“I live in Illinois...where are some places in the surrounding states of IL that you would recommend for two beginners?”

A good training trail (The Prairie Lake Loop) for an 18 mile overnighter is at Jim Edgar’s Panther Creek http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/R4/jepc.htm#Biking . Yes it is a bike trail but I would never bike it. It rips bikes apart. There is a nice primitive camping spot on the west side of the lake. We would park on the east side of the lake and backpack about 9 miles to it, counterclockwise. In the morning, we would finish the loop back to the car. Plenty of lake water to filter . Half the hike would be in the woods, the other half in prairie.

-Barry