventures. From the lakeshores of Lake Michigan to the kettles of Wisconsin and prairies of Illinois, you can easily find the perfect camping trip within a few hours of Chicago. So, if you’re new to the area and need help planning a trip, why not check out these 5 driveable camping trip destinations near Chicago?

Also, check out our guide for the best kayaking destinations around Chicago!

Image Credit: Illinois.gov

5314 IL-102, Bourbonnais, IL 60914

Just an hour’s drive south of Chicago, Kankakee River State Park contains 4,000 acres of wooded land along the lakeshore of the Kankakee River. Enjoy the state park’s plethora of activities, including hiking, kayaking, fishing, or biking. You can even ride horseback to tour the canyons and waterfalls throughout the park. Choose from 200-plus campsites that provide water and electricity for your convenience.

Image Credit: Google

N1765 Co Rd G, Campbellsport, WI 53010

A two-hour drive north from Chicago, Kettle Moraine State Forest has 750 campsites to reserve. With over 30,000 acres to explore, Kettle Moraine State Forest encompasses a unique array of land formations and terrain. The state park received its name for the depressions created from melting glaciers during the Ice Age. There are 250 miles of hiking trails, ensuring you’ll always have a new path to discover. 

Image Credit: Michigan Dept of Natural Resources

12032 Red Arrow Hwy, Sawyer, MI 49125

Escape to the lake for a relaxing camping trip. An hour and a half drive from Chicago, Warren Dunes State Park offers stunning views of Lake Michigan from 260-feet-tall dunes. Never run out of activities to do with hiking, bird watching, and even hang gliding available at the park. Their three miles of lakeshore include a range of options for your stay with 185 modern campsites and 24 simple campsites.

Image Credit: Wisconsin.gov

S5975 Park Rd, Baraboo, WI 53913

At Wisconsin’s largest state park, you can hike to the top of rocky bluffs, kayak across an expansive lake, and scale boulders for an adrenaline rush. Come across a unique stretch of terrain along the park’s portion of the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. The three-and-a-half drive from Chicago will be worth it, with three campgrounds and multiple activities for every kind of camper to enjoy.

Image Credit: Google

2355 E 75 S, Albion, IN 46701

Chain O’ Lakes State Park is perfect for water lovers. As its name suggests, the state park contains an immense amount of concentrated lakes in Illinois. Enjoy swimming, fishing, kayaking, boating, and waterskiing across 6,500 acres of water stemming from the Fox River. An hour and a half drive from Chicago, the park also boasts six miles of trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding.

Featured Image: Michigan Dept of Natural Resources

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Growing Home Inc. is a USDA-Certified Organic urban farm, workforce development center and non-profit social enterprise based in Englewood. They produce more than 35,000 pounds of produce annually, while serving more than 3,500 people through their food access program and providing job training and assistance services for 100 Chicagoans. Growing Home was recently awarded a $60,000 grant from Green Thumb Industries to continue their work. We spoke with Growing Home’s Director of Employment Training Zenobia Williams to learn more.

Please share some background about Growing Home and your work in Chicago.

Growing Home’s mission is to operate, promote, and demonstrate the use of organic urban agriculture as a vehicle for job training, employment, and community development. Since 2006, we have focused our work on Chicago’s South Side in the Greater Englewood community. Our USDA-certified organic farms serve as the foundation for our innovative workforce development programs. We produce 35,000+ pounds of vegetables and herbs annually, including more than 200 varieties of vegetables, which we sell at affordable prices at our weekly Wood Street Farm Stand and other local markets.

We believe that farming is a unique and powerful vehicle to teach hard, transferable job skills, while also providing a therapeutic experience to individuals looking for personal growth and connection. Our 12-week paid workforce development program aims to increase employment opportunities for individuals with extreme barriers to employment. To date, we have empowered over 500 individuals with the tools, connections, and confidence they need to find and keep stable jobs and find paths toward self-sufficiency. We also have an apprenticeship program and a neighborhood computer resource center.

