Where to Stay in Champaign, Illinois

What is Champaign known for?

Champaign shares the main campus of the University of Illinois with Urbana, and the Krannert Art Museum, the Spurlock Museum and the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music all belong to that community. Illinois Field handles the sport. The Orpheum Children's Science Museum works for younger visitors, while the Channing-Murray Foundation and First Presbyterian Church stand among the older buildings.

What are the main landmarks in Champaign?

Museums lead here. The Krannert Art Museum and the Spurlock Museum carry the largest collections, the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music keeps the musical record, and the Orpheum Children's Science Museum takes the youngest visitors. Sport and worship fill the rest.

Illinois Field holds the games, while First Presbyterian Church and the Channing-Murray Foundation stand among the older addresses, and Farm House and Wee Haven complete the listed set.

What is the history of Champaign?

Champaign dates from 1855. The city grew inside Champaign County as a settlement separate from Urbana, and the two have remained distinct municipalities ever since, even though their streets long ago ran together. Then came the university.

The main campus of the University of Illinois settled into the community that Champaign, Urbana and Savoy now share, and the institutions that followed gave a county town the museums of a much larger place. Savoy sits in the same community, the third of the towns the metropolitan area is composed of. The collections came with it.

The Krannert Art Museum, the Spurlock Museum and the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music grew alongside the campus, and the Orpheum Children's Science Museum came to serve a different audience entirely. Older Champaign survives in pieces. First Presbyterian Church, the Channing-Murray Foundation, Farm House and Wee Haven carry the register of the town that existed before the campus reached its present size.

Illinois Field belongs to that long century as well. Champaign has stayed outside the Chicago metropolitan area throughout, which left the university, rather than a commuter railway, as the thing that decided how large the city would grow.

Where is Champaign?

Champaign and Urbana touch. The city covers close to sixty square kilometres of Champaign County, and the built area runs on into Urbana and out towards Savoy, so the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area reads as one place on the ground. Champaign County spreads around it.

Nothing here belongs to the Chicago metropolitan area, which lies well off, and the university campus supplies the closest thing the city has to a fixed centre.

What is the climate of Champaign?

Winters bite here. Champaign sits far inland in Illinois with no coast or range to break the weather, so cold settles hard over the short days and the summer months turn heavy and humid. Autumn suits the campus best.

Games at Illinois Field and walks between the Krannert Art Museum and the Spurlock Museum fall in the pleasantest stretch of the year, before winter closes over the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area.

How do you get to Champaign?

Urbana is the other half. Arrivals into the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area serve Champaign, Urbana and Savoy together, so a journey ending in one of the three puts the University of Illinois campus within a short run. Chicago lies well beyond.

The city stands outside the Chicago metropolitan area, which makes most approaches a run across Illinois, and once here the Orpheum Children's Science Museum, Illinois Field and the Krannert Art Museum sit close enough to combine in a day.