Three-Day Weekend at Indiana Dunes National Park: Ultimate Dog-Friendly Guide + Itinerary
Our sweet corgi turned four on April 30th, 2023, and we celebrated by taking him on a weekend adventure to his second National Park - Indiana Dunes! Who says humans are the only ones who should be gifted experiences for their birthdays?
We spent three nights in the town of Porter, Indiana, which is located just minutes from the National Park entrance. Elliot had a fantastic birthday weekend hiking, digging in the sand, and slurping down a pup cup.
Keep reading to see everything we did, ate, and explored during our long weekend at Indiana Dunes!
Getting to Indiana Dunes National Park
If you don’t live within driving distance, the easiest way to get to Indiana Dunes National Park is to fly into Chicago, Illinois and rent a car. The National Park is about a one hour drive from downtown Chicago. This is also a fun opportunity to extend your trip and get a mix of city and nature experiences.
We live about five hours from Indiana Dunes and drove. I recommend listening to National Park After Dark’s podcast episode about Indiana Dunes on your way!
Either way, I strongly recommend that you have a personal vehicle to explore the park. If you are visiting in the off-season or with your pet, it is the only way to get around! (Between Memorial Day and Labor Day, Indiana Dunes National Park offers a shuttle service called The Dune Loop to transport visitors around the park and nearby areas. Note - only service animals are allowed on the shuttle, so this is not an option if you are traveling with your dog.)
Where to Stay
Because we were traveling with Elliot, we opted to stay in a dog-friendly Airbnb. The Dune Den in Porter, Indiana was a perfect home base for our weekend at Indiana Dunes. We were within a 20 minute drive of every trailhead, beach access, and landmark in the National Park, as well as many local restaurants!
If you prefer a hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn Chesterton or the Fairfield Inn & Suites Valparaiso offer dog-friendly rooms and are within 30 minutes of Indiana Dunes National Park.
Where to Eat and Drink
Tiger Lily Cafe: Tiger Lily was our first stop upon arriving in Porter, IN, and it did not disappoint! The cafe has traditional, vegetarian, and vegan menus; One table, everybody eats! is their motto! We shared the vegan BBQ burger, which was topped with the most real-looking veggie bacon I’ve ever seen. (This was actually a huge turnoff for me because the look of it was TOO real, but Max loved it and said the flavor was close to the real thing.) We also ordered the vegan portabella flatbread and an assortment of vegan baked goods to have at our Airbnb throughout the weekend!
Red Cup Cafe & Deli*: Red Cup is a perfect place to grab a quick breakfast or lunch while visiting Indiana Dunes. Just minutes away from the National Park, Red Cup’s menu offers a variety of specialty coffees, teas, salads, and sandwiches (and just about every alternative milk option you could ask for)! We stopped here for breakfast on our way home and each ordered an iced oat milk mocha and an egg / cheese / spinach sandwich on sourdough bread. They also serve personal frittatas, quiche, and a soup of the day!
Running Vines Winery*: This was our FAVORITE stop of the entire weekend because Elliot was allowed inside! It’s so rare to find a place that we can actually sit inside and order food with Elliot, so visiting Running Vines Winery was such a treat. (To be honest, I’m not entirely sure how he was allowed here, but we’re so glad that he was!) As of this publication, they welcome dogs of any size indoors. The restaurant staff were so sweet with Elliot and brought him a water bowl as soon as we arrived. We visited after a very strenuous four-mile hike up some very steep sand dunes, and we were ravenous. We shared a cheese board, the spinach and artichoke pizza, and a bottle of red wine called Hank’s Comet. Thankfully we were able to take the wine to go, because we were only able to have one glass before Elliot crashed HARD.
Namaste India: We got takeout from Namaste India after watching a sunset at Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk, and we loved it. The menu has a huge vegetarian section, and we ordered our go-tos - palaak paneer, paneer butter masala, naan, and samosas. It was enough for dinner and lunch the next day!
Dog Days Ice Cream Parlor*: This was Elliot’s favorite food-related stop on the trip because he got a birthday pup cup! Dog Days was kind enough to let Elliot order a whipped cream cup instead of their usual vanilla ice cream scoop, and he slurped it down so fast!
Goblin & The Grocer: We discovered this restaurant in passing on our last day at Indiana Dunes so we didn’t actually get a chance to eat here, but it is at the TOP of our list if we ever return. The menu looks so creative and has my all-time favorite brunch dish - vegan biscuits & gravy!