How does your work connect to the cannabis movement?

A majority of the participants in our 12-week paid employment training program are justice-involved and are returning citizens—many who have been impacted by the war on drugs.  Our program provides wraparound services including record sealing and expungement. Graduates learn a wide array of horticultural and transferable skills — and some have graduated to work in the cannabis industry. In 2022, we partnered with Olive-Harvey College’s pilot scholarship program Still I Rise, which is designed to provide wraparound services and free cannabis education certificates to individuals with violence involvement and who have cannabis records. Through this additional apprenticeship and partnership program, we provide Still I Rise scholarship recipients with hands-on farm training, including planting, harvesting, and marketing skills.  

What can a new participant or volunteer expect when they get involved with Growing Home?

Participants in our 12-week paid program can expect to spend their mornings training on the farm, and classwork in the afternoon, up to 25 hours of paid work. Classes include environmental science, emotional resilience, and job readiness / job placement. We also have wraparound services, including free legal aid for record sealing and expungement, housing referrals, assistance with gaining a GED, continuing education, professional certifications, and more. We have two dedicated employment training and retention specialists who support each participant in creating individualized career paths based on their interests, skills, and passions. We currently partner with more than 100 employment agencies, and we’re adding to that list every day.

After graduation, we provide 30-60-90 day follow-ups and paid incentives for those who stay on the job once placed. We also have an alumni program where we provide additional services and assistance as needed. Our goal is for our participants not only to find jobs but to maintain stable employment for themselves, their family, and their community. 

Volunteers are invited to help on the farm alongside our training cohort, assist with events or within our classrooms, or provide administrative support with creative, tech, or data-entry projects. Opportunities can be found at growinghomeinc.org/volunteer.

How has creating more opportunities for employment and access to fresh food impacted the communities your organization serves?

It’s been life-changing, as most of our participants are returning citizens that have not naturally had an opportunity to gain employment. Through our program, we’re able to assist them with stability so that they can return back into society with everything they may need from food, to housing, to employment, so they may be able to sustain themselves and their family.

Our workforce-development participants give back to our community by growing, harvesting, and distributing nutritious, organic produce throughout Greater Englewood and Chicago. Many have gone on to work in various industries including transportation, construction, healthcare, customer service, food service, landscaping, and cannabis.

Along with economic opportunity, Growing Home’s goal is to improve the health of our community by showing residents of all ages that nutritious food can be affordable, easy, and accessible. We distribute 50% of our produce to Greater Englewood residents annually through four local markets and storefronts, two Farm-to-Pantry partnerships, a no-cost eight-week Englewood CSA program for thirty households, Veggie Rx and local wholesale partnerships, pop-up markets, and HarvestFest and WinterFest Events, where we distribute more than 400 food boxes. Our initiatives also include food and nutritious education, including cooking demos and workshops, tours, volunteer opportunities, and print and online recipe resources.

We price our food sold in and around Englewood below the cost of production, at about half the market rate. We accept payment with LINK and WIC / Senior coupons, which can double the amount of produce our customers receive. In 2021, we distributed 61% of our produce in Greater Englewood and surrounding communities, serving over 6,400 people with over 48,600 servings of fresh produce. The remaining crop yield represents community-based social enterprise initiatives across the city.

Is there anything else you would like to share about your Growing Home?

We have a Career Advancement and Computer Bootcamp Series this summer open to the public. Anyone can join us at Growing Home to level up their computer skills, employment skills or personal and professional branding skills.

This is a paid sponsored content article from Green Thumb Industries. 

For more information about Growing Home’s mission, program participant and volunteer opportunities, and how to donate, visit growinghomeinc.org, or follow them on Facebook @GrowingHomeInc, or on Instagram and Twitter @GrowingHome.

