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Where to Stay in Arlington Heights, Illinois
Arlington Heights is a village of Cook County northwest of Chicago, incorporated in 1887 and known for the Arlington Park Race Track.
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Where to stay in Arlington Heights
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
The track sets the pattern. Rooms near the Arlington Park Race Track fill on race days and empty between them, which suits you if the meeting is the reason for the trip rather than the suburb itself. Downtown is the steadier choice.
The old village grid keeps First Congregational Church and the shops of the centre within one walk, and evenings there stay quiet in a way the highway edge never manages. Chicago is close enough to be a day out. Families take the other side.
The West Meadows Ice Arena, the Raupp Museum and Legoland Discovery Center Chicago sit within an easy drive of the outer streets, and beds there come with parking the old centre cannot offer. Kennicott Grove is nearby too. Anyone here for green ground can reach it and the Des Plaines Methodist Camp Ground in the same afternoon, both of them older survivals in this corner of Cook County.
Everything else means the car. Schaumburg lies next door, downtown Chicago about 25 miles off, and the choice of base comes down to whether the track, the shops or a children's day decides the trip.
About Arlington Heights
Racing carried the name beyond Illinois.
What is Arlington Heights known for?
The Arlington Park Race Track drew crowds out from across Chicagoland, and Arlington Heights has held that association far longer than any of its other landmarks. A Japanese community settled here. It ranks third in Illinois after neighbouring Schaumburg and Chicago itself, and the village sits among the larger suburbs on the northwest side of the metropolitan area.
What are the main landmarks in Arlington Heights?
Arlington Park Race Track heads the list. Legoland Discovery Center Chicago and the West Meadows Ice Arena take the family traffic, while the Raupp Museum holds the local record in a smaller room. Older ground survives around the edges.
Kennicott Grove and the Des Plaines Methodist Camp Ground go back further than most of the suburb, and the Charles H. Patten House and First Congregational Church stand from the village's own early decades.
What is the history of Arlington Heights?
The village came before the suburb. This was farm ground to begin with. Arlington Heights was incorporated in 1887 on farm ground northwest of Chicago, and for decades it stayed a small place in Cook County with its own centre and its own church.
First Congregational Church dates from that period. Kennicott Grove and the Des Plaines Methodist Camp Ground had already marked the country around, one a stand of old timber and the other a camp meeting site. The Charles H. Patten House survives from the same generation.
Racing changed the profile. The Arlington Park Race Track brought crowds out from Chicago and made the name known beyond Illinois, and the village turned into a destination rather than only a place to live. Growth followed the roads out of Chicago.
Arlington Heights filled out into one of the largest villages in the United States, and a Japanese community settled in numbers that rank it third in Illinois behind Schaumburg and Chicago. Names went out from here as well. Walter Payton, Ted Nugent and Ray Kroc are all counted among people who came from the village, and the Raupp Museum keeps the local record of how a farm settlement turned into this.
Where is Arlington Heights?
Flat ground carries the whole suburb. Arlington Heights lies in Cook County about 25 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, inside the northeastern part of Chicagoland, with Schaumburg next door. There are no hills here.
Streets run in long blocks across old prairie farmland, and Kennicott Grove is one of the few pieces of older ground left standing between them.
What is the climate of Arlington Heights?
Winter comes in hard across the open prairie of Cook County, and Arlington Heights sits far enough from shelter that the wind decides how cold a January morning will feel. Summers stay warm. Snow closes in through the darker months, and spring arrives late enough that the trees at Kennicott Grove hold back until the frosts have finished.
How do you get to Arlington Heights?
Chicago is the reference point. Downtown Chicago lies about 25 miles off, and the suburban roads of Cook County carry most of the traffic between the two. Schaumburg is the near neighbour.
Getting around Arlington Heights itself means driving, since the Arlington Park Race Track, the West Meadows Ice Arena and Kennicott Grove sit apart from one another rather than along one street.
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Updated August 2026