Elk Grove Village Travel Guide

The paved path at Busse Woods is in extremely good condition and the 7.7 mile loop is perfect for bike riding, roller blading or walking. Bikers, walkers and rollers all share the same path, in late October it wasn't overly crowded, in the summer I imagine it's more crowded and more care needs to be taken to avoid collisions.

We started at the Elk preserve where the 7.7 mile loop starts on Arlington Heights Road in Elk Grove Village and while we hadn't initially planned on walking the entire loop, it was a nice day and we knew we wouldn't have many more so we decided to walk the whole thing.

The trail goes through Busse Lake and the Busse Forest Nature Preserve, there are several shorter trails that radiate off the main trail but the trails are well marked and there are large signs periodically that show your progress or lack of progress if you are dawdling.

There are picnic facilities, restrooms although the stalls don't have doors which is a little too weird for me and we found at least one pump where we could get water but I wished I had thought to bring my own.

As we were walking through a wooded area, we noticed a father motioning to his daughter to come to where he was, we looked over and saw two deer standing in the woods. The deer here must be used to the steady flow of humans, they didn't look particularly bothered by us and were even coming closer as we walked through, I really thought they were going to walk right up to us! When they started heading towards the road though, we made some noise and they retreated back into the woods.