I’ve spent the last two decades exploring Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and have become utterly fascinated by itsÌęduality. On the one hand, GSMNP is the epitome of a “drive through” park, with a scenic road and bevy of easy nature trails. On the other, it’s a rugged expanse of wilderness packed with steep cliffs, remote hollers, and wild trout streams. Some of the park’s gateway towns are packed with waterslides and chain restaurants, while others have quaint main streets. Over the years, I’ve sat in traffic jams inside the park, but also crawled through dense backcountry forests. I’ve fished streams and hugged massive old growth trees and spotted elk at dusk and climbed some of the tallest peaks in the eastern U.S. all within the borders of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

What I’ve discovered is that you need time to fully appreciate this landscape. You need to spend days on end here, fishing and hiking and picnicking your way through these impressive mountains. That means you’ll need a place to lay your head and recover from the day’s adventure. While camping inside GSMNP is great, sometimes you need a few more amenities, like a hot tub or game room, to truly round out your vacation.

For this sort of trip, I usually turn to Airbnb, which has hundreds of cabin options you can rent for a night or more, within a stone’s throw of the park. Here are eight properties I’d recommend that hit the sweet spot of perks, location, and high reviews from other travelers. Any one of these would make the perfect basecamp for exploring Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Know Before You Go: Last September, Western North Carolina was devastated by Hurricane Helene. I wrote about my experience in the storm at the time, but I want readers to know that the region is healing, and many communities are open to tourism again. Great Smoky Mountains National Park did not receive the brunt of the storm, and most gateway towns saw minimal damage compared to other communities. But keep the storm and its lasting impacts in mind when you’re traveling to the region. Some roads might still be closed, and some areas will still look scarred.

Creekside Chalet

Why We Love It: The A-frame, ski-chalet vibes

Price: From $190 per night

Built into the side of a mountain in the sixties, this kitschy A-frame chalet has been completely remodeled into a modern gem that sits just outside the hustle and bustle of downtown Gatlinburg. The two-bedroom cabin has a large living room that makes the most of the A-frame design with towering vaulted ceilings and floor to ceiling windows, but I also love the front porch, which has its own hot tub. The cabin feels secluded, thanks to the surrounding forest of hardwoods, but it’s actually on the edge of Ober Gatlinburg, a family-friendly ski resort that’s the perfect place to take your first turns. You’re also just tenÌęminutes from the Gatlinburg entrance to the park, with quick access to the trails off of Newfound Gap Road, which cuts through the center of the park. Plus, it perfect for larger crews, as it sleeps up to six people with two bedrooms, a sleeper sofa, and has two baths.

Cabin in the Clouds

Why We Love It: The epic view from the hot tub

Price: From $250 per night

I like the quieter North Carolina side of the park and this new, two-bedroom mountain-top cabin near Bryson City makes the most of the area thanks to a wall of glass and expansive porch that takes in the surrounding mountains. The living room is the definition of “airy,” with vaulted ceilings and an exterior wall full of windows, which leads onto the expansive deck where a hot tub sits in the corner. Soaking in the tub while you enjoy mountain vistas by day, or starry skies by night, has to be the highlight here, although I also like the firepit complete with a built-in national park-style charcoal grill. From here, you’ll have quick access to Lake Fontana and the Deep Creek area of the park, which is packed with waterfalls and adventurous tubing. The home sleeps up to six people, with two bedrooms and two baths.

Riverfront Glass House

Why We Love It: The fire pit right next to a world-class trout stream

Price: From $299 a night, 2-night minimum

This large home sits on a peninsula at the confluence of a small creek and the Little River, with steps leading down to a grassy “beach” that’s perfect for lounging or casting for trout. There’s a shaded patio with a hot tub and a lounge area complete with an outdoor TV, not to mention an outdoor shower. Hardwoods throughout and big picture windows show off the surrounding forest and mountains from the inside of this updated home, but its location is the real draw. Not only will you have private access to the river, but the house, which sleeps up to six, is only two miles from the Foothills Parkway, a scenic two-lane road that wraps around the border of GSMNP, and the Airbnb is only 12 miles to the closest entrance to the park.

Clever Cubs Cabin

Why We Love It: The built-in game room and close proximity to family fun

Price: From $233 per night; 3-night minimum

You never know how your kids will respond to that five-mile hike you have planned, but I guarantee they’ll love the full-sized arcade games, pool table, and karaoke machine that occupy the bonus room in this three-story cabin. Older kids will appreciate the photogenic murals crafted inside and outside of this home, and as an extra perk, the cabin is located near Sevierville, which is packed with family adventures, from zip line courses to gem mines. The wraparound porch has a putting green, and there’s a lower deck with a fire pit and a tiki bar for the adults. As for the cabin’s proximity to the park, you’re about 30 minutes from Sugarlands Visitor Center, where you can pick up the scenic Newfound Gap Road, which cuts through the heart of the Smokies, or break off to Cades Cove, a former farming community with historic buildings scattered throughout the valley. This cabin sleeps up to eight people.

The Smoky Mountain Treehouse

Why We Love It: The 40-foot swinging bridge

Price: From $275 per night

This custom-built tree house has story-book weekend written all over it, from the 40-foot long swinging bridge you need to cross to enter the home, to the architectural details that make the cabin one-of-a-kind. The kitchen is compact, but a rolling ladder leads to a loft, live edge countertops grace the bathroom and kitchenette, and you get views of the surrounding mountain from your king bed. The outside living space is even better, with an outdoor shower, cedar hot tub, and a hammock built into the floor of the deck. The location is prime, as this treehouse sits just off the Foothills Parkway on the western border of the park, close to the Abrams Falls and Goldmine Trailhead. It can sleep up to four, but this perch is best for a romantic couple’s getaway.

