My husband, friends, and I love this place! It's pretty clean and is absolutely beautiful,…read moreespecially during sunset. There is a path around a decent sized pond where many run or jog, and there are plenty of benches to sit on around the path, as well. A nice perk is that you can watch all of the cute ducks and geese all over the place. Be careful where you're walking because poo is kinda everywhere, though haha! There is a free outdoor workout area you can use with a good amount of different machines, and there are also canoes and peddle boats that you can rent. I haven't been here in the winter season yet, but apparently you can ice skate on the pond when it's frozen during winter, too. Don't let me just tell you how gorgeous this lake is, see for yourself! Many people also fish here, but during certain times, the lake has green algae, so I wouldn't recommend being that close to the water if there are signs out.

Great park and very relaxing time!!! Would recommend for…read moreanyone looking for a great place to unwind!

Nice park area (with parking) with basketball area, restrooms, a few covered picnic tables, and…read moreolder/younger play areas. A nice walking path next to retention pond takes you to MacArther school park next store which has nice new equipment. Nice spot to stop and play for a bit. Some shaded benches. There are tennis courts here as well.

We love this playground! It's part of the Shanes imagination parks organization which has a lot of…read moregreat parks back in Los Angeles. This playground was awesome. It's right along the river and there's some great bike trails around. My kids had so much fun climbing on all of the equipment. There was lots of stuff for them to do. What a great spot!

Love the park specially the new off leash dog park but you did not make an off leash park for small…read moredogs so my dogs cannot use it. Please make a spot for the small dogs.

Spring Valley has a Nature Center and also features the Heritage Farm. It's really a neat place for…read morea walk as you walk through a wooded area for about 5-7 minutes and then you see the farm houses with animal barns along with a few trails to follow. Spring Valley is a refuge of about 135 acres comprised of fields, forests, marshes, brooks and streams. Some trails are wood beamed while others are rocks and grass. It's a really enjoyable place to spend a few hours by yourself, with friends and family. Parking and entrances to the park are available on both sides 1) off Schaumburg Road 2) off Plum Grove Road.

I have been going here since the 80's and it is even better than ever now. I love taking my…read moredaughter for a hike to the farm after enjoying the nature center building. It is awesome how so many aspects of Spring Valley have remained the same while wonderful upgrades and additions have been made, too! Definitely a place that we will continue to visit throughout the year!

A kid's dream playground and totally worth the small entrance fee. This nature-themed play space…read moreis huge, creative, and packed with fun. Because it's so popular, they use timed entries to give more families a chance to enjoy it without crowding. It's located inside the Spring Valley Nature Center, so after playtime, you can wander the trails or explore more of the natural area. A great combo of fun + learning + nature. Perfect for an afternoon with littles

I get it... people do not want to pay to go to a public park, but then.... Maybe don't go? It's a…read morepark district park, so perhaps they need the money to help maintain the park or to help with crowd control. And I'm sure there are plenty of other parks in the area that do not charge. The place was pretty packed on a Sunday morning at 10:20am, but not in an annoying way. I thought the equipment was uniquely different from your standard playground. Lots of creative equipment for sensory play. I wasn't SUPER thrilled to see the gritty sand and water (am I just super OCD or are there actually parents out there that see that at a playground they drove to that says "oh yay! Water and messy sand!"). Oh and the death trap tight rope was also a "yikes" reaction, but my kids stayed away from it, so no biggie. It was fun. I wasn't bothered by the one hour time limit (although, I don't even know if they actually kick people out because we left a little after 11am and I didn't see them trying to clear the area). But.... It was hot and I was ready to leave the park and do not mind having the backing of being able to tell my kids that the park is closing to help get them to leave.

This place is a hidden gem.... literally. Well, not literally a gem, but literally hidden. GPS told…read moreme to make a right, where all I saw was a Nissan dealership. Nope, and instead I ended up circling around. But sure, enough, make a right when the GPS tells you too. Ignore that the car dealership is there, and pay attention to the fact there's a giant sign letting you know Vogelei Park is there. We had a barbecue at one of the seating areas with a roof and it was OK. The engineers who designed and created the shelter's roof apparently didn't like the sunrise, as the way it was angled, the unusual early June 90-degree heat and sun shone right on us during the early evening. After it got dark, the shelter had lights that illuminated, which was a bummer. Overall though, it's a great place to consider for a BBQ. BATHROOM REVIEW: Located in the building, the bathrooms were good, for a public park bathroom. It had a couple of urinals and stalls. Sit or squat? Squat.

