Bloomingdale offers a variety of reasons to stay: nature trails and wildlife watching, local history, and recreational activities on the water and in the park. Meacham Grove Forest Preserve offers scenery and trails, Bloomingdale Park District Museum adds a cultural focus, while The Oasis and Westlake Park offer their own recreational activities. When planning, it helps to ask a specific question: Should the focus be on nature, a museum visit, or a particular activity?

Meacham Grove: Scenery, Trails and Wildlife

The 255-acre Meacham Grove Forest Preserve in Bloomingdale includes wooded areas, meadows and wetlands. Its 2.5 miles of trails let you hike, bike or cross-country ski around the lake and through the adjacent wetlands. The preserve also includes a section of the North Central DuPage Regional Trail.

At the lake and in the adjacent wetlands, you can hear western chorus frogs and spot great egrets, great blue herons, swallows, beavers and dragonflies. Alongside the trail activities, this creates a distinct focus on nature observation: those interested in wildlife can look for specific species and their habitats. In 2012, the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission granted Meacham Grove Nature Preserve an additional level of protection by designating it a nature preserve. This conservation history adds another dimension to the area alongside its scenery and recreational trails.

Trails with Different Points of Reference

Bloomingdale's recreational trails connect Mallard Lake Forest Preserve with Springfield Park along Lawrence Avenue. This differs from the 2.5 miles of trails at Meacham Grove: there, the emphasis is on trails around the lake and through wetlands, as well as hiking, biking and cross-country skiing; here, the two connected destinations and the route along Lawrence Avenue are what matter. When comparing trail options, you can distinguish between a trail network with different uses and a named connection between places.

Museum and Recreational Activities

Bloomingdale Park District Museum is the oldest building in Bloomingdale and houses five to seven exhibits. This makes it a cultural highlight centered on a historic building and an exhibition with a clearly stated scope. If you want to include local history in your stay, you can consider the museum as a separate itinerary item alongside nature and recreational activities.

At The Oasis water park, Mango Bay is a recreational pool with a zero-depth entry, geysers, tipping buckets, spray features and water slides. Trail conditions and the features of the water park may change; check current information about the respective activities before your visit.

Westlake Park has the Park District's only sledding hill. Together with the cross-country skiing available at Meacham Grove, it offers a clear choice of two different winter activities: cross-country skiing on the trails or sledding at Westlake Park. This comparison is useful if you want to focus your stay on a particular kind of activity.

Discover more destinations: Westmont, Medinah, Warrenville, Elmhurst, Oak Brook, Carol Stream, Bensenville, Glen Ellyn

For the regional travel overview: DuPage.