The real rating is probably 2.5. It's not the worst campground you'll ever visit, but it leaves a lot to be desired. We had campsite 32, which provided a decent amount of tree cover and wasn't too far to walk to the restrooms. Mosquitoes were out of control, so be sure to pack proper clothes and a metric ton of bug spray. There were two vault toilets available in our loop - no running water there. Also no light inside, which is an adventure. Our picnic table was covered in bird poop and other debris from nearby trees. I'm used to roughing it, but this table was as bad as I've seen in a park. Maybe a lack of rain left it in such bad condition. I recommend bringing your own chairs and table if you can. The restrooms with running water were pretty disgusting. Why does every camp bathroom reek of urine? Do we not have functional plumbing in these things? Are guys just hosing down the entire building with piss and refusing to flush? It's insane. There was one very empty soap dispenser available and only warm/hot water coming from the faucet. Of course, you can't control your neighbors at a campground. Most folks were keeping themselves under control, but one group was watching a basketball game or something and the sound of the ref's whistle echoed throughout the camp. I understand that's not the campground's fault. It was disappointing to hear traffic while at the campground. I go camping to get away from it all. This was unfortunate. I might return to Illini State Park if I need a place to crash, but there was nothing special about this place other than its relative proximity to Starved Rock (which had no available campsites the day I was headed there). If you need firewood, you can grab some at the Shell station not far away at 1441 Columbus St, Ottawa, IL 61350. read more

Such a nice camping spot! I've been going here for a few years now, couldn't camp last summer due to covid. This place is great! 15$ a night (10$ with a 5$ service fee online) You just pull up to your spot when you get there. They offer very private sites along with some sites in the open. Sites 90-95 & 98-101 are all great spots if you want some privacy. There's a small town with some cafes and bars just over the bridge so less than a mile away. Such a great spot & very relaxing. read more

Illini State Park - Campsite #96 - Parks Near Me - Marseilles, Illinois

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Nice State park , kept clean and nice walking trails and campground areas also a nice little ice cream shop read more

Illini State Park - CP'S Ice cream. Cookie Monster - Parks Near Me - Marseilles, Illinois

The bathrooms were filthy! Garbage laying around. No excuse for this. Otherwise not bad!

The campground by the water was decent but the other campground was a mess! We cancelled our reservation after driving over to check it out first. The electrical boxes for hook ups were rusted and falling over. Didn't feel safe hooking up to them. read more

This is a great state parking for camping. We chose Illini State Park because all of the campsites at Starved Rock were booked for the weekend we wanted to go and there were some pretty negative reviews for Starved Rock. We reserved our campsite through ReserveAmerica and I was able to choose which campsites I wanted based on a map. The thing to know is that when you arrive at the grounds there really isn't an area to check in. You basically go and find your campsite and start setting up. There is a campground host that drives around and will check your reservation. The girls at the concession stand were very helpful so if you have any questions go ahead and ask them. The host was a little blunt when asking me if I was in the right place and if I had a reservation. Luckily I had the reservation email on my phone and was able to assure him that we were on the correct campsites. It took him a few minutes but he found our reservations. We saw him driving around a little bit through the day but he didn't seem to be around at night. We were a group of people in our late 20s so we did bring some alcohol into the park even though it is prohibited. We kept everything in cans and cleaned up after ourselves. We kept our volume down to a reasonable level and were respectful of other people and no one bothered us. There are two main loops of campsites that you can choose at Illini State Park. We stayed in the Great Falls Loop. All of the reviews I read said to stay on the sites that are right next to the river. As you can imagine they fill up pretty quickly so I was forced to choose a couple other sites. I chose site 24 and 26 and in my opinion these are the 2 best sites in the Great Falls loop. After walking around the park you can see that some sites are extremely small and are really best for people with RV's. They were able to park their RV and have a picnic table in the amount of space they were allotted. Other campsites are in more wooded areas but they are forced to set up their tents on gravel rather than grass. We had a very large area for 2 campsites that was sandwiched between 2 areas with trees and shrubbery. On one side of the shrubbery is the path leading through the ground and on the other side is a large field and concession stand. The only negative to this site is that they children's playground isn't very far away so you can hear them playing early in the morning. This wasn't a problem for us because we are early risers but might be for others. This is a fairly small campground with not too much to do. It is nice to camp here and then drive over to starved rock or one of the other parks in the area. Just a warning that almost everything at Starved Rock is closed this year due to a storm they had in June. We were able to find another park in the area to explore. You have to search for a good area to go fishing at the park. The sites near the lake are fine but barges come through pretty often and create really large wakes. We also made our way over towards the boat launch but with all the boats coming and going there were a lot of wakes there as well. There is a nice playground for the children and there is a ton of open space to bring your own games to play. While we were there we saw a large group of turkeys and some beavers by the boat launch. The reason I gave this park 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the bathrooms. While the bathrooms are small, there are quite a few if you are willing to walk and they were all very clean. I didn't even really see any bugs in them. The problem is that the water has a very heavy rotten egg smell which isn't terrible when just using the bathroom. The issue becomes when you want to take a shower. We only stayed here for a couple of days so it wasn't a big deal. I did take a shower but I would not put my head under the water. Also the showers are on a short timer (you have to push the button every minute or so) which makes it really difficult to wash long hair if you do want to stick your head in smelly water. The girls bathroom near our campsite only had to shower stalls but I was able to get in right away when I took a shower. Overall, this campground was very affordable ($25 for 2 nights) and we enjoyed ourselves immensely! The park is extremely dog friendly and everyone's dogs were very well behaved! We will be coming back in the future. read more