Chesterton Brewery: Chesterton Brewery serves classic sports bar food (including Beyond burgers) and has 23 beers on draft - 17 of which are brewed by Chesterton Brewery! This is another local spot that we weren’t able to visit on this trip, but it’s one that came highly recommended from our Airbnb host. (Dogs are not allowed inside, and we visited too early in the Spring season for the patio furniture to be set up. In warmer weather, you can bring pups on the patio.)
*These restaurants are located within one block of each other - perfect for a multi-stop food tour! If you feel like stretching your legs even more, Chesterton Brewery is within one mile of the starred restaurants.
Where to Explore
Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor’s Center: I always recommend starting your National Park trip at the Visitor’s Center. Here you can get your park passport stamp and any other souvenirs or gear you may need. I also love to chat with an available park ranger to learn about their favorite hiking trails or hidden gems in the area. (This is how we learned about the Chellberg Farm and Little Calumet River trail described below.)
Indiana Dunes also offers the opportunity for your pup to become a B.A.R.K Ranger, which stands for:
Bag your pet’s waste
Always leash your pet
Respect wildlife
Know where you can go
Be sure to observe these important principles when visiting all National Parks with your pet! We took the B.A.R.K pledge with Elliot, and he received an Indiana Dunes leash tag from the Visitor’s Center.
*With the exception of service dogs, the Visitor’s Center is not dog-friendly inside. It is helpful to have a travel companion for one of you to hold your dog outside and the other to go inside, and then switch!
1933 Chicago World's Fair Century of Progress Homes: The Century of Progress Homes are five historic houses built during the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago, which were later moved to Indiana Dunes National Park. (Four were transported by barge across Lake Michigan!) The homes were designed to showcase modern architectural styles and innovative technologies of the time, such as central air conditioning and electric kitchens. One architect even included a hangar in his design, assuming that every house of the future would have its own airplane or flying car. My favorite design was the Florida Tropical house - the pink stucco exterior reminded me so much of Palm Springs!
Visit the beach! Indiana Dunes National Park is home to over 15 miles of sandy beach along the southern shore of Lake Michigan for you to swim, build sandcastles, or enjoy the sunset. All beaches and parking lots are open daily from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm, and, West Beach has showers and lifeguards from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend through the Monday of Labor Day weekend.
Where to Hike
Indiana Dunes National Park has an extensive trail system that offers visitors the opportunity to explore the diverse natural environment of the park. Within one trail, you can experience beach, marsh, prairie, and woods!
West Beach Dune Succession Trail - This was our absolute favorite trail of the trip. The Dune #1 trail leads visitors up and over the dunes onto the beach via a well-maintained boardwalk. You can see the Chicago skyline from the top of the dunes and from the beach itself. We visited around sunset and had the beach mostly to ourselves. It was a beautiful experience! This trail had a lot of stairs, but I wouldn’t call it strenuous. The most challenging part was that Elliot was afraid to go down the stairs at first, and we thought we were going to have to carry him the entire way. Thankfully, he figured it out and headed straight to the beach!
*The Dune Succession Trail is dog-friendly with the following exception: Pets are not allowed in the lifeguarded swimming area at West Beach from the Friday of Memorial Day weekend through the Monday of Labor Day Weekend.
Little Calumet River and Mnoke Prairie Trail (Recommended by a Park Ranger at the Visitor’s Center): Step back in time as you hike this four mile trail through forest, prairie, and riverbeds, leading you to the Bailly Homestead and Chellberg Farm. We hiked this trail on our last day, and it was nice to give our legs a break from the steep dunes! Elliot’s favorite part of the trail was Chellberg Farm, where a gaggle of cows and chickens call home.
Cowels Bog Trail: I’ll be honest - this trail is not for the faint of heart, but the views from the top of the dune were so worth it. The first and last miles of this trail are very moderate, leading you through a relatively flat marsh. The midsection of this hike, however, requires you to climb up and down two very steep, loose sand dunes. I found this to be so much harder than hiking a solid incline! The dune / beach section of the trail is completely exposed, so if you are visiting in warmer months, be sure to check for hot sand and bring sun protection and plenty of water. We hiked this four-mile trail on a 55 degree (F) day in late April, and we were still quite toasty by the time we got to the beach. Elliot’s black fur was heating up in the sun!
Heron Rookery Trail - The Heron Rookery Trail is a popular trail located in the eastern section of the Indiana Dunes National Park. This trail is a one-way loop that is approximately 3.3 miles long and takes hikers through a beautiful forested area. This trail is very popular among bird-watchers, and in the Spring, beautiful wildflowers blanket the surrounding landscape.
