Chicago Northwest KOA

Flys are everywhere. There is a garbage dump and junk yard next door to this campsite. Also the swimming pool is ice cold. The people who work here are nice but there are too many silly rules. Also the staff constantly drive around on golf carts looking for violations. We are a one and done here.

NEVER ever stay here. Your better off staying in your car. The staff is ruder than rude can be. The owners quite frankly suck. I would never recommend this to my enemies! The only nice thing I can say is the bathrooms at clean and that is it. KOA should be ashamed there name is on this campground.

We decided to do a camping weekend in Union with our two boys (3.5 years and 1.5 year). We have a Value Kard membership and got an email that there was a buy a Friday night, get a Saturday night for free. That on top of discount tickets to the Wild West Town and the Illinois Railway Museum meant we had a perfect family weekend planned.
We reserved a Kabin. It has one double bed and twin bunks plus enough room for us to set up our toddler’s Pack n Play. The Kabins have a window unit for the summer but since it was a chilly September weekend, they gave us an electric heater.
When we arrived, it was 7:45pm, pouring rain and about 45 degrees. BRRRRR! We were given Kabin #3 and it was a 1 minute walk or less to the bathrooms/​showers. Not bad but not a lot of fun in the rain and cold.
As we were putting sheets on our bed, we discovered a pair of dirty underwear stuffed into the side of the bed. EWWWWWW! There was also a couple of empty water bottles left by previous occupants. Here’s to hoping they usually do a better job of cleaning the Kabins and we just caught them on a bad day. I almost subtracted a star just because of that but, like I said, here’s to hoping it was just a bad day.
In the fall there wasn’t much to do but I hear in the summer they have a lot of activities. There was a mini golf course directly behind our Kabin but we never really checked it out.
The bathrooms and showers were surprisingly nice and clean. The showers had hot water too which was much appreciated.
Every staff member we came into contact with was very friendly.
The wifi is spotty and comes and goes. But we were there for family time. If something had come up with my husband’s work I don’t know that he would have been able to stay connected long enough to get anything done though.
The Wild West Town is steps away from the KOA and that was super convenient. It was nice to be able to hit the WWT in the morning, come back for naps then go back later.
Overall, a very enjoyable weekend!

I didn’t realize that I didn’t update my Unilocal review for so long.
The new owners are great — The first year was probably a rough one but a few years later and all is well.
The campground is clean (really clean). It’s in a nice location. Personally, I wouldn’t take a place in the RV area (kind of behind the KOA building), it’s ok but you don’t get any of the benefits of the park, it’s just an RV city.
If you get a place in front of the camp store you will enjoy it. The owners are friendly and we were pleasantly surprised they remembered us and where we liked to camp (not from a computer, just walking around and saying hello).
Wifi is still 1994 era, hope they can fix that. We ended up in the RV area because of overfill and the Wifi there was better than it is up front, hopefully they extend it to go everywhere.
We’ve been back every year and it’s a great place.

Under new ownership in 2012. Family oriented with special activities (haywagon rides, movies, games, kids crafts, bingo, etc.) on weekends. Just a little over an hour to Chicago — 30 minutes to the Metra line. Great location for all of your Chicago sightseeing!