Round Lake Beach is a suburb of Lake County, located in the northern area of Chicago, Illinois.
Incorporated in 1937, the Village of Round Lake Beach has grown to more than 25,000 people within an area of 5.2 square miles.
The village, as well as the entirety of the Round Lake region, has a large Mexican population and is home to numerous Latino-owned businesses, retail shops, and restaurants.
Just second to Waukegan City, Round Lake Beach has the second highest population of Latino people in Lake County.
While embracing its past, Round Lake Beach also keeps an eye on the future.
Learn more about this small community by experiencing its people, culture, nature, and everything else.
Check out this list of the best things to do in Round Lake Beach, Illinois.
The Round Lake Beach Cultural and Civic Center is a multifunctional facility with various indoor and outdoor venues to host special events.
Round Lake Beach Cultural and Civic Center overlooks Hook Lake and has high ceilings and wide spaces.
This 31,000-square-foot building features a banquet room, event rooms for up to 550 people, a vaulted lobby for expos, an outdoor stage with amphitheater seating for 3,000 people, outdoor areas ideal for picnics and tented events, and ample parking areas.
In addition to offering plenty of rental spaces, the Center is an excellent venue for entertainment and culture, which locals and visitors alike can enjoy!
This facility opened in 2007 and is home to the annual Beach Fest and Fireworks and the Elote Fest Carnival.
Renwood Golf Course is the place to go if you want a near, friendly, and affordable golfing experience in Round Lake Beach.
The Round Lake Area Park District manages this 18-hole public golf course.
Highly ranked by Chicagoland Golf, they feature plenty of amenities that make them the ideal venue for a casual round of golf with friends or club members.
Aside from the actual course, check out their two indoor golf simulators and their heated and covered driving range bays with six hitting stations!
From their lush manicured greens to competitions to other special events, players of all ages and abilities will love the warm ambiance of Renwood Golf Course.
Lakefront Park is the perfect spot to relax and play any time of the year with its lakeside views, picnic shelters, park benches, pathways, beautiful greenery, and mature oak trees.
Nearby the lake stands a playground for children to enjoy and a shelter for adults to keep watch and gather around.
The lake is famous for water activities like kayaking and swimming, especially during the summer.
A boat launch is available at the park, and lifeguards are stationed along the sandy beach during posted hours.
Lakefront Park is open to locals and visitors alike, although there’s a park and launch charge for visitors.
For over 20 years, the Realm of Terror Haunted House has been the go-to for the scariest, most extreme, and most intense Halloween experience in Round Lake Beach.
The Realm of Terror Haunted House is Illinois’ highest-rated haunted house, ranked #1 by HauntedHouseChicago.com and HauntedIllinois.com.
They were also featured in famous publications, including The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Huffington Post, The Daily Herald, and more.
Walk through captivating sets created by expert set designers, and feel the fear even with your eyes closed with sounds specially crafted to establish a horrifying mood.
The Realm of Terror Haunted House is outrageously meant to make you scream, so you better leave the kids at home!
It’s located at Kristof’s Entertainment Center and is open during Halloween.
Since 1974, Kristof’s Entertainment Center has provided fun and entertainment for families and friends in Lake County!
That’s over 40 years of the most enjoyable time anyone has ever had!
Kristof’s Entertainment Center is a fantastic venue for date nights, family outings, birthday parties, corporate events, bonding with friends, and more!
Have fun at the arcade featuring old classics to the newest games and their state-of-the-art bowling alley, available all year!
Challenge yourself and your peers for a round of 18-hole mini golf, ride easy or go-kart racing, and practice your batting skills in their batting cages, all open from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Then don’t miss the horror at the Realm of Terror Haunted House during Halloween!
Join the fun, and create new memories at Kristof’s Entertainment Center.
Black Lung Brewing Company is founded on family and their journey.
The beer company was born from the craft of homebrewing, starting from the garage to the brewery that it is today.
Their partner, the Lake County Libation Trail, provides 12 fresh draft beers brewed in-house.
Their sophisticated, exquisite craft beers highlight their high-quality grains, hops, water, and yeast.
For people who work hard and for beer lovers, Black Lung Brewing Company delivers a beer that is “grounded in tradition and inspired by enthusiasm.”
Listen to live bands every Friday through Sunday, check out their upcoming events, and relax while enjoying a delicious glass of iced cold beer!
The Sports Center – Round Lake Area Park District is a 50,000-square-foot building with a 9,000-square-foot mezzanine, a regulation indoor soccer field, a basketball and volleyball court, and more.
It also has a massive indoor climbing wall that will let you practice and be challenged in a secure environment.
Three multipurpose rooms on the main level can be used alone or combined to hold more people.
If you’d like to incorporate sports in your future special event, this may be your ideal venue!
The Sports Center – Round Lake Area Park District caters to many other sports.
Play badminton, tennis, baseball, softball, football, rugby, boxing, darts, fencing, and field hockey!
Then, move on to other forms of recreation like dance, running, rock climbing, gymnastics, powerlifting, and martial arts!
Orchard Park is one of the many parks in Round Lake Beach.
This scenic park spans 64.75 acres, two miles north of the heart of town.
Orchard Park contains a lagoon, natural areas, playgrounds for children, and an open field great for picnics on the grass and just having fun with the family.
For those who enjoy sports or are active, the park also has a walking trail, basketball court, and soccer field.