Eagle’s Landing

Why We Love It: The view from the porch of the lake below

Price: From $225 per night

Is it crazy to rent a cabin just for the view? Depends on what you’re looking at. Eagles Landing is a two-bedroom cabin that sleeps up to six perched on a bluff overlooking a quiet corner of Lake Fontana, a finger-lake body of water that forms the southern border of GSMNP. The firepit and front porch have the best views of the vistas below, showing off green slopes that rise directly from the water. Head down the mountain to paddle Fontana in search of rope swings, jumping rocks, and waterfalls (all of which can be found nearby). If you’re looking for land-based activities, the Appalachian Trail crosses Fontana Dam and climbs to Shuckstack Tower, a decommissioned fire lookout with views of Lake Fontana.

Secluded Cabin

Why We Love It: The remote setting and quick access to the park.

Price: From $145 per night

Tucked into Pisgah National Forest, near the north-eastern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this small, one-bedroom cabin is surrounded by Pisgah National Forest, with nothing but dense hardwoods for neighbors. There are no frills in this remote outpost, which has two beds and sleeps up to four, but the interior is nicely finished and has a wood stove to keep you warm at night, while a covered porch and fire pit give you the outdoor space you need for soaking in the surrounding wilderness. The location is prime for exploring the eastern side of the park, where the Mount Sterling fire tower looms tall and swimming holes like Midnight Hole beckon during the summer. It’s dog-friendly too, and is accessible by unmaintained forest roads, so if you visit during a winter snow storm, you’ll need a four-wheel drive vehicle.

Vista Heights Lodge

Why We Love It: The private pool and outdoor living space

Price: From $441 per night

Big groups need room to spread out, and not only does this large cabin near the western border of the park have plenty of space (it sleeps up to 12 with 5Ìębedrooms and 5.5 baths), it has a gorgeous screened-in porch complete with a wood-burning fireplace, an indoor/outdoor heated pool, and a game room with a pool table. Enjoy expansive views of the Smokies from many of the bedrooms, or spend your time hopping between the hot tub and the pool. There’s even a Peloton bike if you feel the need to burn calories. The cabin sits on the edge of the park, near the Little River Gorge and Elkmont Campground, with a dozen trailheads under 30 minutes from the front door.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. He’s been exploring Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the surrounding area since he was a kid. In those days, his family camped, which is great, but he definitely appreciates a cabin with a hot tub and pool table. He has recently written about the best national parks for spring break, and the ones that you can enter for free this year.

The post Headed to Great Smoky Mountains National Park? Book One of These 8 Airbnbs. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Traveling itself is believed to help boost longevity, but what if your next getaway had even more long-term benefits?

Picture a reboot that’s good for you. We’re not talking about rigid health camps—we all deserve to enjoy our hard-earned vacations, after all—but rather, trips to beautiful places where mindfulness, wellness, community, and longevity are top priorities.

Wellness travel is booming. Between 2020 and 2022, wellness trips grew by 30 percent annually, according to research by the Global Wellness Institute, which also reported that in 2022, 819.4 billion wellness trips were taken in the U.S. and internationally, making up about 7.8 percent of all tourism.

Clearly, these types of vacations are resonating, with good reason. These are my 10 favorite wellness trips in North America.

1. Soak in Natural Hot Springs

Ojo Caliente in New Mexico

Soaking in natural hot springs makes for easy relaxation and rejuvenation. Mineral baths have been shown to reduce stress, lessen joint pain, improve circulation, and naturally detoxify. At , a spa resort in northern New Mexico, you can soak in any of nine communal pools (with minerals like lithia and iron), which include a mud bath and a silent pool, or book a private tub. Access to the steam room and sauna come with your stay, and you can add on yoga classes or spa treatments like sound healing or anti-inflammatory massage.

Dating back to 1868 and located amid desert cliffs near the banks of the cottonwood-lined Rio Ojo Caliente, the place is one of the country’s oldest health resorts, and open for both overnight and day use. Lodging options include adobe suites with hammocks on the patios or restored vintage trailers. (Day passes for the pools start at $45; rooms from $239 a night.)

Ìę2. Check Into a Wellness Resort

YO1 in Monticello, New York

You’ll get personalized treatments and a custom therapeutic plan when you book at , an Ayurvedic longevity resort that opened in the Catskills in 2018 with a focus on Eastern medicine and holistic therapies. This place is for dedicated self-care travelers looking for a total reboot, a concentrated wellness plan, or programs designed to treat specific issues like stress, depression, diabetes, infertility, or insomnia. Visit for the day or stay for a week.

Not sure where to start? Try the three-night wellness program, which includes individual consultations, mud baths, and acupuncture. You’ll stay at a 131-room lodge overlooking Baileys Lake on a 1,300-acre property in pine forests and surrounded by hiking and biking trails—all just two hours from New York City. Access to an infrared sauna, hot tub, group meditation, a reflexology walkway, fitness room, and Olympic-sized swimming pool are included. (Day pass, which includes meals and all-day programming, for $500; overnight accommodations start at $185.)

3. Stay In a Communal șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Lodge

Campfire Ranch Little Sugar in Bella Vista, Arkansas

If community is what you’re after, consider , a new adventure lodge opening in or around May 2025 with out-the-door access to 40 miles of world-class mountain-bike trails surrounding Bentonville, Arkansas, with singletrack loops over rolling hills and through stands of redbud, dogwood, and mulberry trees. The eight-room lodge comes with access to a communal fire pit, outdoor cooking space, gear storage, bike-wash stations, and breakfast service. Campfire Ranch’s adventure concierge can help plan your outings and connect you with local bike rentals and guides. Rent a single room or, if you’re with a group, book out the whole place. (Rates from $250.)

4. Run In Another Country

Aire Libre in Mexico City

, cofounded by Mauricio Díaz, a world-class ultrarunner from Mexico, specializes in transformational running and hiking retreats all over the world, from Costa Rica to Japan. These retreats focus on the intersection of movement, mindfulness, culture, and sustainability, enabling participants to connect with themselves and the landscapes and cultures they’re exploring.

