Looking for places to jeep and camp

I live in the Quad Cities (Iowa/Illinois border) and I'm looking for some trails to take my jeep on and then camp at for a long weekend. Any suggestions? I know the Cliffs are about 2 hours from here and the Badlands are about 4 hours away. Any other places you guys would suggest to go. I'm a pretty novice off roader but a good camper. I have a bunch of Vacation day's and I'm looking to use a couple of them on this.

I can't help you there but that sounds interesting

What I normally do is get with the local county government or forest service where you might plan on going. They usually have land use maps and the online version is free. Most of the times the maps have very clear distinctions from normal roads and forest roads.

Here's an example of the Colorado forest roads, you can see the forest roads are dashed black/white. On this map, any dots next to the road mean you can camp. Good luck. Hopefully there will also be some users on here that live near the areas you are thinking about and can give you tips.

http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5165768.pdf

That's good info. Thanks