Starting your trip at University of Illinois Willard Airport in Champaign-Urbana means everything around the region sits within an easy drive. Champaign and Urbana are twin cities joined by a big university campus, which gives the area an energy out of proportion to its size. Downtown Champaign has a dense cluster of bars, music venues, and restaurants, Urbana leans toward tree-lined streets and a Saturday market, and the prairie stretches flat in every direction.

Standout experiences around Champaign: - See a performance at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts - Browse the Krannert Art Museum and the Spurlock Museum of world cultures - Take a tea ceremony tour at Japan House and its gardens - Catch the Illini at Memorial Stadium or State Farm Center - Shop Urbana's Market at the Square on Saturday mornings - Walk the prairie restoration and sculptures at Meadowbrook Park - Attend Ebertfest, the film festival Roger Ebert started at the Virginia Theatre each April - Pick apples and ride the tractor at Curtis Orchard in fall - Split a deep-dish pie at Papa Del's, a campus institution

Allerton Park near Monticello, with its mansion, formal gardens, and woodland trails, is half an hour from Champaign. Arthur and its Amish bakeries and furniture shops are about 45 minutes south, Kickapoo State Park near Danville is 40 minutes east for paddling and mountain biking, and Bloomington-Normal is an hour west. Springfield and the Lincoln sites are about 90 minutes. Locals call the area Chambana, and the fall color on campus in October is reason enough for a weekend.