Indiana Dunes National Park

Indiana Dunes National Park protects 15 miles of Indiana's Lake Michigan shore, with more than 50 miles of trails. It had 2,629,497 recreation visits in 2025. Authorised by Congress as Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in 1966, it became a national park on 15 February 2019. The Park Service calls it the closest national park to Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit and Milwaukee.

The park's beaches and trailheads are spread over 15 cities and towns between Gary and Michigan City. Indiana Dunes State Park, a separate park, shares the shore. We read the figures below on 28 October 2026 on the park's own pages, alerts and 2024-25 guide, Recreation.gov, the City of Chicago's site and NOAA's normals. The South Shore Line's and the State of Indiana's websites could not be read.

Where do you pay at Indiana Dunes when no car park has a gate?

Indiana Dunes charges $25 per car for one to seven days, $20 per motorcycle, and $15 for each person aged 16 or over who arrives on foot, by bike or by boat. Children under 16 need no pass. The fee applies across the park, not only at West Beach. The West Beach, Mount Baldy and Central Avenue car park pages each say a pass is needed to park.

The park has no entrance stations, and says it does not plan to build them at each car park. Visitors pay at the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center, which takes cash or cards, or by card only at the Paul H. Douglas Center and at West Beach's seasonal kiosk. Recreation.gov sells the pass online, and the park's enforcers check electronic payments remotely.

Indiana Dunes is not on the 2026 list of eleven parks with a $100 surcharge for non-residents, so visitors from abroad pay what Americans pay. Two adults from abroad pay $25 in one car but $30 arriving by train and on foot. The park's 2022 FAQ and its 2024-25 guide capped the per-person fee at $25 a family; the 2026 fee table prints no cap. Our guide to national park fees for international visitors explains how passes work.

Driving through on the park's roads is free, but stopping to walk a trail, use a beach or eat at a picnic shelter is not. Since 14 October 2026 there is one exception: the Park Service waived the fee for the Douglas Center loop and the Paul H.

Douglas Trail at Miller Woods in Gary. The park names no off-season exemption, although its West Beach page speaks of the fee being collected in the summer months. We could not confirm whether the car parks are checked in winter.

The park sells its $45 annual pass only to US citizens and residents, and the fee-free days are theirs alone; the last one in 2026 is Veterans Day, 11 November. The $250 non-resident America the Beautiful pass does not pay for itself here, where one visit costs $25.

Which Indiana Dunes beach car parks fill by mid-morning?

Indiana Dunes' beach car parks are small except West Beach's, which holds 642 of the 1,131 spaces counted on the park's eight lot pages. The Park Service says Lake View, Dunbar, Kemil, Porter and Portage Lakefront fill as early as mid-morning on summer weekends. West Beach rarely fills except on holiday weekends.

The spaces come from the park's own lot pages; its 2024-25 guide says "over 1,139" at eight sites. Every beach has toilets and drinking water at the car park. Most of the park opens from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Central Time, West Beach and Porter Beach from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Kemil Beach 24 hours a day.

When are lifeguards on duty at West Beach?

West Beach's lifeguards are on duty from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. between the Friday of Memorial Day weekend and the Monday of Labor Day weekend. The bathhouse lockers and showers open for the same season. No other national park beach at Indiana Dunes has lifeguards.

The national park does not close its beaches, whatever the water conditions. The Park Service calls rip currents the most significant drowning threat in Lake Michigan, and warns that the bottom is uneven, with holes and deep drop-offs. In winter shelf ice forms along the shore, and the park says to stay off it.

On 28 October 2026 the park's alert feed carried an undated water safety warning. E. coli levels, it said, are likely to rise above safe swimming standards after storms, and entering the water after heavy rain is never recommended.

What is still closed at Mount Baldy after the 2026 sand move?

Mount Baldy's summit and dune face remain closed because of unstable sand, the Park Service said on 15 June 2026. That day it reopened the access site, including the car park and the route to the beach, after the Army Corps of Engineers moved about 27,000 tons of sand. The moving dune had affected the old car park and utilities.

The park's Mount Baldy page, updated the same day, still calls the summit restricted and lists ranger-led daytime and sunset hikes on summer weekends. The park's online calendar showed no event list when we read it. Treat the summit as closed unless a ranger tells you a hike is on.

The beach below stays open. The Mount Baldy Beach Trail, 0.75 mile out and back with 75 feet of climb, leaves the 92-space car park at 101 Rice Street, Michigan City. The way down is a scramble over loose sand, and the park warns that it is also the only way out.

Mount Baldy stands 126 feet above the lake. The park's two pages, both of 15 June 2026, disagree on its speed. One says it moves inland about 4 feet a year, the other 5 to 10 feet. The Park Service blames the Michigan City harbour breakwall for starving the beach of sand, which the Army Corps has fed since 1974.

How hard is the Dune Succession Trail's climb at West Beach?

The Dune Succession Trail at West Beach is a 0.9-mile loop that climbs more than 270 stairs. One park page rates it easy to moderate. Other park pages call it moderate, and the 2024-25 guide calls it rugged. The park picks the view from the top of the stairs as the trail's highlight.