Overall, Orchard Park is a great place to relax, spend time with family, and even catch a beautiful sunset.
Take the kids to the Children’s Neighborhood Museum for fun exploration and discovery!
They can explore a child-sized recreation of a town created specifically for them.
They can operate a car to go to the market, fill up gas at the neighborhood gas station, and play the role of a doctor or a teacher!
This Neighborhood Museum is a space for children one to six years of age to experience different social roles while being challenged to explore, think, and create using their minds and bodies.
Kids can also explore the museum’s STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) area.
The Children’s Neighborhood Museum meets the “Illinois State Early Learning Standards” designed for Early Childhood Developmental Education.
The Children’s Neighborhood Museum is nearly two miles southwest of the heart of Round Lake Beach.
The Prairie Grass Nature Museum is situated in the Aquatic Center, just several steps away from the Children’s Neighborhood Museum!
With its lifelike exhibits, this free museum aims to provide visitors with a sense of the outdoors while being indoors.
See the lovely budding flowers of a prairie, exquisite birds of a marsh, and animals of a forest, all in one place!
Visitors can watch and learn about their live animals and join the monthly crafts and programs available!
The Museum also lends Nature Discovery Packs to visitors to use and explore Hart’s Woods nearby during museum hours.
The Nature Discovery Packs include binoculars, a compass, magnifying glass, a ruler, markers, laminated worksheets, an IL plant ID guide, and an IL wildlife ID guide.
It has everything you need to explore the woods successfully!
Nippersink Forest Preserve has grown into a year-round sanctuary for people and wildlife, having formerly been a seasonal hideaway for campers and recreational vehicles.
Thanks to century-old oak trees that tower above two beautiful lakes and marshes and woodlands, the Preserve offers plenty of habitat for wildlife.
Take a walk or cycle along 3.2 miles of paths that encircle the lakes and surrounding forests.
Due to its major coastline restoration initiatives, which include two handicap-accessible fishing piers, Nippersink Forest Preserve is a fantastic location to go fishing.
Nippersink Forest Preserve also has five picnic shelters, four of which can be rented for exclusive gatherings.
However, a permit is required for groups of more than 25 people.
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Grant Woods Forest Preserve awaits you to discover its open prairies, tranquil forests, and wildlife-rich wetlands.
Located in Ingleside, Lake County, the Grant Woods Forest Preserve is approximately four miles northwest of Round Lake Beach.
It is accessible in just about ten minutes!
This Forest Preserve has six miles of sandy trails open for biking, hiking, and winter cross-country skiing.
A boat launch is also available at the Preserve’s southern section for boating and fishing activities on Long Lake!
A part of Grant Woods Forest Preserve has never been farmed.
Thus it’s abundant in rare native species and is a designated Illinois Nature Preserve.
Explore the natural wonders of this gently rolling landscape and witness year-round sightings of hawks, deers, and other abundant wildlife across the 1,226 acres of prairies, forests, and marshes.
The Duck Farm Forest Preserve is apicturesque preserve and an old duck farm located in Lake Villa, Lake County, about 11 minutes northeast of Round Lake Beach.
This Forest Preserve spans an area of 357 acres and is home to a variety of wildlife and waterfowl, and serves mainly as an off-leash dog park!
The name Duck Farm was taken after the famous duck farm by the Weber family that formerly occupied this property.
While there are no designated trails in the area, Duck Farm Forest Preserve is a beautiful place for dogs to run around and experience the outdoors while providing a safe refuge for various wildlife.
Entry to the Forest Preserve requires a dog and a daily or annual permit.
Martha Marks / Shutterstock.com
The Rollins Savanna Forest Preserve is among the biggest preservation and restoration projects of Lake County.
The Rollins Savanna provides the ideal habitat for waterfowl, grassland birds, and other wildlife.
A 7.75-mile dirt trail with boardwalks and bridges passes through wetlands, oak woods, and vast prairie grasslands filled with natural grasses and wildflowers.
The Forest Preserve’s nursery carefully grows rare native seeds, planting them to restore habitats and providing ecologists access to rare species.
A trail near the Drury Lane parking area that leads to a high platform with a panoramic view of the grasslands and wetlands provides the best spot for birdwatching.
Bring and use your binoculars or make use of the magnified viewing scopes available!
The Rollins Savanna Forest Preserve is in Grayslake, Illinois, seven minutes from Round Lake Beach.
The Volo Museum is a 36-acre museum featuring 300 classic, vintage, and Muscle cars on exhibit, including the country’s biggest collection of Hollywood TV and movie cars!
The Volo Museum is located southwest of Round Lake Beach in Volo, Lake County, and accessible within nine minutes!
When you visit the Volo Museum, you’ll see cars and thousands of mechanical marvels ranging from the first motorcycle to a self-playing orchestra.
Opened in 1960, the Volo Museum is now home to 45 exhibits, 10,000 mechanical marvels for people of all ages, a 15,000-square-foot dinosaur park with animatronics, an antique mall with more than 300 vendors, and much more!
Whether you’re revisiting a memory or seeing these old artifacts for the first time, Volo Musuem’s exhibits will leave you astonished!
Round Lake Beach is a small-town community brimming with passion for the outdoors, entertainment, education, sports, and family!
Its abundance of parks and nature preserves and proximity to nearby suburbs in Lake County give residents and visitors additional time and places for exploration and wonder.
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