20 Day Trips in and around the Shawnee National Forest (Shawnee Books)

Finding detailed information online about national forests is not as easy as it is for national parks. The Forest Service websites just don't have as much information and aren't as user friendly as the National Park Service websites. That's where this book comes in. It provides in depth descriptions of trails, landmarks, and other prominent features in and around Shawnee National Forest, including distance and duration of hikes, trail difficulty, and available facilities. It is divided up into 20 trips that are designed to give you a full day's worth of activity, so most of the trips contain more than one hike or place to visit. Many include stops in some of the unique small towns in the area, so if hiking trails all day isn't your cup of tea, the book still has plenty of suggestions for fun things to do. The trips are labeled as 1-20 in the text, and each one is also marked on the book's map by its number so you can easily see where each is located within the forest. The book also contains QR codes for each trip that can be scanned with a smartphone, which will then show you the day trip's starting point on Google Maps. Full color photos throughout the text provide a small sample of the scenery you can expect. There is some information on camping in the area, but not much. Given that providing information on day trips was the intention of the authors, camping is really beyond the scope of the book anyway. Another nice little feature of the book is the authors have provided contact information for nearly every place and organization they mention, and they even include emergency contact information at the back of the book such as police phone numbers and hospital locations. The bottom line is that this is a well thought out, well organized guide book and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is planning to visit Shawnee National Forest.

Pretty good book has map and lot of photos when you travel for first time it’s awesome 👏 👍👍👍

If you live in or visit southern Illinois and want to take in some of our wonderful natural areas this is a great book to have. One of the best features is detailed directions to all the locations, including GPS coordinates. Two of the hardest areas to find documentation for (for me, at least) are Sand Cave and Jackson Hole, and this book will take you right to them. The descriptions are very thorough and well written and the included pictures are good, too. We met the authors recently at a book signing and bought a second copy as a gift, as well as getting them to autograph that one and our original (Amazon purchased) copy. Even for those areas that you are familiar with, it's a nice refresher to make sure you know all about those places. Highly, highly recommended.

This book was so helpful for navigating Shawnee National Forest. I love the format of grouping several places of interest into day trips. I enjoyed the writing style and casual feel of the book as if the authors were having a conversation with you. I highly recommend buying this book before visiting Shawnee. It was much more helpful and informative than any of the maps or brochures I encountered.

The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is not a hiking guide—it is a guide to places you can visit by car and maybe walk around a little. There are no maps, so it's hard to know where everything is and impossible to get a feel for the suggested trails before you get there. The estimated hiking times seem way off—most people would not take 2-3 hours to walk 2 miles. As a general guide to the area, the book works quite well, though, and it does seems to hit most of the highlights.

Liked scanning barcode and sent directions to Google maps. So easy to use, had divided into east and west areas to see. That alone was well worth cost. Very satisfied with purchase.

Very informative especially for the EXTREME Southern end of Illinois. We're the forgotten part of the State with Forests and Hilly Terrain not found in the rest of the State. I wish there were more information on the small local trails in the Shawnee National Forest but it's still the best Guide to this Area I've seen

This is a great book. It includes all the high spots I grew up with in the '50s and '60s plus places that have been added since then. If this is your first trip to Southern Illinois this book will be your best friend. The area is friendly and easy to navigate. I'm going back this winter for hiking and birding. (Many birds winter over in Southern Illinois!). Enjoy!