The company’s ($1,800, including meals, lodging, and guiding) is a four-day running adventure where you’ll jog through Mexico City along the gravel trails of Viveros de Coyoacán park and the plazas of the National Autonomous University of Mexico campus. You’ll also leave the city to run trails across the volcanic landscape of the Continental Divide, then experience a guided indigenous temazcal ceremony in a sweat lodge. By night, enjoy communal meals and lodging in boutique hotels.

Ìę5. Spend Four Days Doing Yoga

Esalen in Big Sur, California

Even if you’re not a dedicated yogi or a holistic-retreat kind of person, you’ll love being on the jagged cliffs of Big Sur at , a nonprofit retreat center and educational institute with a heavy yoga focus. You can do a self-guided exploration (read: stay on your own with limited formal instruction) or sign up for the center’s two- or four-night workshops on topics like hypnotherapy, storytelling, or astrology. This is the kind of place where your cell phone doesn’t work, so you might as well stash it away and focus on movement, nature, and real-life connection.

When you’re not learning about your conscious intentions, you can hike the trails within Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park amid 300-foot redwood trees, oak, and chaparral, and see an 80-foot waterfall plummet into the sea. You can also wander the beaches of Big Sur, or bathe in Esalen’s famously clothing-optional hot springs above the roiling Pacific Ocean. Accommodations range from bunks in communal rooms to private yurts overlooking the Pacific. (Rates from around $950 for multi-day workshops, including lodging, meals, and programming. Scholarships available.)

6. Sit in a Sweat Lodge Under a Full Moon

The Horse Shoe Farm in Hendersonville, North Carolina

You could come to the to stay in a well-appointed cottage and eat farm-to-table meals with ingredients sourced on site. Or you could make a trip here into a more broad-based wellness excursion. Just under 40 minutes from Asheville and situated between the verdant Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smoky Mountains with a view of Mount Pisgah, this health sanctuary has five energy vortexes (places believed to be centers of energy currents with spiritual effects), holistic spa treatments, an outdoor labyrinth for walking meditation, and a meditation tower.

The resort recently partnered with, a Cherokee wisdom keeper and ceremonialist from the Qualla Indian Boundary in the Great Smoky Mountains, to build a sweat lodge on the 85-acre property, where he hosts ceremonies on each full and new moon. Overnight accommodations include one-room lofts or three-bedroom homes, depending on your group size. (Rates from $399.)

Ìę7. Go Forest Bathing

Southall Farm and Inn in Franklin, Tennessee

Not all spas are created equal. ’s spa goes above and beyond, incorporating botanical ingredients and mindfulness in sessions like energy healing and detoxifying treatments to develop a deeper connection to self and nature. This working farm on a 425-acre plot in Tennessee has a 62-room lodge plus 16 private cottages that opened for guests in 2022. You can add treatments like sound-bath meditation, forest bathing, or a wellness consultation, depending on what you’re looking for. More than seven miles of hiking and biking trails surround the farm, and there’s canoeing and fishing on the private Lake at Southall. Or take guided tours of the orchard and apiaries that are home to some 8 million bees. (Rates from $695.)

8. Build Something With Your Hands

Yestermorrow in Waitsfield, Vermont

This place isn’t a spa resort in the standard sense, but for people who find learning new skills and using their hands to build things are perfect ways to unlock a deep sense of fulfillment. is a green design-and-build school in Vermont’s Mad River Valley, with a small campus offering day classes and overnight lodging in the Green Mountain National Forest with its lakes and mountain hikes. You can take courses on building a coffee table, sustainable treehouse design, harvesting your own lumber, or basic carpentry. Classes last from two days to two weeks (with certification programs that go longer). Healthy-meal plans plus lodging—dorms, cabins, or camping—can be added to your tuition. (Lodging from $10 to $55 a night; courses from $260, scholarships and sliding-scale tuition available.)

9. Surround Yourself with the Ocean

Pebble Cove Farm in Orcas Island, Washington

Getting to is the first step: You’ll need to take a ferry to reach Orcas Island, part of the dreamy San Juan Islands in upper Puget Sound, 100 miles north of Seattle. Once you’re here, you’ll settle into a cozy cottage overlooking a quiet bay at this farm and animal sanctuary that hosts guests and offers wellness retreats. The inn rents out kayaks and paddleboards and has a garden and apple orchard you’re welcome to wander through. Rescued farm animals like horses, chickens, pigs, and goats, adopted from elsewhere, reside here. The garden and farm animals are closed off from November through April, but the cottages are open year-round. (Rates from $300.)

10. Ski With New Friends

The Ski Retreat in Palisades Tahoe, California; Sun Valley, Idaho; Breckenridge, Colorado

You want to spend a weekend playing outside in snow-covered mountains, but not to deal with figuring out logistics or finding a group of friends to go with. We get that. Enter , a women’s getaway in places like Lake Tahoe, Sun Valley, or Breckenridge for groups of six to 12. These trips, numbering five this winter, are about connection, friendship, relaxation, and play—without having to plan a thing. Your three-night retreat includes lodging at a slopeside cabin, morning yoga, gear demos, chef-prepared group dinners, fireside chats, art classes, and ski and snowboard adventures for a wide range of abilities. (Rates from $550 for local residents not including lodging; from $1,190, including lodging.)

Megan Michelson, an șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű contributing editor, lives in northern California. She’s hoping her occasional habits of drinking tea, practicing yoga, and sleeping 10 hours a night will lead to a long and healthy life. She recently wrote for us about buying a 1 Euro (yes, as in one dollar) home in Italy; how to travel to ski, hike, and bike in Jackson, Wyoming, on the cheap (hard to believe, but she knows of great deals); and why she and her family traded traditional Thanksgiving options for Campsgiving. Her list of great outdoor festivals extends into May 2025.

The post You Deserve Your Vacation. What if It Also Made You Live Longer? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Golf gets a bad rap. The sport has a reputation for being too expensive and too resource-intensive, which are true in some cases. There are private clubs so expensive you need to be a billionaire to join, and courses where the landscape was bulldozed to make way for overwatered and overfertilized fairways.

