Which is the least crowded beach in chicago?

[noid_1985]

Jarvis Avenue Park or Juneway

[WestSideMillennial]

What about 63rd st beach?

[i_am_hydrogen]

Most beaches are not that crowded on weekdays (Monday - Thursday). Even North Avenue Beach, which is easily the most crowded in the city, has sections that are very low key during the week.

[Manterro]

Originally Posted by noid_1985

Jarvis Avenue Park or Juneway

Years back, I had a friend who lived right by Jarvis Beach. I went swimming there a few times. The beach was small, clean and very nice. I never seen a life guard so you had to be careful. Biggest problem was finding a parking spot.

[OyCrumbler]

Maybe it makes sense to uber to and from the beach and not worry about parking?

[Manterro]

Originally Posted by OyCrumbler

Maybe it makes sense to uber to and from the beach and not worry about parking?

That's a very good idea. You can relax then and not have to worry about running back and forth to feed the parking meter.

[edsg25]

a number of people mentioned the particular on this one; I'll do the general:

any beach in Rogers Park

[SonySegaTendo617]

Another place that I always liked, was Washington Park in Michigan City, IN. Cool lighthouse as well, and if you time it on the right days, you can see a sunset that illuminates the Chicago skyline below the sun, as I saw on Saturday night. There are places nearby you can eat that are decent, such as Fiddlehead Restaurant(they also have a lot of gluten-free menu items), Shoreline Brewery(brews their own beer too), and McGinnis Pub(Irish food). For burgers(IF you can handle that smoking is permitted inside, I've personally never found it too bad there), Ritz Klub. There also is a steakhouse, called Galveston Steakhouse. And of course if you're into gambling(smoking permitted here, but I never found the smoke to be bad and its restaurants are non-smoking), Blue Chip Casino is a close walk not too far away. This is accessible from the Michigan City-11th Street stop, and you walk north(past the library) till you get to the lakefront, crossing over a drawbridge along the way. Blue Chip has a shuttle from that South Shore station to the casino, but generally I had no problems walking over there myself.

Another idea would be Kenosha or to Illinois Beach State Park, if you can handle how limited the Union Pacific-North Metra schedule is for train service north of Waukegan. Simmons Island beach is a nice beach that's never too crowded, and downtown Kenosha has a lot of nice restaurants and bars(i.e. Mike's Donuts and Chicken, Captain Mike's, Boat House, Coffee Pot(keep in mind they close early in the afternoon), to name examples). You'd have to make like an all day trip to see things there, since depending on the day you took a trip there, there's a train that leaves at 5:51pm on weekdays going south to Chicago, and 6:49pm on weekends. On weekdays there's one last train after that(11:35pm), Saturdays at 10:20pm, and NO TRAINS after 6:49pm on Sunday. So keep that in mind, so that you didn't have to overnight in Kenosha if you didn't want to. You of course can use Uber up in Kenosha, if you have that app on your smartphone. I forget if Lyft is available yet in Kenosha and southeast Wisconsin, or not. I did forget to talk about Illinois Beach State Park, and that does have some decent hiking trails. I always did slightly prefer Simmons in Kenosha, for whatever reason.

Back to Chicago, my favorite beaches are Loyola(go to the northern end for lesser crowds), Hollywood, Ohio, and for the south side I like 57th and 63rd St. beaches. Montrose isn't bad either, and the dog park on the north end is always cool to walk over and sneak inside of, since you usually can play with a friendly dog or several. Roosevelt/12th St. beach isn't bad either, and there's a nature preserve just south of that beach.

[TBideon]

Morse beach is pretty chill.

[NARFALICIOUS]

Please stop listing it here, lest you want the least crowded to eventually become crowded.