Champaign, IL
Champaign's barbecue institution, smoking since 2009; the original Urbana location closed for good in January 2026, so aim for Chestnut Street in downtown Champaign. The burnt ends are the order and the reason to arrive early; they usually sell out within a couple of hours. First place for barbecue in the News-Gazette's 2025 People's Choice awards. Open 11 to 9, seven days.
Owned and operated by the University of Illinois — one of the only major university-owned commercial airports in the country. Named for Arthur Cutts Willard, UIUC president (1934-1946). Commercial passenger service to Chicago and Dallas, plus the UIUC student pilot program and the Aerospace Engineering department's flight test research. Class D, single 8,138ft runway. Built 1945 to support the university's pilot-training mission.
Deep sandstone gorges carved by Sugar Creek over millions of years. The old-growth forest here was never logged — some trees are 300+ years old. From 2000ft, the gorge system appears as dark shadows cutting through solid canopy. Sugar Creek itself makes dramatic S-curves visible from above. The suspension bridge is hard to spot but look for the clearing at the nature center.
31 historic covered bridges — more than any county in the US. The Bridgeton Bridge (1868) and Mansfield Bridge are the most photogenic from the air. At 2000ft AGL in mid-October, the hardwood canopy surrounding each bridge turns orange and crimson. The annual Covered Bridge Festival draws 1 million visitors. The bridge cluster is concentrated between Turkey Run and Raccoon Lake along Sugar Creek and Big Raccoon Creek.
Benton County holds one of the densest concentrations of wind turbines east of the Mississippi. The Fowler Ridge project alone spreads 355 turbines across roughly 42,000 acres, with the neighboring Meadow Lake and Hoosier farms adding hundreds more. Built in phases beginning in 2008, the turbines turn the flat northwest-Indiana farmland into a working machine landscape — and a navigational one, their white towers and slow-turning blades visible for miles in clear air.
The 1898 octagonal study where Civil War general and Mexican Ambassador Lew Wallace wrote much of Ben-Hur — at the time the best-selling American novel ever, eventually adapted into multiple films including the 1959 Charlton Heston classic that won 11 Oscars. The study is a National Historic Landmark with Wallace's original desk, books, and sword collection. Wallace was a fascinating polymath: lawyer, general at Shiloh, governor of New Mexico Territory (he negotiated with Billy the Kid), ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and author. The ornate Italianate study reflects his global eye. Adjacent to Wabash College campus.