But not every golf course is that way.

A movement is afoot to make golf more accessible and sustainable. How do I know? I’m an avid golfer. I play twice a week, mostly on public courses that are cheap and built over repurposed farmland. Affordable golf is actually easy to find, but better yet is the sustainability movement that’s creeping into destination courses.

“The golf industry has made tremendous strides in the area of sustainability over the past 20 to 30 years,” says Frank LaVardera, director of environmental programs in golf for , which operates America’s first and most comprehensive green-golf-course certification program. “Traditional courses use a significant amount of water and chemicals, but many courses are reducing their amount of managed turf”—the manicured lawns that require so much water and fertilizer—“and creating native areas that require less water, while enhancing wildlife habitat.”

What an Eco-Conscious Golf Course Means

Audubon International’s certification process can take years, and requires evaluation of a course’s impact on wildlife habitat, water quality and conservation, pest management, and energy efficiency. In turn, eco-minded course managers reduce the amount of turf, use recycled gray water to irrigate, emphasize walking over use of gas-powered carts, and create wildlife habitats with natural grasses and trees that attract birds, bees, and even the occasional bear. Since 2001, when the program was introduced, Audubon’s Cooperative Sanctuary Program for Golf has grown to include more than 2,000 certified courses in the U.S. and beyond.

The timing of this sustainability movement couldn’t be better, as America has rediscovered its love of golf. According to the (NGF), 3.4 million new people played golf in America last year. Each of the past 10 years saw more than 2 million beginners, with the past four topping 3 million.

Golf’s Changing Demographics

The that since the pandemic era, women and people of color have been flocking to the game; the biggest demographic jump has come from traditionally under-represented populations, with the number of Asian, Black and Hispanic golfers rising by 43 percent in the last five years. Of the 26 million people who play golf recreationally, 23 percent are people of color and 26 percent are women.

The demographic makeup of the Professional Golf Association (PGA) is still skewed (80 percent of pro golfers are white), but the game is changing from the ground up as recreational players trend toward being younger and more diverse. The most sought-after clothing brands in the sport, like Malbon and Eastside Golf, bring streetwear aesthetics to the golf industry, while many prolific and successful golfers on social media are women and people of color. If you’re not following on Instagram, you should be.

Part of the issue with diversifying the outdoors is access. There were 480 ski resorts in operation last year, with most of them located in remote, mountainous regions. Compare that to the 16,000+ golf courses scattered all over the country. I live in a southeastern mountain town that is not known for its golf, but I can play on any of 10 courses situated within half an hour of my home. There are three courses within three miles of downtown, and I play on two of them for under $20 a round. A program called enables members aged 18 and under to play any of its 2,133 enrolled courses across the U.S. for just $5 a round.

My 15-year-old son is a YOC member, and able to play half a dozen courses within 10 miles of our home. He and I can walk nine holes of golf for $20 combined, $35 if we want to play 18.

Why I Love Golf

As for the argument that golf shouldn’t be considered an outdoor sport because of its environmental impact, most things we do leave footprints. I’ve been a dedicated skier since age 12, and I don’t love the fact that the ski industry has gotten cartoonishly expensive and is resource-intensive, especially in water use. But I do love skiing. I have the same relationship with golf. It’s not perfect, but I love it.

This surprises people because I make a living writing about adventure sports, and I have the scars and expensive-gear habit to prove it. People assume golf and surfing or mountain biking are a world apart, but look closely in my garage and you’ll see a set of golf clubs tucked between my mountain bike and longboard.

When I play, I always walk, carry my bag, and try not to focus too much on my score. It’s a slow, meditative walk in the woods. I like the challenge of golf as well. I recently picked the sport up again after a 20-year-hiatus, and I’m consumed with the pursuit of getting better, but I also know that I’ll never master golf. No matter how good I get at hitting a little white ball in the air, there will always be room for improvement.

Golf is cerebral and thought-provoking in a way that the other fast-paced sports I love are not. The game is 99.99 percent mental, allowing me to see how my thoughts impact my actions. Golf is a chance to clear your head and be outside.

Fortunately, there are certain destinations where golf and adventure go hand in hand. Some of the most sustainable golf courses in America are located in places that could be on any adventure-traveler’s radar, so you can play 18 holes one afternoon and go mountain biking or surfing the next morning.

Here are nine of the wildest, most sustainable golf courses in the world, each paired with a local adventure to round out the perfect weekend.

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1. Bear Trace, Harrison, Tennessee

Fee: Starting at $41 for 18 holes

Even if you’re not a golfer, you know the name of Jack Nicklaus, one of the game’s most famous professionals. Not only was Nicklaus a legendary golfer, he was also a designer, creating courses all over the country, including this 18-hole masterpiece sits in the 1200-acre , 20 miles outside of Chattanooga. In the last two decades, managers have addressed every aspect of the course to minimize its impact, converting the greens from bentgrass to a less-thirsty Bermudagrass, removing 50 acres of turf to cede that area to natural grasses, and eliminating irrigation beyond the greens. The place has also purchased all-electric maintenance equipment, and installed mallard nesting tubes, wood duck boxes, and feeders for bluebirds and wild turkey.

As a result, as of 2008, Bear Trace is a certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary, and restored the wildlife habitat to the point where the course was home to a pair of nesting bald eagles for a decade.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Paddling on in Harrison Bay State Park makes for a fun afternoon (paddle boards are $8 an hour through the park). If you’re looking for something more adventurous, , 45 miles west of the state park, offers trips (from $50 per person) on class III-IV whitewater full of play spots and wave trains that formed the 1996 Olympic whitewater course.

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2. Big Cedar Lodge, Ridgedale, Missouri

Fees: ÌęStarting from $80 for the 13-hole short course

OK, is a behemoth. The brainchild of Johnny Morris, the founder of Bass Pro Shops, the 4,600-acre retreat features five distinct public golf courses, all set amid a dramatic Ozark Mountains backdrop, with routing that regularly nears ancient limestone cliffs. In recent years, Big Cedar Lodge has become one of the country’s top golf destinations, regarded as the best public golf in the Midwest.