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So, I'm starting to realize that the state parks in Pennsylvania (my former home state) and Illinois are possibly different. Illini was a great, close camping escape from Chicago for a weekend, but wasn't everything I want it to be. We happened to stay here on a weekend right after a crazy rainy micro-season for the state, so everything was wet and there were small pools of water on all of the sites. Our site, (39 in the Whitetail Loop - as found on yelp) was actually not bad, since it was on an incline, but we did have to deal with mud.Also, mosquitoes were out of control because of the rain, but that was expected and nothing an unsafe amount of deet can't control. The whitetail loop, as not really understood from their website, is very different from the other, main loop. It's quieter and more remote and "nature-y" but does not have a river view. This is good and bad, because the river looks industrial and you can see the town across the way, which is distracting from trying to be away from the city. The main bathroom, with showers, etc. is in the main loop, which I don't understand, because they aren't really within decent walking distance and to take a shower you have to drive over. There is so much space in Whitetail that I would love if we had a shower spot there. Also - the campground host doesn't mess around. He's a nice guy, but he yelled at us for tying small, temporary ropes around trees to hang up a tarp over the table so we could keep things dry. It rained, everything got wet. I don't understand that part. I could see if you don't take the rope down or hanging crazy stuff off of it, but to not have a drying rope or to hang tarps is dumb. The people next to us were firing fireworks in the trees but somehow he found a way to yell at us twice for dollar store rope. Either way, I will be back, but mostly because of it's proximity to the city. read more

We love launching our boat at Illini! The ramp and piers are easy to launch at. The parking is close. Restrooms are available.

Illini State Park overall is not a bad place. If we go back, I'll be sure to stay in a different campsite though. We stayed in site #60 in the Whitetail loop, which I do not recommend. It is right on a corner; two sides of the site were on the road (the entrance and one side). It's so close to the road we felt like we needed to move the picnic table between our tent and the road to pout some sort of a barrier between our sleeping selves and traffic. The others around us looked much better, perhaps we'll pick #62, #63 or #64 in the whitetail loop next time. read more

Great place! 20 years comming and all were good times. Marseilles is a rocking town and the people are real friendly.

Don't camp near the water. Took a trip with some friends to this site and I don't think we will be going back. The sites are cramped and the sewage smell from the RV clean up hangs heavy in the air. The bugs are awful and I have not gotten to the worst part. Large barges go up and down the river all night shining there lights into your tents and your campsite when you are trying to enjoy the fire. Also the rangers that patrol the site are really strict about the $120 no drinking tickets and wrote us one for having a beer can out when they walked by. They also made us dump out all of the beer. I have been camping in IL for 20 years and it's always been the understanding. You keep you voice down don't bug people clean up your mess and no one cares you had a few beers around a fire. That understand is not in place at this site. I recommend somewhere else. read more

Nice little park. We only stayed for one night. Our dogs loved the trail by our campsite and the fireflies were magical at night! Campsite was small and we didn't use the facilities. Playground was overgrown with weeds. read more

Loved this campground. We ended up on a primitive site with our pop up camper because it was last minute. You can make reservations for RV sites in advance. The RV sites have a view of the river, primitive sites are wooded. There is a bath house with running water and showers. Campground hosts were very nice and helpful. Good hiking trail with views of the river. read more

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Stay away from the great falls loop. Went camping with a group of friends and it was not great. The sites are VERY cramped together, with nothing blocking you from your neighbors at all. Because of this you get RV sewage smell wafting on the breeze. If you do choose the great falls loop choose a high number site. Sites 6-20 are in essentially an open field that overlooks the Marsielles Lock. This means that all night barges are shining their very bright spot lights into your campsite and tent. I have been camping in many places, but the bugs here were exceptionally bad. The Rangers are also pretty standoff ish and looking for anything to ticket you for. read more

Illini state park is a wonderful park to just relax. I enjoy going there for CP's ice cream and the small park for my nephews to play. They enjoy going to the river which is a small walk down the hill. We like to watch the boats, and jet skis drive by. There are a few trails that we can hike in and take advantage of what Mother Nature has to offer. We've been camping a few times and the kids really enjoy that and the memories that we make. Also in the winter there is a large hill that we do to to go sledding and skiing. We have a fire in the small lodge and enjoy the day just watching the kids have the time of there life!!!. It's definitely kid and adult friendly for all seasons. read more

They need to fix the second dock at the boat launch. Too many people trying to get in and out and it backed everyone up all summer. It's been broke for awhile and not sure why a new dock hasn't been put up yet ? Other then that it's a good launch spot. read more

When Starved Rock is too full, you should just camp here. This place doesn't have much to offer in terms of hiking trails, but it's right on the river and has a quiet campground and the main street in Marseilles is very cute. There's a rule that says alcohol's prohibited on the campgrounds, but it makes no mention of that on the website. Of course that didn't stop anyone, but you know, just in case. read more

Stayed there last weekend. Host was very nice and camping and boating were great. Highly recommended.