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Alex Ebert may be best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Grammy Award-winning indie-rock band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the frontman of art-rock group Ima Robot, and a composer who won a Golden Globe for his score for the 2013 film All is Lost but his interests and creative endeavors extend far beyond his bands; he’s also a fledgling philosopher, app creator, author, and philanthropist. Nature’s Grace and Wellness Coordinator and Field Market Associate Alia Reichert recently had the privilege to Spark the Conversation with Ebert to learn more about his perspective on cannabis, fame, creativity, and mental health.

Alia Reichert: Where do you get your song ideas? Does your songwriting act as a kind of therapy for you?

Alex Ebert: If we’re talking about music and melody it can come from anywhere at any time. If we’re talking about lyrics, which are more personal, they usually come when I’m going through something.

AR: Is cannabis part of your creative process? If so, how does it help?

AE: For sure, it’s easily the most musical substance I’ve ever encountered. Nothing like it. It works with all of the arts, but music especially, in my experience—it begs music out of me.

AR: What is your go to method for consumption?

AE: Pax Vaporizer.

AR: Is there a specific strain that you find helps the most, with either creativity or your mental health?

AE: No, it really depends. The most important part is just that it’s clean and well grown.

AR: How does being considered famous impact your overall sense of well-being and mental health?

AE: Terribly. It erodes trust. You simply will never know to what extent your fame is playing a role in attracting friendship or lovers, nor even the degree to which your family puts up with you for it. No aspect of my relationships have been untouched by it.

AR: How do you combat the negative aspects of fame and life in general?

AE: I think. I analyze society, and what makes us tick. I write. Then I think more and write more. I make music. I channel it all into something.

AR: The last 2.5 years have been tough on us all. Dealing with the pandemic, job loss, deaths of loved ones, and lack of social interactions has caused many people’s mental health challenges to increase. How have you dealt with your own mental health challenges? What tools do you use to help, and how has your creative process and view on fame changed during this time?

AE: I think exercise is number one, sleep is number two, sunshine is number three, diet is number four, and creativity is number five. If I do those five things it doesn’t matter what’s happening, I’ll be good. I’ll be squealing and dancing around and feeling like I’m actually living. I think that’s the most difficult thing to even feel like you’re doing these days, just living. We’re so attached to our phone—tunnel visioned in digital worlds—that we can truly miss out on life itself. Don’t miss out on life.

AR: What have you learned from any previous mental health challenges that have helped you persevere?

AE: The number one thing for me in overcoming all of my mental health stuff has been confronting death. All of my anxiety can be traced down to a fear of death. Social anxiety, status anxiety. . . all of these things are a fear of exile, which our bodies translate as a fear of death. That’s why when we get embarrassed we have actual adrenaline pumping through our bodies making our faces blush. The same substance that kicks through our bodies when we are afraid we’re going to die or in the midst of some sort of competition. So, really, just calmly confronting my own mortality and incorporating it into my thoughts has given me immense liberation.

AR: Do you have any new music or upcoming tours or other works we should check out? Where can we find them?

AE: Nope nothing at all. You can find me on my Substack or on Instagram.

AR: Lastly, do you have a mindful message you’d like to share that helps you spark your day?

AE: Success is not in the repetitions of you, but in the successions of you. Feel free to try something new.

Be sure to follow @naturesgraceil on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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Growing Home Inc. is a USDA-Certified Organic urban farm, workforce development center and non-profit social enterprise based in Englewood. They produce more than 35,000 pounds of produce annually, while serving more than 3,500 people through their food access program and providing job training and assistance services for 100 Chicagoans. Growing Home was recently awarded a $60,000 grant from Green Thumb Industries to continue their work. We spoke with Growing Home’s Director of Employment Training Zenobia Williams to learn more.

Please share some background about Growing Home and your work in Chicago.