Big Cedar Lodge was the first golf resort in the world to receive Audubon International’s highest certification, the Signature Sanctuary status, given for all five of its courses. Water conservation and improving wildlife habitat are priorities, with more than 75 percent organic fertilizer used, while chemical runoff and water use are addressed through a water-recycling program with reclamation ponds, as well as moisture meters embedded in the ground to help minimize watering in general.

One of Johnny Morris’ founding principles is the notion of connecting people and the outdoors. On several holes his courses put the golfer between towering limestone cliffs, and, extra cool, those who play Big Cedar Lodge’s Buffalo Ridge course can spy herds of bison that roam and feed on the natural-grass prairies surrounding the fairways.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: You could spend your entire weekend playing different courses at Big Cedar Lodge, but bring your mountain bike, too. The resort is on the edge of , which has 11 miles of cross-country trails in a stacked-loop system that hugs the shoreline of Table Rock Lake. Or you could hit the gravity-minded , which has 10 trails and a pump track and skills area. The place has something for everyone, from the kid who’s just learning how to brake, to the adult who thinks he’s a kid sending gaps (day passes start at $45).

3. Streamsong Golf Resort, Bowling Green, Florida

Fees: Starting at $249 for 18 holes

This massive golf retreat 60 miles east of Tampa wins my vote for best use of scarred land. built its courses on 16,000 acres of land that was previously used for a phosphate strip mine. After the mining ended, sand dunes took over, and course designers used all of that bumpy elevation to create a whimsical playground where fairways wind through grassy mounds and small ponds.

Course designers used compost in the soil before grassing to reduce the need for fertilization, and limited the acreage of maintained turf, opting instead for natural grasses and dunes beyond the fairways. The resort has a water-treatment facility that captures rainwater, and reuses it for irrigation. Streamsong features three 18-hole courses, and a short course, called The Chain, that has no set tee boxes or suggested pars. This short course is a “choose your own adventure” sort of experience.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: You can keep the reclaimed land theme rolling by driving 25 miles west to , 7,714 acres of surprisingly hilly terrain on a former phosphate mine, with more than 20 miles of mountain biking and hiking trails through a forest and alongside lakes and the banks of the Alafia River. Streamsong wasn’t impacted much by Hurricane Milton when it hit October 9, both because the courses were designed to manage water and the place had few trees for high winds to damage. But much of this area of Florida was devastated by the storm, so check with surrounding businesses and parks before exploring the area.

4. Chambers Bay, University Place, Washington

Fees: Starting at $85 for 18 holes

This 18-hole course is links-style, meaning that like Scotland’s St. Andrews, believed to be the oldest course in the world, it has little to no manipulation of the land, resulting in rugged terrain, with many dunes covered in tall grasses. Similarly set on a craggy shoreline of Washington, it might also be the pinnacle of sustainable design. was built on reclaimed mine land, turning a former gravel pit into a championship course that now enhances the landscape. Designers shaped the course with native plants and wildflowers like douglas iris, and sodded with drought-resistant fescue grass species.

The fairways are irrigated with recycled gray water and fertilized with treated bio-waste from the county’s wastewater plant. Chambers Bay doesn’t have golf carts; it’s a walking-only facility. (Some courses in the U.S. require golfers to use carts on weekends to maintain a quick pace of play.) Maybe the best part is that Chambers Bay is a municipal course, with affordable fees. It’s also located within a county park with trails adjacent to the links and coast, so you don’t have to play golf to enjoy the scenery.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Chambers Creek Regional Park, which is home to the golf course, is a 930-acre preserve with two miles of shoreline and more than five miles of paved trails with views of Puget Sound. You should also drive 50 miles east to Mount Rainier National Park, where you can hike the 5.5-mile loop on , bagging copious views of the eponymous 14,411-foot active volcano in all its glaciated glory.

5. Black Desert Resort, Ivins, Utah

Fees: Starting at $300 for 18 holes

A 19-hole course that opened in May 2023, was built from the ground up with the surrounding environment in mind. The entire property is only 600 acres, with just 75 acres of turf, all irrigated with non-potable gray water, and the fairways are made from a drought-tolerant bentgrass species that needs less maintenance and fertilizer than many other common turf grasses. Almost 70 percent of the grounds are dedicated as protected open space, and sustainability was a factor throughout the property’s design, from having a low-voltage power infrastructure for the resort to using an irrigation system in a grid, where each section can be adjusted individually.

The coolest aspect of the course is that it’s become a haven for endangered fish species. The property managers partnered with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to relocate 400 Virgin River Chub, a kind of rare minnow, to the lakes on the golf course, so they can live and breed in a stable environment. The course itself is gorgeous, running through fields of black lava rocks with views of the surrounding red cliffs.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Long-term plans for Black Desert include building several miles of hiking trails. Moreover, the resort sits nine miles north of St. George, just an hour (48 miles) west of Zion National Park. If it’s your first time to Zion, snag a ($3 plus a $6 registration fee) and hike , a 5.5-mile out-and-back that involves a bit of scrambling and ridgeline traversing and might just lead to one of the most iconic photo sites in our national-park system.

To dig deeper into the park, consider trekking through , a slot canyon where the walls of Zion Canyon rise 1,000 feet up while pinching to 30 feet wide at certain points. You’ll be hiking through the river, so be prepared to get wet. The shortest route is a 9.5-mile out and back from the Temple of Sinawava, a red-walled natural amphitheater, to Big Spring, which is as far as you can go without a permit, but hits some of the skinniest portions of the gorge. Just don’t attempt it when there’s rain in the as flash floods are common and fatalities have occurred. Save it for a stellar day.

6. The Mountain Course at Spruce Peak, Stowe, Vermont

Fees: Starting at $165 for 18, and you need to stay at The Lodge at Spruce Peak to play (rooms start at $249).

