You simply can’t see everything that Indiana Dunes Country has to offer in just one day.

One full day alone can be spent exploring the Indiana Dunes shoreline and hiking trails, and that’s only the beginning! Dozens of unique, locally-owned restaurants and shops await you in each of our communities, and the options for where to rest your head are just as diverse.

Many national chains have beautiful locations in Indiana Dunes Country, and they often post special rates on our Specials and Packages site. There are campgrounds in the area, but no hostels. You can also find some unique bed and breakfast options that are memorable experiences in themselves.

In communities such as Chesterton and Beverly Shores, you can stay close to nature At Home in the Woods, check out the beautiful rooms and grounds of the Gray Goose Inn, enjoy a getaway weekend at the boutique DunesWalk Inn, or explore refurbished train cars at Riley’s Railhouse. You can also rent the cottages and gathering space of Inspiration Wood and host an entire retreat weekend.

In Valparaiso, staying at the beautiful Songbird Prairie will leave you feeling pampered, and the experience at the Inn at Aberdeen will have you reminiscing until you return for another visit.

Wherever you stay and whatever you do, make sure to visit IndianaDunes.com to plan all of your activities and find the perfect places to spend your time!

The Public Has Spoken with its Best of Indiana 2012. In first-ever listings, Hoosiers offer insider insights on best pie, summer activities, ice cream locations, and more.

Indiana Dunes Country attractions were voted into the top 3 in 3 different categories.

Compiled based on online votes by the public, the inaugural “Best of Indiana: Your Ten Favorites” lists rank top choices for Indiana pies, ice cream shops, sandwiches, and fall and summer travel destinations, providing insiders’ insights to some of the state’s formerly best-kept secrets.

“Seasoned travelers know that the best way to find great food and fun is to ask locals what they like,” said Mark Newman, interim director of the Indiana Office of Tourism Development. “We’re connecting travelers with that information in a way that will help them get the most out of exploring the Hoosier state.”

The first annual “Your Ten Favorites” lists grew from the Indiana Office of Tourism Development’s “Super 46 Sandwiches in Indiana” list, created in conjunction with Super Bowl XLVI. After receiving an enthusiastic response, the Office of Tourism Development implemented the “Best of Indiana” voters’ choice section on VisitIndiana.com.

In celebration of the honorees, visitors to VisitIndiana.com have the chance to escape to the Best of Indiana by entering to win prizes from the five winners on the Contest page – www.in.gov/visitindiana/contest.aspx.

The following are the top three vote getters of this year’s “Your Ten Favorites” in the categories that feature Indiana Dunes Country attractions:

Ice Cream Shops
1.      The Chief in Goshen
2.      Valpo Velvet in Valparaiso
3.      South Side Soda Shop in Goshen

Fall Foliage Spots
1.      Brown County State Park, Brown County
2.      Indiana Dunes State Park, Chesterton
3.      Clifty Falls State Park, Madison

Summer Gotta-Dos
1.      Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, Fort Wayne
2.      Fort Wayne TinCaps at Parkview Field, Fort Wayne
3.      Indiana Dunes, Chesterton

Each listing on the website includes background about the choice and directions.

“We plan to expand the Best of Indiana by adding new categories in 2013,” said Newman. “Hoosiers love to share their favorites, and this has been a great way to highlight some gems.”

VisitIndiana.com is the official travel resource for planning a vacation or getaway in Indiana. The website’s homepage makes it easy to find travel discounts, see trip ideas and get first-hand tips from the Indiana Insider blog. Visit Indiana information is also available via Twitter and Facebook.

Each year, Indiana welcomes more than 62 million people. Indiana’s tourism industry employs more than 257,000 workers and generates $10 billion in direct and indirect spending annually.

Holidays in Indiana Dunes Country bring some wonderful opportunities to spend time with your families, friends, and maybe even the big guy in the red suit.

If you want to find and cut down your own Christmas tree, you can head to Santa’s Holiday Forest in Valparaiso from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve and start (or continue) a holiday tradition!

The entire town of Kouts gets involved in their Christmas Open House, happening Dec. 6-7. Maps are available at the Visitor Center or at almost any store in town. Santa Claus will even be making an appearance!

The Calumet Outdoors Series and Indiana Dunes State Park both offer holiday-themed hikes for you to work off the fruitcake. This year the COS hike will take place at 9am on Dec. 15th at Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve.

Lastly, you can head to any and all of the unique shops in Indiana Dunes Country to pick up the perfect gift for a loved one!

Whatever your holiday activities entail, we hope that they are enjoyable and wonderful and spent with those you love.

It’s always a culinary adventure in Indiana Dunes Country, as the editors of Midwest Living recently discovered on a tour of our region’s leading restaurants. Challenged with the “arduous” task of narrowing it down to a tasty top 10 (with some honorable mentions included), here are Midwest Living’s favorite Indiana Dunes Country restaurants–guaranteed to dazzle your palates!

We’ve created an awesome video that gives you a virtual tour of what your tastebuds are missing, check it out here.

You can also visit http://www.indianadunes.com/culinary-tour/ for more information about each restaurant, and to plan your own tour!

On a dark and snowy morning back in 1906, dozens of people who came to this country for the promise of a better life instead died when the passenger train bringing them to our country’s heartland collided head-on with a freight train just outside Chesterton.

The victims, many of whom were young children, suffered unimaginable fates—dying instantly or being burned to death while trapped in the wreckage.

Mike McDowell thinks some of the dead are still at the site today, haunting it.
“With that much death, there’s going to be something left behind, even if it’s one or two ghosts,” said McDowell, owner of Chaos Haunted & Historical Tours.

McDowell, who does tours all year long to possibly-haunted places like the train wreck site, said he’s taken strange pictures and recorded a little girl’s voice and a man’s voice at the location where the victims perished.

McDowell and his group lead about 35 scheduled walking tours, bus tours, haunted pub crawls and overnight excursions each year. In addition, they will do private tours for groups big and small.

McDowell says his tours are one part history, one part interesting stories and another part ghost hunting. Tour attendees get to see and test out ghost hunting equipment that records voices, senses temperature changes and tests the electromagnetic fields of moving objects.

Indiana Dunes Country is rich in possibly-haunted places, McDowell believes. Legend has it that the dunes are haunted by Alice Gray, the woman who reportedly skinny-dipped in Lake Michigan and on whom the Diana of the Dunes legend is based. His tours often include stops at or stories about such places as a public execution site in Valparaiso, the Porter County Courthouse and the Porter County Museum of History/Old Jail Museum. The pub crawl stops at businesses with ghost stories to tell, like Val’s Famous Pizza & Grinders in Chesterton.

For those who are really interested in ghosts, an overnight stay might be in order. Inn at Aberdeen, located in Valparaiso, says some believe the inn has the friendly ghost of a little girl. The inn plays on that theme by hosting mystery dinners, luncheons and overnight mysteries.

McDowell, who has been leading ghost tours since 2001, packs as many as 20 scary and fascinating stories into each tour. He first became interested in ghosts when he was 10 years old and was the only one of his friends to see a boy hopping along on a pogo stick on a foggy day. He believes what he saw was the ghost of a boy who reportedly died while on his way to school.

To learn more about ghost tours, and to check for upcoming tours, visit www.chaostrips.com, send an e-mail to chaos@netnitco.net or call 219-714-3761. Bus tours cost $30 per person, while the prices vary for some of the other events.

For less creepy ways to spend your Halloween weekend, check out our calendar of events!