Growing Home’s mission is to operate, promote, and demonstrate the use of organic urban agriculture as a vehicle for job training, employment, and community development. Since 2006, we have focused our work on Chicago’s South Side in the Greater Englewood community. Our USDA-certified organic farms serve as the foundation for our innovative workforce development programs. We produce 35,000+ pounds of vegetables and herbs annually, including more than 200 varieties of vegetables, which we sell at affordable prices at our weekly Wood Street Farm Stand and other local markets.

We believe that farming is a unique and powerful vehicle to teach hard, transferable job skills, while also providing a therapeutic experience to individuals looking for personal growth and connection. Our 12-week paid workforce development program aims to increase employment opportunities for individuals with extreme barriers to employment. To date, we have empowered over 500 individuals with the tools, connections, and confidence they need to find and keep stable jobs and find paths toward self-sufficiency. We also have an apprenticeship program and a neighborhood computer resource center.

How does your work connect to the cannabis movement?

A majority of the participants in our 12-week paid employment training program are justice-involved and are returning citizens—many who have been impacted by the war on drugs.  Our program provides wraparound services including record sealing and expungement. Graduates learn a wide array of horticultural and transferable skills — and some have graduated to work in the cannabis industry. In 2022, we partnered with Olive-Harvey College’s pilot scholarship program Still I Rise, which is designed to provide wraparound services and free cannabis education certificates to individuals with violence involvement and who have cannabis records. Through this additional apprenticeship and partnership program, we provide Still I Rise scholarship recipients with hands-on farm training, including planting, harvesting, and marketing skills.  

What can a new participant or volunteer expect when they get involved with Growing Home?

Participants in our 12-week paid program can expect to spend their mornings training on the farm, and classwork in the afternoon, up to 25 hours of paid work. Classes include environmental science, emotional resilience, and job readiness / job placement. We also have wraparound services, including free legal aid for record sealing and expungement, housing referrals, assistance with gaining a GED, continuing education, professional certifications, and more. We have two dedicated employment training and retention specialists who support each participant in creating individualized career paths based on their interests, skills, and passions. We currently partner with more than 100 employment agencies, and we’re adding to that list every day.

After graduation, we provide 30-60-90 day follow-ups and paid incentives for those who stay on the job once placed. We also have an alumni program where we provide additional services and assistance as needed. Our goal is for our participants not only to find jobs but to maintain stable employment for themselves, their family, and their community. 

Volunteers are invited to help on the farm alongside our training cohort, assist with events or within our classrooms, or provide administrative support with creative, tech, or data-entry projects. Opportunities can be found at growinghomeinc.org/volunteer.

How has creating more opportunities for employment and access to fresh food impacted the communities your organization serves?

It’s been life-changing, as most of our participants are returning citizens that have not naturally had an opportunity to gain employment. Through our program, we’re able to assist them with stability so that they can return back into society with everything they may need from food, to housing, to employment, so they may be able to sustain themselves and their family.

Our workforce-development participants give back to our community by growing, harvesting, and distributing nutritious, organic produce throughout Greater Englewood and Chicago. Many have gone on to work in various industries including transportation, construction, healthcare, customer service, food service, landscaping, and cannabis.

Along with economic opportunity, Growing Home’s goal is to improve the health of our community by showing residents of all ages that nutritious food can be affordable, easy, and accessible. We distribute 50% of our produce to Greater Englewood residents annually through four local markets and storefronts, two Farm-to-Pantry partnerships, a no-cost eight-week Englewood CSA program for thirty households, Veggie Rx and local wholesale partnerships, pop-up markets, and HarvestFest and WinterFest Events, where we distribute more than 400 food boxes. Our initiatives also include food and nutritious education, including cooking demos and workshops, tours, volunteer opportunities, and print and online recipe resources.

We price our food sold in and around Englewood below the cost of production, at about half the market rate. We accept payment with LINK and WIC / Senior coupons, which can double the amount of produce our customers receive. In 2021, we distributed 61% of our produce in Greater Englewood and surrounding communities, serving over 6,400 people with over 48,600 servings of fresh produce. The remaining crop yield represents community-based social enterprise initiatives across the city.

