A genuinely enormous corn maze — 28 acres, nine to ten miles of trail, four separate mazes and three observation bridges — where the schedule will catch you out long before the price does: closed Monday to Wednesday, and last admission is two hours before closing.
Sept 12-27: ages 3-12 $22, ages 13+ $26, ages 2 and under free. Oct 1 - Nov 1: Mon-Wed ages 3-12 $22 / 13+ $26; Thu-Sun ages 3-12 $26 / 13+ $32. Groups of 30-100 pay $20 (ages 3-12) and $23.50-$29 (13+). Extra-cost add-ons: zipline $17 per rider, gem mining $7-$13, paintball gallery $10 for 100 shots, private wagon ride $8 per person with a $160 minimum, campfire rentals $130-$290+ per four-hour block. Parking is free.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $88.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
Most farms describing a big corn maze mean four or five acres and a pleasant twenty minutes. This is not that. Twenty-eight acres of live corn, nine to ten miles of cut trail, four separate mazes each with its own entrance and exit, three 16-foot observation bridges to work out where you have gone wrong, and five maze games that run anywhere from ten minutes to two hours. The 2026 design is a USA 250 theme, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Two structural details make it work better than its size suggests. You can re-enter as often as you like, so a family can split up, regroup, and go back in. And there is a perimeter path for a quick exit, which is the humane feature — it means a child who has had enough at mile three is twenty minutes from the car rather than an hour.
The farm is closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all season, and closed Thursdays through September. That leaves three operating days a week in September and four in October. It is the tightest schedule of any farm in this batch, and it is why weekends here are busy in a way a daily-opening farm never is.
More importantly, last admission is two hours before closing. A Friday in October runs to 11pm, but arriving at 9.30pm gets you nothing. Read the closing time, subtract two hours, and treat that as the real deadline. The observation bridges and the four-maze structure exist because people take longer in here than they expect, and the farm has priced its cut-off accordingly.
There is one apparent oddity in the published grid worth flagging. The October price table lists a Monday-to-Wednesday tier at $22 and $26 even though the farm is closed those days. The only Monday we can see it opening is Columbus Day, October 12, 10am to 9pm — which suggests that holiday may fall into the cheaper tier rather than the Thursday-to-Sunday one. That is our inference from the published grid, not a farm statement, so confirm it at the point of purchase. If it holds, Columbus Day is the best-value October date on the calendar.
September 12-27 is $22 for ages 3-12 and $26 for 13 and up. October Thursdays to Sundays are $26 and $32. Two adults and two children under 13 come to $96 in late September and $116 in October — the same maze, $20 apart, with a couple of weeks of corn growth between them.
Then the add-ons, which is where a well-planned day gets expensive. The zipline is $17 per rider. Gem mining is $7 to $13. The paintball gallery is $10 for 100 shots. None of that is included in a $32 adult ticket, and all of it is placed where children will see it. Two children on the zipline is $34 on top of a $116 gate — a 30 percent increase for a couple of minutes each.
Private wagon rides at $8 a head carry a $160 minimum, and campfire rentals run $130 to $290-plus for a four-hour block. Those are booked group products rather than impulse buys, but they are the right answer if you are organising something for twenty people.
Closes of 11pm on September and October Fridays and Saturdays, plus two Maze ’til Midnight dates on September 26 and October 24, mean this is one of the few farms in the region genuinely built around being in the corn after dark. It is also, by the end of October, seriously cold. Standing still in a maze at 10pm in far northern McHenry County, with no shelter and a light wind across open field, is a different experience from the afternoon you set out in. Layers rather than a single coat, hats, and a torch each so nobody is following someone else’s light.
Parking is free and leashed dogs are welcome, both of which are more unusual at an operation of this scale than they should be.
September 12 through November 1, 2026, Friday to Sunday in September and Thursday to Sunday in October. Hours vary by day: September is Friday 3pm-11pm, Saturday 10am-11pm, Sunday noon-9pm; October is Thursday 3pm-9pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-11pm, Sunday noon-9pm, with Columbus Day on October 12 running 10am-9pm. Late September is the value window at $22 for ages 3-12 and $26 for 13 and over. A Saturday 10am start is the only way to get a full day plus a night maze on one ticket.
Three to five hours, and more if you take the maze seriously. The farm advertises maze games ranging from 10 minutes to two hours, and you can re-enter as often as you like.
A three or four day operating week across seven weeks concentrates demand hard into weekends. October Fridays and Saturdays running 10am to 11pm are the busiest, and the two midnight nights are events in their own right.
Free, per the farm's own pages. Surface is not published; McHenry County farm ground softens quickly after autumn rain.
Not published. Nine to ten miles of cut corn trail plus three 16-foot observation bridges is demanding terrain by nature. Call 815-675-9729 before travelling if mobility is a factor.
Monday to Wednesday is your only free day. The farm is closed those three days all season, plus Thursdays through September. Skip a late arrival too: last admission is two hours before closing, so turning up at 9.30pm on an 11pm night is a wasted drive.
Spring Grove sits in far northern McHenry County, close to the Wisconsin line, so this is a drive from most of the Chicago area. The compensation is that peak maze season and peak leaf season coincide up here, and the road out is worth doing in daylight even if the maze is the evening plan.
28 acres of live corn with nine to ten miles of trail cut into four separate mazes, each with its own entry and exit, plus three 16-foot observation bridges. The farm runs five different maze games ranging from about 10 minutes to two hours, you can re-enter as often as you like, and there is a perimeter path for a quick exit.
September 12-27: ages 3-12 $22, ages 13 and up $26, 2 and under free. October 1 to November 1: Thursday to Sunday, ages 3-12 $26 and 13 and up $32; the published grid also lists a cheaper Monday-to-Wednesday tier at $22 and $26. Add-ons including the zipline, gem mining and paintball gallery are extra.
Monday through Wednesday all season, and Thursdays in September. The one exception we could see is Columbus Day, Monday October 12, which runs 10am to 9pm.
A USA 250 theme, marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
September 12 – November 1, 2026. Friday through Sunday in September; Thursday through Sunday in October. Closed Monday-Wednesday.. Hours: September: Fri 3pm-11pm, Sat 10am-11pm, Sun 12pm-9pm. October: Thu 3pm-9pm, Fri 10am-11pm, Sat 10am-11pm, Sun 12pm-9pm. Columbus Day Oct 12 10am-9pm. Open until midnight on Sept 26 and Oct 24..
Admission starts at $22 per person. Sept 12-27: ages 3-12 $22, ages 13+ $26, ages 2 and under free. Oct 1 - Nov 1: Mon-Wed ages 3-12 $22 / 13+ $26; Thu-Sun ages 3-12 $26 / 13+ $32. Groups of 30-100 pay $20 (ages 3-12) and $23.50-$29 (13+). Extra-cost add-ons: zipline $17 per rider, gem mining $7-$13, paintball gallery $10 for 100 shots, private wagon ride $8 per person with a $160 minimum, campfire rentals $130-$290+ per four-hour block. Parking is free.
909 English Prairie Rd, Spring Grove, IL 60081, in McHenry County. It is one of 5 patches we track in Northern Illinois.
We track 5 patches in Northern Illinois, 2 of which are free to walk into. At $22 a head this one sits above the regional median of $17.
Its season runs about 51 days against a regional average of 63, so it is a shorter window than most of its neighbours — miss it and the nearest alternatives will still be open.
What sets it apart locally: it has rides and play structures, which most Northern Illinois patches on our list do not.
There are 2 other patches we track in McHenry County. All Northern Illinois patches →
richardsonadventurefarm.com
Checked August 2026.