Garden of the Gods Shawnee National Forest Illinois Camping

 Garden of the Gods Recreation center

                                                    Park Information 

Garden of the Gods is located in Herod which is in Southern Illinois in the Shawnee National forest. 

There website can be found here or here. 

Camping 

All of their campsites are first come first serve, so you can not reserve one before getting there. 

The most wanted campsite location at Garden of the Gods is the Pharoah campsite, but be warned it is EXTREMELY difficult to get a spot here. It is in a great location with only 12 camping spots at this camp site. It costs $10 per night to stay here. 

If you cannot find a spot here, there is another camp site that is my little secret that we found when visiting. It cannot be found on Apple Maps, only on Google Maps, so keep that in mind when trying to find it. 

It costs $10 per night to camp here as well. This campsite has about 11 camping spots. Each site has a picnic table and a place to make a fire. 

The first night that I stayed here there was only one other group of people. The second night (which was a Saturday) there were 4 other occupied campsites. 

Website for Camp Cadiz here. 

It is an 18 minute drive from Camp Cadiz to Garden of the Gods. 

Here is a link to the Garden of the Gods trail map. 

There is an Observation Trail that is .4 miles long. Here you will be able to see all the beautiful rocks of Garden of the Gods as well as the beautiful trees!

There is a backpacking parking lot that has access to all backpacking trails. I would recommend checking these trails out! You of course don't have to do all 100 miles, but there are some beautiful views here as well! 

Helpful hints 

There is a lot of equestrian, or horseback riding, that takes place here so there will be horse poop on the trails, just beware!