Surrounded by 2,000 acres of preserved land, the rambles along the flank of the mountain it is named for, with views of the adjacent Mount Mansfield, Vermont’s tallest peak, to boot. Spruce Peak, which sits at the base of Stowe Mountain Resort, was designed with the environment in mind, input from Audubon International, and a focus on preserving local black-bear populations by routing around their preferred habitat of beech trees. Designers also created buffers around streams and ponds to protect water quality, and planted a mix of native flowers and grasses, like milkweed and false sunflower, around tee boxes.

Peregrine Lake serves as a water feature for golfers to admire and avoid, but also a reservoir capturing rainwater that is used to feed snowmaking operations at Stowe Mountain Resort. Course management hosts an annual field trip to teach a local fifth-grade class about the elements of water quality.

The course fits into the greater ecosystem of the Spruce Peak community, a resort and residential property at the base of Stowe Mountain Resort that was built around eco-sensitive principles like a property-wide composting program and a renewable energy program that provides more than 50 percent of its power.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: You’re close to Stowe, a town renowned for its ski culture (and beer). Sadly, ski season and golf season don’t overlap. But don’t fret; during the warmer months, there is plenty of hiking, fly fishing, and climbing nearby. Do it on your own or if you want a guide, Spruce Peak Resort offers hiking and fly fishing adventures. If you’re into climbing, runs trips on the granite walls around the Stowe area, from top-roping routes suitable for beginners to multi-pitch cliffs that will please experienced trad climbers (from $250 per person).

7. Bandon Dunes, Bandon, Oregon

Fees: From $50 for the par 3 courses

has become one of the most coveted golf destinations in America, with seven public courses spread throughout the 2,525-acre coastal resort. All seven courses have earned Audubon International Sanctuary status, too, as the designers have kept Oregon’s coastal beauty and environmental harmony in mind throughout the process, from construction to management.

The course looks wild, thanks largely to the use of native plants and grasses, including the threatened silver phacelia, outside of the fairways, while for the turf on those mowed areas Bandon Dunes uses fescue, a type of grass that requires less fertilizer than others. And when fertilizer is applied, it’s organic and used sparingly. Roughly 85 percent of the resort’s energy is supplied by renewable resources, with more solar panels still to be installed throughout the property. The maintenance department has moved to electric-powered equipment.

Most of the resort’s landscape holds native plants that require no irrigation, but with six courses, roughly 600 acres that need to be watered. The resort’s own wastewater-management system supplies non-potable gray water for the job, recycling roughly 50,000 gallons of water daily.

One of the courses, Bandon Preserve, puts net proceeds directly to local conservation projects in Oregon’s southern coast through a , which has helped restore salmon fisheries and funded mountain bike trails. Bandon Dunes is working towards the lofty goal of becoming a completely carbon neutral resort.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Bandon Dunes sits on Oregon’s southern coast, which is a multi-sport adventurer’s dream, with miles of singletrack and wild beaches punctuated by dramatic sea stacks. Go for a trail run at , where several miles of trail wind through a pine forest and access five miles of hard-packed beach.

The surfing is good too, with beach breaks found throughout this part of the coast. Head north for 25 miles to Coos Bay, where the bluffs of Yoakam Head hang over the breaks, which have something for all levels of surfers. Beginners should head to Bastendorff Beach for a wide, sandy-bottom break with a cool backdrop of rocky headlands. The water temperature is cold year round, but winter brings the most consistent waves, so in that case pack a thick wetsuit.

8. The Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Fees: Starting at $110 for 18 holes

The a resort five miles south of Colorado Springs, is home to two of the most respected golf courses in the U.S., designed by legends Donald Ross and Robert Trent Jones and hosting marquee tournaments like multiple U.S. Amateurs, U.S. Women’s Opens, and U.S. Senior Opens. At 6,250 feet in elevation, the course was the highest in America when it first opened in 1918, and several holes feature views of Pikes Peak.

The place has become significantly more eco-friendly with age. Managers have replaced more than 50 acres of turf with native grasses and wildflowers, and use gray water to irrigate the fairways and greens. Mulching mowers return grass clippings back to the soil, and the property uses no pesticides Over the years the resort has added bird-nesting boxes and habitats for bees and butterflies. All of the carts are electric, and otherwise the place promotes walking and its caddy program. Resort chefs harvest honey from the property’s own hives, and source meat from the Wagyu beef raised on the ranch. Even the resort’s cooking grease is recycled into biodiesel.

The Broadmoor participates in one of the most heartwarming recycling programs I’ve ever heard of: all of their spent tennis balls are donated to local senior-citizen facilities to be used on the ends of walkers and canes.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Colorado Springs offers so much to do. The 14,115-foot Pikes Peak, with trailheads six miles from town, has to be the most accessible fourteener in the U.S.; you can drive your car or take a train to the summit, but I say earn it by hiking the ($20-$37 parking fee, depending on day of week), a 13-mile one way trek that gains more than 7,000 feet on its way to the top. Don’t worry, you can take the down from the summit ($30). Or go explore the iconic red sandstone fins that rise from the center of Garden of the Gods Park. operates half and full day trips for all abilities (starting at $221).

9. Rising Sun Golf Course, Emigrant, Montana

Fee: Greens fees are included in the cost of your stay (one week minimum, and you must contact the for pricing).

It’s hard to beat Rising Sun’s location. The 18-hole course sits on the 17,000-acre Mountain Sky Ranch, within the aptly named Paradise Valley and with near-constant views of the surrounding Absaroka and Gallatin Mountains. This is the biggest splurge on this list, and for most, a once-in-a-lifetime situation at best, but the rest of us can dream, right?

Rising Sun is not an easy course to play, thanks to its remote location and the fact that tee times go only to guests of the ranch, but you couldn’t ask for a more beautiful setting, and the Rising Sun was the first course in Montana to be designated an Audubon International Cooperative Sanctuary. The course was built on a hayfield with an emphasis on maintaining as much natural habitat as possible, converting dry pastures to prairie grass, and maintaining native plant buffers along bodies of water.

