Free to enter and free to park, with everything else sold by token or wristband, which makes it the cheapest possible fall trip in Champaign-Urbana or an expensive one depending entirely on how firm you are at the ticket window.
The orchard's own FAQ states there is no admission fee and that activities are charged individually, using tokens and wristbands. A local parenting guide published in 2025 listed u-pick apples at $9 per person including a 1/4 peck bag, with children under 36 inches free alongside a paying adult; 2026 activity prices are not published on the pages read.
Free to walk in. Your spend here is whatever you choose — pumpkins, food, and any paid activities. That makes it a low-risk stop if you are not sure how long the kids will last.
Curtis has been running for more than 46 years and is the default fall trip for Champaign-Urbana, which is both its strength and its problem. The strength is that it costs nothing to walk in. Entry is free, parking is free, and the orchard says so plainly in its own FAQ: no admission fee, activities charged individually through tokens and wristbands. The problem is that everyone in the county knows this, and a free front gate concentrates demand rather than spreading it.
It means a real option, not a technicality. You can park, walk the grounds, feed goats, look at the Wizard of Oz theming running through Munchkin Land and the Land of Oz play area, buy a pumpkin from the pre-picked stock and leave having spent the price of the pumpkin. For a family testing whether a toddler will tolerate a farm at all, that is a considerably lower-risk proposition than paying eighty dollars up front at a ticketed farm and discovering the answer is no.
It also means the cost is entirely under your control and entirely unpredictable. Slides, inflatables, the obstacle course, the jump pillow and pony rides all sit behind tokens or a wristband, and no 2026 price list appears anywhere. Apple and pumpkin picking are charged separately again. The only figure we could find is a 2025 local guide listing u-pick apples at $9 per person including a quarter-peck bag, with children under 36 inches free alongside a paying adult. Roughly $36 for a family of four to pick apples, if that rate held, which we cannot confirm.
The orchard publishes no 2026 season dates and no daily hours on the pages we read. That is a real omission for anyone driving in from Chicago, and it is worth a phone call rather than an assumption. The one timing detail that leaks out of the orchard own crowd advice is an 11am Sunday opening and a site still busy after 5pm, which tells you the operating day is longer than the short weekend-festival pattern common further north.
For pumpkins, central Illinois logic applies regardless of what any farm publishes: the first three weeks of October are the dependable window, September is apple weather, and the last days of the month are picked over.
No outside food or drink, because of the bakery and the Flying Monkey Cafe. That is a defensible policy for a farm that makes its money on doughnuts and cider, but it converts an optional food spend into a mandatory one. Budget for lunch here rather than assuming you can bring sandwiches.
And no ATM on site, with the nearest banks about a mile and a half north on Duncan Road. Bring cash. This is the single most avoidable way to lose half an hour of your afternoon.
Pets are not allowed except clearly marked service animals, which is worth knowing before you load the dog into the car for a farm day.
Take the orchard crowd advice seriously, because farms rarely publish anything this specific and it almost certainly reflects hard experience. Saturday before 11am or after 5pm. Sunday at the 11am opening or after 5pm. Midweek if you have the flexibility, which at a place this close to a large campus and city is a completely different experience from a Saturday lunchtime.
Fifteen minutes from the University of Illinois campus is a double-edged fact. It means easy access, and it means every family and student in the area treats this as the fall outing. The free gate is the reason to go and the reason to go early.
The orchard has not published 2026 season dates or daily hours, so the calendar below is the one honest gap in this listing. What it does publish is precise crowd advice: on Saturdays arrive before 11am or after 5pm, on Sundays arrive at the 11am opening or after 5pm, and midweek is quieter than either. Take that at face value, because it comes from the orchard rather than from us. For pumpkins specifically, the first three weeks of October are the reliable window in central Illinois.
Two to three hours. There is enough here to fill a half day, but because you pay per activity rather than for a wristband to exhaust, most families hit their spending limit before they run out of things to do.
The orchard is unusually direct about this and the advice is specific enough to build a day around. Saturdays before 11am or after 5pm; Sundays at the 11am opening or after 5pm; midweek quieter than both. As the default fall trip for a metropolitan area of well over 200,000 people, the middle of a Saturday afternoon in October is the worst version of this visit.
Free, according to the orchard. The surface is not described, so assume the usual central Illinois farm mix of gravel and grass and expect it to be soft after October rain.
Not published. Service animals are explicitly allowed where other pets are not, which is the only accessibility-adjacent detail in the record. Corn and zinnia mazes on field ground are the hardest parts of any orchard for wheels.
You want an all-in price you can budget for in advance. The pay-per-activity model with tokens and wristbands is transparent at the counter but impossible to plan from home, especially since no 2026 rates are published. Skip it too if you were planning to bring a picnic or the dog: outside food and drink are not allowed because of the on-site bakery and cafe, and no pets are permitted except clearly marked service animals.
Duncan Road is about fifteen minutes from the University of Illinois campus, so this pairs naturally with a day in Champaign-Urbana rather than with another farm. From Chicago it is roughly two and a half hours down I-57, which makes it a day trip rather than a detour, and worth combining with something else in town to justify the drive.
No. The orchard states in its own FAQ that there is no admission fee and that activities are charged individually, using tokens and wristbands. Parking is free as well.
That depends entirely on what you do. No 2026 activity price list is published. A local parenting guide from 2025 listed u-pick apples at $9 per person including a quarter-peck bag, with children under 36 inches free with a paying adult, but treat that as a 2025 figure rather than a current one.
The orchard advice is to come before 11am or after 5pm on Saturdays, at the 11am opening or after 5pm on Sundays, and midweek if you can, which is quieter than either weekend day.
No to both. Outside food and drink are not allowed because of the on-site bakery and the Flying Monkey Cafe, and no pets are permitted except clearly marked service animals.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission is free. The orchard's own FAQ states there is no admission fee and that activities are charged individually, using tokens and wristbands. A local parenting guide published in 2025 listed u-pick apples at $9 per person including a 1/4 peck bag, with children under 36 inches free alongside a paying adult; 2026 activity prices are not published on the pages read.
3902 S Duncan Rd, Champaign, IL 61822, in Champaign County. It is one of 5 patches we track in Central Illinois.
We track 5 patches in Central Illinois, 3 of which are free to walk into. Entry here costs nothing, which puts it in the minority even in a region with several free options.
What sets it apart locally: it has rides and play structures, which most Central Illinois patches on our list do not.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 4 of the 5 patches we track in Central Illinois had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
curtisorchard.com
Checked August 2026.