Observations & General Information
To enter the National Park, a valid entrance pass or receipt is required, including an America the Beautiful Pass. However, we did not encounter an open tollbooth at any point throughout our trip. In this scenario, be sure to hang your pass from your car’s review mirror before heading out.
Indiana Dunes National Park is so incredibly dog-friendly, and this is the main reason we chose to come here for Elliot’s birthday! Dogs are allowed on almost all park trails and beaches, and many restaurants in town have patio seating or even allow dogs inside. I do recommend always calling ahead to make sure the patio is set up and allows dogs - I’ve learned that just because we think it is great weather to sit outside, not all restaurants / breweries agree!
Porter, IN and its surrounding area is train city. Trains run constantly, and they are legally required to blast their horn at every intersection. This made for a very disrupted night’s sleep, and may be difficult for your dog if they are sensitive to trains / noise / etc. The train runs right through the Porter downtown square, and I was constantly worried about Elliot slipping out of his harness to chase the train because he often tries to herd buses, UPS trucks, motorcycles, etc. when we are at home.
The park’s surrounding area is very industrialized. Of course, the entire reason that the National Park exists is to protect the seashore from further development, but I was not prepared for how much the area has been already been developed. For example when you drive into Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk, you drive into a Steel Plant entrance before making a left onto protected land. Beach hikes take you along manufacturing plants, and you can see smokestacks pumping into the air from a distance. And again, trains run constantly, and you can hear the distant horns from many trails. Neither of these things should deter you from visiting Indiana Dunes National Park, but it’s definitely something to keep in mind to manage your expectations. You will not feel removed from society in the park or hear the deafening silence of the wilderness. The park and its surrounding areas highlight the impact that humans can have on nature and how important it is to protect and preserve our landscapes!
With that said, let’s get into how to spend the best three days at Indiana Dunes!
Three-Day Itinerary
Our trip to Indiana Dunes National Park lasted four days / three nights. In hindsight, we agreed that three days / two nights would have been more than sufficient, which is what I’ve outlined below.
Day One
Travel to Indiana Dunes & check into your accommodation.
Head to Tiger Lily for dinner on their dog-friendly patio.
Drive to the West Beach parking lot and hike the Dune Succession Trail* - Loop One (0.8 miles) in a counter-clockwise direction. This way, you will end your hike on the beach for sunset!
Enjoy the sunset on the beach (look out for the Chicago skyline in the distance!) before heading back to your home for the evening.
If you have additional time before sunset, you can also add on the Dune Succession Trail - Loops Two and Three for a 3.5 mile hike through the wooded marsh, dunes, and beach.
Day Two
Wake up and grab a quick breakfast at Red Cup Cafe & Deli.
Start your day at the Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor’s Center. Get your National Parks passport stamp(s) and pick up any souvenirs from the gift shop. This is also a great opportunity to pick up trail maps and speak with a park ranger about their favorite places and trails within the park.
Head out to the Cowels Bog trailhead (4.2 miles). A good portion of this trail is through shaded woods, but the midsection is completely exposed on the beach. (As always, be sure to check the temperature of the sand before proceeding with your dog!) Pack plenty of water and wear shoes that you are comfortable hiking up and down sand dunes in. (I wore my Teva Hurricane XL2 sandals, and they were perfect.)
Drive to Running Vines winery for lunch and a post-hike drink. Right across the street, you will find Dog Days Ice Cream Parlor.
At this point in the day, Elliot was in desperate need of a nap, so we went back to our Airbnb for a few hours. BUT if you have more energy than we did, press on to the Heron Rookery trail (3.3 miles). This trail follows a section of the Little Calumet River that once was home to over 100 Great Blue Heron nests. If you are visiting in the Spring, this trail has the most extensive display of wildflowers in the entire park!
Watch sunset at Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk. I like to arrive about 30 minutes before sunset to take in the full experience.
Pick up dinner at Namaste Indian on the way back home for the night.
Day Three
Wake up and hit the trails! Today starts with a four mile hike at the Little Calumet River and Mnoke Prairie Trail.
Drive to the 1933 Chicago World's Fair Century of Progress Homes on the east side of the National Park. You can park your car along the side of the road for 15 minutes, the perfect amount of time to read about and enjoy the exterior of the homes.
After you’ve finished in the National Park, head to Goblin & The Grocer for a delicious lunch on their patio before heading home!
Ready to embark on your own Indiana Dunes adventure? Pin this three day itinerary to help plan your trip!
