Maple Street Park/Beach — Attraction in New Trier Township

If you’re not from the neighborhood, beware! We are from Kentucky and after sightseeing nearby (this is the town where the Home Alone house is located), we decided to find a beach and this was the closest one to us. It’s very obvious that mostly affluent locals inhabit this beach. We were stared at like we were aliens by most people on the beach. The beach is incredibly tiny; we couldn’t get a place alone if we wanted to. We tried to walk further down the beach to find some seclusion, but encountered a sign that read “Private property beyond this point” so apparently most of the beach around here is privately owned.

That said, we realized as we were about to explore more of the beach that a fee is required for access and we definitely didn’t feel like this little beach was worth paying for…not when Lake Michigan is enormous and there are FAR better, beautiful, and big beaches up and down the coastline.

As we headed back to our car we noticed two old gray/white haired heavyset white guys examining license tags on everyone’s cars parked in the lot. They looked annoyed and I got the impression they are most likely the local “Karen’s” that try to police who comes into their neighborhood beach park. We ignored them and went on to our SUV as the stared us down and kept looking at our tags. We are an unassuming white couple with an 11 year old little girl in tow and driving a very nice new SUV, so I’m not sure why they looked so freaked out. I didn’t realize until later that this area is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America and it hit me that all of the people around there are most likely elitist snobs. I’d go back solely to ruffle feathers if I were in the area lol 🤷🏻‍♀️ Otherwise, I highly do not...

Parking signs state residents of the local area only, locals not welcoming.

$20pp to walk on a rubble patch on a rainy day was worth a miss. This would be seen as ludicrous here in Australia. Perhaps park at and walk around the park, to annoy the elite locals.

Save the money to come and see Australia's beautiful...

Small beach and $20/person fee for nonresidents to swim ($10 for residents). I said “I’m a resident of the United States” but that doesn’t appear to be the residency they are seeking. 😜 This entire north shore seems to be privately owned with gigantic houses and a few overly expensive “public” beaches in...