Course managers also installed bird-nest boxes to encourage multi-species nesting, and have put in bat houses. They regularly consult with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on issues concerning elk and Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout. Aided by a dry, cold environment, course managers use no pesticides for the turf and greens, and they’ve limited water usage by keeping the irrigated acreage to only 52 acres, almost a third of the average 18 hole course in America. Maintenance crews regularly monitor the quality of water in the course ponds as well as Big Creek.

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Mountain Sky Ranch is an adventure-minded “dude ranch” with a host of activities located on property. The resort also offers guided horseback tours in Yellowstone National Park, with an entrance just 30 miles south. But I say to pair a round of golf here with some fly fishing. If you’re new to the sport, Mountain Sky has a trout pond where pros can teach you the nuances of casting, but if you can hit the ground running, head to nearby Big Creek, which is loaded with cutthroat and rainbow trout. Or sign up for a of the iconic Yellowstone River, which offers opportunities for long, wide open casts that just might net a cutthroat or brown. (From $595)

Nearby șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Mountain Sky Ranch is an adventure-minded “dude ranch” with a host of activities located on property. The resort also offers guided horseback tours in Yellowstone National Park, with an entrance just 30 miles south. But I say to pair a round of golf here with some fly fishing. If you’re new to the sport, Mountain Sky has a trout pond where pros can teach you the nuances of casting, but if you can hit the ground running, head to nearby Big Creek, which is loaded with cutthroat and rainbow trout. Or sign up for a of the iconic Yellowstone River, which offers opportunities for long, wide open casts that just might net a cutthroat or brown (from $595).

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist and an avid golfer who is dying to play every course on this list. Follow his golf shenanigans on Instagram at @the_amateur_golf. Graham recently wrote “This Is What It’s Like to Live in Asheville After Hurricane Helene” and answered some questions about it while standing in line at FEMA offices. He has also recently written “9 Most Underrated National Parks for Incredible Fall Foliage,” “8 Surf Towns Where You Can Learn the Sport and the Culture,” and “The 9 Most Fun șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Lodges in North America.”

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Mountain towns in the Western U.S. get a lot of love. I’ve written plenty of articles that highlight places like Jackson, Boulder, and Crested Butte, but these high-profile burgs aren’t the only badass adventure basecamps.

I’ve lived in North Carolina in the Southern Appalachians for the last 20 years, and while the Southeast is often overlooked for adventure and mountain culture, we have a bevy of cities with quick access to the diversions we all crave. Not to mention downtowns so charming you’d think you were on a movie set.

These are my nine favorite mountain towns in the Southeast, ranked according to my experience and personal preferences, with special points given for bike rides that end at breweries.

1. Asheville, North Carolina

Population: 93,775

Best Known For: Breweries and Bike Rides

Am I biased because Asheville is my home? Yes, but there are reasons why I chose to settle here 20 years ago, and many more why I stay. Life here is too damn good for me to consider moving anywhere else.

Asheville is the cultural center of the Southern Appalachians, with one of the best food-and-beer scenes on the East Coast. The street art and local music rival that in bigger cities, too. The town itself is so fun you could easily forget that all this activity sits in a valley surrounded by 5,000- and 6,000-foot mountains that are perfect playgrounds for adventure athletes.

World-class road cycling begins and ends in town, while epic hiking and mountain biking options start within 20 miles in every direction. The French Broad River provides mellow daytime paddling options on the west side of downtown as well as multi-night adventures, thanks to developed campsites along the , while hardcore paddlers have flocked to Asheville for the prevalence of class IV and V creeks deeper in the mountains.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Asheville, North Carolina

• There are hundreds of miles of singletrack in the surrounding Pisgah National Forest, but for a quick post-work ride, I head 15 minutes west of downtown (12 miles) to , which has more than 20 miles of trails. is my favorite piece of singletrack, partly because of the long gravel climb to reach it, but mostly for the two miles of flowy, mildly technical downhill.
• Roadies should head straight for the Blue Ridge Parkway, which forms a half-circle around Asheville. I like the climb up Town Mountain Road, which leaves directly from downtown and heads north on the parkway until I either get tired or hit 6,684-foot Mount Mitchell 33 miles later. has both mountain- and road-bike rentals (from $85 a day).
• For an epic hike or trail run, drive south on the Blue Ridge Parkway for 30 miles to the 6,214-foot Black Balsam, a high-elevation bald with 360-degree views of the surrounding peaks. It’s my wife’s favorite spot for a scenic photo shoot. You can reach the summit in a .5-mile hike along the Art Loeb Trail, or you could knock out a bigger loop that takes in Black Balsam and neighboring Tennent Mountain, another 6,000-footer with its own tree-free summit views. A five- and 10-mile option each uses the same
  

  

Where to Eat and Drink in Asheville, North Carolina

• Everyone is going to have an opinion, but I like the vibe at Burial Brewing, where you can drink the potent Surf Wax IPA in a beer garden next to a mural of Tom Selleck and Sloth from Goonies.
• Asheville has its fair share of James Beard-nominated chefs, but I get excited about eating a Bibim Bap from El Kimchi, a food truck with shifting locations throughout town each night. Try to catch El Kimchi at New Belgium Brewery, which has a massive lawn above the French Broad River.

Where to Stay in Asheville, North Carolina

• Wrong Way River Lodge and Cabins has one-bedroom A-frame cabins, each complete with a record player and selection of vinyl, next to the French Broad River within walking distance of a climbing gym, greenway system, and the bars and restaurants within the River Arts District (from $198 a night).

2. Chattanooga, Tennessee

Population: 185,000

Best known for: Rock climbing and singletrack

Chattanooga is easily the largest city on this list, but don’t let the size dissuade you. The location is perfect, as Chattanooga sits in the foothills of the Southern Appalachians with the steep slopes of Lookout Mountain and the Cumberland Plateau rising from the edge of town. I’m always amazed by how close the adventure is to downtown Chattanooga.