The Succession trail is the first of three loops from the West Beach car park at 376 North County Line Road, Gary. The 2024-25 guide offers a sticker for hiking West Beach's Diana Dunes Dare trail. The distances below are the park's own.

The West Beach trails are packed dirt with stretches of loose sand, closed to bicycles and not wheelchair accessible. Ticks are present all year, and poison ivy grows along the edges.

Several other trails were closed on 28 October 2026, according to the park's alerts. Glenwood Dunes Trail and the Little Calumet River and Mnoké Prairie trails are shut until 5 December for Marquette Greenway construction. The park says the dates may shift.

Hobart Woodland Trail is closed indefinitely, and the stepped parts of the Bailly and Chellberg trails were closed through 30 October. Heron Rookery Trail is expected back "in the fall". Upland Trail lost its middle boardwalk to a falling tree, and flooding blocks Dunewood Trace.

What changes when you walk into Indiana Dunes State Park?

Indiana Dunes State Park is a separate park run by Indiana's Department of Natural Resources, with its own rules and fees. The Park Service says none of the passes and fees work between the two. Its entrance is a mile's walk from the Dune Park station, 33 minutes in the park guide.

We could not read the state park's fee on the state's own site. Two Park Service pages quote it and disagree. A September 2026 festival page gives $7 a car for Indiana residents and $20 for out-of-state cars, while the 2024-25 guide gives $7 and $12.

The 3 Dune Challenge belongs to the state park: the Park Service's guide describes it as a climb to the summits of the state park's three tallest dunes. The guide also notes that state park waters are open only when lifeguards are on duty, and that alcohol is banned there. Its phone number, as the guide prints it, is 219-926-1390.

Which South Shore Line station suits which part of the Dunes?

The South Shore Line runs between Chicago and South Bend and stops at four stations in the national park: Miller, Ogden Dunes, Dune Park and Beverly Shores. The park's 2024-25 guide marks Beverly Shores as a flag stop, where the train stops only on request. In Chicago, the City says the line uses Millennium Park Station, under Millennium Park at Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street.

The distances come from the park's transport page, last updated in April 2020, its 2024-25 guide and Recreation.gov, which do not always agree. Gary Public Transportation's route 13 bus passes the Douglas Center and runs close to the entrance of West Beach, a quarter-mile walk from the beach.

The railroad's website refused our requests on 28 October, so this page gives no fares, journey times or timetable. The park's 2020 page said bikes go only on select weekend trains, and only at Dune Park among the park's stations. Check with the railroad before relying on it. The park's fee table does not mention trains; it charges $15 a person to visitors who enter on foot, which is how a train passenger arrives.

Can you still camp at Dunewood before it closes on 1 November?

Dunewood Campground, the national park's campground at Beverly Shores, is open from 1 April to 1 November, so its 2026 season ended on Sunday 1 November. A site costs $25 a night, separate from the entrance fee, and every camper still needs an entrance pass. Recreation.gov lists 66 sites, 54 drive-in and 12 walk-in, with showers and no electric or water hookups.

Recreation.gov's stay rules for Dunewood say "Not Reservable", while the park's guide says to book on Recreation.gov. Stays are limited to 14 nights in any 30 days and eight people a site, and campers must bring their own firewood. Campers going to the beach should park at the Lake View lot; Recreation.gov warns that cars left in the Town of Beverly Shores lot get ticketed.

How much cooler are the Dunes than O'Hare in July?

The Indiana Dunes station, a NOAA weather station inside the park, averages a July high of 81.6°F, 2.9 degrees below Chicago O'Hare's. The Dunes average 10.5 days a year at 90°F or more, against 16.7 at O'Hare.

The table gives NOAA's 1991 to 2020 average highs and lows. The Dunes get 39.16 inches of precipitation a year and about 40.3 inches of snow, a figure NOAA marks as provisional. South Bend averages 64.5 inches.

June was the busiest month in 2025, with 425,848 visits, and June to August brought 47% of the year. October had 202,163. December, at 131,931, drew more visitors than January or February.

The Indiana Dunes Visitor Center, at 1215 N. State Road 49 in Porter, opens daily except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The park's FAQ gives 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in summer and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. the rest of the year.

How far are the Dunes from O'Hare and Midway?

The Indiana Dunes Visitor Center is about 48 road miles from Chicago Midway and about 73 from O'Hare, by our own routing. Of the three places below, West Beach is the nearest to Chicago and Mount Baldy the farthest.

The distances are our own routing, without traffic; we give no driving times because the router's durations did not hold up. Inside the park, West Beach and Mount Baldy are about 19 miles apart, and Dunewood is about 5 miles from the Visitor Center. The Visitor Center is one mile north of the I-94 interchange at exit 26B and four miles north of exit 31 on I-80/90.

Indiana Dunes keeps Central Time, the same clock as Chicago, because federal rule draws the Eastern–Central line along the east edge of LaPorte County. Clocks go back an hour at 2 a.m. on 1 November 2026, in Chicago and the Dunes together. It is the national park in our guide to Indiana.

The park names Chicago's Midway and O'Hare, in Illinois, among its nearest airports, with Gary and South Bend. Our guide to Cuyahoga Valley National Park covers a national park in Ohio.