Is there anything else you would like to share about your Growing Home?

We have a Career Advancement and Computer Bootcamp Series this summer open to the public. Anyone can join us at Growing Home to level up their computer skills, employment skills or personal and professional branding skills.

This is a paid sponsored content article from Green Thumb Industries. 

For more information about Growing Home’s mission, program participant and volunteer opportunities, and how to donate, visit growinghomeinc.org, or follow them on Facebook @GrowingHomeInc, or on Instagram and Twitter @GrowingHome.

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Alex Ebert may be best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Grammy Award-winning indie-rock band Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the frontman of art-rock group Ima Robot, and a composer who won a Golden Globe for his score for the 2013 film All is Lost but his interests and creative endeavors extend far beyond his bands; he’s also a fledgling philosopher, app creator, author, and philanthropist. Nature’s Grace and Wellness Coordinator and Field Market Associate Alia Reichert recently had the privilege to Spark the Conversation with Ebert to learn more about his perspective on cannabis, fame, creativity, and mental health.

Alia Reichert: Where do you get your song ideas? Does your songwriting act as a kind of therapy for you?

Alex Ebert: If we’re talking about music and melody it can come from anywhere at any time. If we’re talking about lyrics, which are more personal, they usually come when I’m going through something.

AR: Is cannabis part of your creative process? If so, how does it help?

AE: For sure, it’s easily the most musical substance I’ve ever encountered. Nothing like it. It works with all of the arts, but music especially, in my experience—it begs music out of me.

AR: What is your go to method for consumption?

AE: Pax Vaporizer.

AR: Is there a specific strain that you find helps the most, with either creativity or your mental health?

AE: No, it really depends. The most important part is just that it’s clean and well grown.

AR: How does being considered famous impact your overall sense of well-being and mental health?

AE: Terribly. It erodes trust. You simply will never know to what extent your fame is playing a role in attracting friendship or lovers, nor even the degree to which your family puts up with you for it. No aspect of my relationships have been untouched by it.

AR: How do you combat the negative aspects of fame and life in general?

AE: I think. I analyze society, and what makes us tick. I write. Then I think more and write more. I make music. I channel it all into something.

AR: The last 2.5 years have been tough on us all. Dealing with the pandemic, job loss, deaths of loved ones, and lack of social interactions has caused many people’s mental health challenges to increase. How have you dealt with your own mental health challenges? What tools do you use to help, and how has your creative process and view on fame changed during this time?

AE: I think exercise is number one, sleep is number two, sunshine is number three, diet is number four, and creativity is number five. If I do those five things it doesn’t matter what’s happening, I’ll be good. I’ll be squealing and dancing around and feeling like I’m actually living. I think that’s the most difficult thing to even feel like you’re doing these days, just living. We’re so attached to our phone—tunnel visioned in digital worlds—that we can truly miss out on life itself. Don’t miss out on life.

AR: What have you learned from any previous mental health challenges that have helped you persevere?

AE: The number one thing for me in overcoming all of my mental health stuff has been confronting death. All of my anxiety can be traced down to a fear of death. Social anxiety, status anxiety. . . all of these things are a fear of exile, which our bodies translate as a fear of death. That’s why when we get embarrassed we have actual adrenaline pumping through our bodies making our faces blush. The same substance that kicks through our bodies when we are afraid we’re going to die or in the midst of some sort of competition. So, really, just calmly confronting my own mortality and incorporating it into my thoughts has given me immense liberation.

AR: Do you have any new music or upcoming tours or other works we should check out? Where can we find them?

AE: Nope nothing at all. You can find me on my Substack or on Instagram.

AR: Lastly, do you have a mindful message you’d like to share that helps you spark your day?

AE: Success is not in the repetitions of you, but in the successions of you. Feel free to try something new.

Be sure to follow @naturesgraceil on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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