You might not think of Illinois as a place with sun-soaked beaches, but when you visit Illinois Beach State Park, you can recline in the sand with a salt-rimmed margarita just like you’re in the Caribbean.

Popular beach sites offer swimming, boating, fishing, scuba diving, volleyball playing and more.

Less crowded areas have breathtaking natural scenery in the form of canyons, sand dunes and wetlands dotted with driftwood trees.

If you’re looking for places to go outside of the water, you can also hit up the black oak savanna for things like hiking, cycling, geocatching and bird watching.

You can camp for days; you can picnic for an afternoon.

It’s up to you.

Put Illinois Beach State Park on your shortlist of vacation destinations.

With so much fun to offer across so many different landscapes, it’s worth its place on the Illinois state map.

Address: 1 Lake Front Dr, Zion, IL 60099, United States