HIDDEN PARK ALERT!! HIDDEN GEM ALERT!…read more When the sun came out one afternoon after a cloudy, dreary week, I knew I had to find some outdoor spot to frolic about in. Since I was in Palatine at the time, and wanted to go home to Roselle without driving too far out of my way, I pulled up the Yelp app and typed in "park." Too many places popped up, none were what I was looking for. So I tried, "zoo." One of the first things to pop up was the Northern Illinois Raptor Center. What!? I did a quick search on what it was, expected there was some kind of magical owl zoo somewhere, and headed out this way. The drive to this park is very easy to miss. I did miss it, and had to do a long turn about through a neighborhood to get back to the entrance, which is located off of Higgins at the intersection of Golf, in between a couple car dealerships. The easiest way to find it is to look for the Hoffman Estates Park District sign and turn RIGHT THERE. Then you'll see a barn at the end of the drive and a park. Whew. I got out of my car, walked over to the barn and older building, found locked doors, wandered over to a map, scanned the map, saw absolutely no mention of any raptors or owls or birds, and decided, "Screw it, I'll just go walk around the park since I'm already here." Fortunately, my disappointment was quickly dissolved after one leisurely lap around the park. Here's what Vogelei has: - A pond that's part of the Bio Swale Water Quality Initiative. I'm still not quite clear on what it is, but it's a water system that cleans storm water runoff of man-made chemicals while providing a habitat for animals and helping the environment. Whatever it was, it sounded and looked awesome -- grassy, marshy areas, a walking path, a picturesque bride and gazebo. And white birds with long legs that fly away when I try to take pictures (darn bird). - A rose garden. Not a very big rose garden, but it's a nice little rose garden with blooms bigger than my hand. I kid you not. Crazy giant flowers. - Lots of grassy areas for picnicking, hooping, and running around like crazy. The park district also holds concerts (mainly for kids) here sometimes. - A playground jungle gym that's shaped like a barn. Sweet. - A splash pad!! It's basically a large, squishy pad with sprinklers. It's turned on during the day -- all you have to do is press down on one of the buttons on the padded surface to activate the water that shoots up. Yes, there is a chance you could get wet doing this. It's fun. Take it from this lady with the crazy hair (oh, what a sight that must have been)! - A conifer garden: an area with a bunch of tiny pine tree bushes. - Safety town. One of those little set-ups where kids can ride their tiny bikes around a little town and learn how to be safe when they cross the street and all that fun stuff. - The barn. Apparently the barn holds some kind of banquet room that you can rent for events. Cool. The park district's summer camp also uses the building for the kids -- I kind of felt like a creep walking in there. Not sure what that other, seemingly abandoned building was for. I probably spent a good forty-five minutes lurking around the park. Not bad. Still no awesome owl zoo, though. Disappointed, I left and wrote this review. As I was finishing up this review earlier this morning, I decided I really needed to go back and find that mysterious magical bird zoo before finishing this review! Back I went... and instead of an empty park, I was greeting with a full parking lot and tons of camp kids. Definitely not the kind of scene for aimless wandering with a camera. Fortunately, someone pointed me in the direction of the raptor center... YES! IT EXISTS! ... which was in a cluster of tiny house-like buildings, surrounded by a fence to keep people out. There were no birds. The birds will be on display later this year or something. Bummer, but so glad I figured out this mystery! SO. This definitely isn't your typical suburban neighborhood park. I won't go out of my way to come back here again (OK, maybe I will -- because I already did), but if I'm in the area and looking for a quiet park to hang out in, I'd re-visit. Nice job, Hoffman Estates.

Great little path, little bit of an incline going up over the bridge, can be a little rough as some…read moreof the trail is just gravel and dirt. Friendly people walking along this path saying hello and smiling at you.

A hidden gem in Bloomingdale. 2 looped crushed limestone paths. Dogs and bikes welcome. Very clean…read more Ample parking. Great for birding.

Great place for soccer fields and it's beautiful. Unfortunately, the teams and people that use the…read moresoccer fields often abuse it by leaving empty water bottles and their trash behind. Coaches should not let players leave the field until they remove their trash. I wish I could insert a photo I took this morning!

As of Aug 2013, I guess this place is super new as Google mapping it or TomToming it (yes, I'm…read morecreating my own verbs) was an extremely frustrating experience as none of these yielded the correct place. They kept directing us to the Barrington Club Park which is a few miles away. Anywho, once you find it, it is an awesome park. It has 140+ parking spaces and the area is huge. Perhaps its new, so thats why its awesome, but the grass was lush and green. They have soccer fields, tennis courts, basketball courts, volleyball sand courts, a giant shelter to host BBQs, bocci ball courts, and nice clean bathrooms. Since the park is new, the trees were still somewhat small, so there wasn't a whole lot of shade besides the shelter they have there. The shelter can probably house at least 50 people easily with nice and clean tables. I'm writing this with a sunburnt forehead and upper shoulders. I usually don't get burnt but apparently I should have put on sunscreen. Definitely check this place out if you're looking for a park to relax and play around and/or to host a nice sized BBQ. BATHROOM REVIEW: The bathrooms are located right next to the shelter. Inside, you will see a couple of urinals and a nice sturdy stall. The inside of the bathroom was rather dim, but maybe its because it was so darn sunny outside. Anywho, they didn't have paper towels but a nice hand dryer. For now, there were no mosquitos and it was super clean. The stall looked very sturdy. Sit or squat? I'd sit after a long day of playing. Aint nobody got time to squat