The lush hardwood forests of the surrounding mountains hold expansive sandstone cliffs and boulders, making Chattanooga a hotbed of rock climbing, while recent years have brought an explosion of mountain-bike trail development. Meanwhile, the Tennessee River wraps around downtown, giving paddlers immediate access to endless miles of flat-water boating. I’ve spent a lot of time paddling a SUP on the Tennessee River, in awe of the buildings and bridges that comprise downtown.

And the city has whole-heartedly embraced the outdoors, with leaders actively working to make it one of the first designated in the world, trying to apply a national park ethos to the entire city.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Chattanooga, Tennessee

• There are more than 100 miles of singletrack within 20 miles of downtown Chattanooga, and most have been purpose-built in the last decade for mountain bikers. , a city park with six miles of bike trails in town, offers a great quick spin, but I’ve spent entire days geeking out on , eight miles from downtown, where roughly 30 miles of fast, technical single track unfold.
  

• Rock climbers might have more to choose from than mountain bikers around Chattanooga. The city opens up the , a 50-foot-tall limestone pier holding up a city bridge, to climbing occasionally, via toprope and on bolted-on holds. But the , a sandstone cliff hanging over the Tennessee River in Prentice Cooper State Forest, 15 miles from downtown, has to be the crown jewel. The T-Wall has more than 600 established routes, most of which require trad skills and gear. The routes range in difficulty from 5.5 to 5.13, with something for everyone.
  

  

• There are whitewater runs in the mountains surrounding town, and the runs for 45 miles through the Tennessee River Gorge, offering multi-day flatwater canoe trips. But I’m always drawn to the eight-mile-long Tennessee Riverpark, which has multiple access points for boaters downtown. Rent paddleboards at ($30), in Coolidge Park, and see town from the water.
• What you can see above ground is just the beginning; there are more than 7,000 caves within an hour’s drive of Chattanooga. Most are wild caves on private property that are closed to the public, but offers guided adventures through a network of chambers and tunnels that have streams and waterfalls (from $60).
  

Where to Eat and Drink in Chattanooga, Tennessee

• For years, my one complaint about Chattanooga was the prevalence of chain restaurants over local options, but recently the food scene has exploded with great one-of-a-kind options, especially in the Southside neighborhood, which is tucked into a revitalized industrial district. Check out , which serves well-crafted Chinese-inspired dishes with fun tiki drinks. I’m a sucker for tiki drinks.

Where to Stay in Chattanooga, Tennessee

• There are plenty of hotels throughout Chattanooga, but I have a soft spot for , an upscale hostel with private rooms (starting at $70) that caters to the adventurous, with a lobby stocked with local guidebooks and free crash-pads for guests who want to boulder.

3. Boone, North Carolina

Population: 19,756

Best known for: Appalachian State (go Mountaineers!) and 5,000-foot peaks

Nestled inside North Carolina’s High Country and surrounded by 5,000-foot peaks, Boone is the perfect blend of college town and adventure hub. Downtown blends with Appalachian State University’s sprawling campus, which absolutely bustles with life when school is in session, especially during football season in the fall.

But Boone would make it on this list even without all that youthful vibrancy, because the mountains that envelope the community are stacked with adventure, from cycling the winding blacktop of the Blue Ridge Parkway to climbing in the Linville Gorge. Boone has skiing in the winter, rock climbing from fall through spring, and plenty of hiking and road and mountain biking year round.

As for the town itself, it’s a mix of college-friendly dive bars, boutique shops, and high-end restaurants with elevated southern fare. I like Boone more and more every time I visit, and I’m secretly hoping my kids decide to go to college at App State so I can go more.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Boone, North Carolina

• Mountain bikers should head straight to , which boasts10 miles of purpose-built trails with features designed to help rippers progress through technical challenges as well as jumps and drops. A paved pump track has fast lines and great views of the surrounding mountains. To be honest, I’m jealous of this park.
  

• If you prefer your adventures on two feet, take the opportunity to explore the Linville Gorge Wilderness, which protects 12 miles of the 2,000-foot-deep canyon of the same name. The terrain is steep, loaded with granite cliffs and boulders and shrouded in a dense hardwood forest. At the bottom of the gorge is the tumultuous Linville River. I’ve scrambled around the gorge many times and am always blown away by the views and the solitude it offers. Most people just hike the short distance to Linville Falls, but check out the 2.4-mile , which requires a scramble to the top of a rocky outcropping, but delivers a view into the heart of the gorge, as well as of neighboring Shortoff Mountain and Hawksbill Mountain. You can extend your hike down to the river via the Linville Gorge Trail.
• When winter sets in, choose from among three downhill ski resorts: Appalachian Mountain, Sugar Mountain, and Beech Mountain. I like for the mountaintop bar and view from its 5,506-foot summit.

Where to Eat and Drink in Boone, North Carolina

• A lot of students survive on the massive burritos at Black Cat, and I’ve certainly enjoyed my share of their All Nighter (eggs, sausage and potatoes smothered in melted cheese). But I’m also in love with the fried chicken and biscuits served at the slightly more refined Proper. Appalachian Mountain Brewing makes some of my favorite beer in the South, especially their Spoaty Oaty Pale Ale.

Where to Stay in Boone, North Carolina

• Grab a room in , a boutique hotel in a renovated 1960s-era roadside motel. The lobby bar makes great cocktails, and the lodge has recently partnered with the locally owned to offer guided fishing and hiking packages (from $130 a night).

4. Damascus, Virginia

Population: under 800

Best Known For: The Appalachian Trail

There’s small, and then there’s Damascus. Damascus has fewer people than my graduating high school class in the suburbs of Atlanta (go Harrison High Hoyas!). And yet this tiny hamlet in the mountains of southwest Virginia has become known as Trail Town USA.

Damascus is the crossroads for a handful of high-profile paths, most notably the Appalachian Trail. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has its headquarters here, and one weekend every May, more than 25,000 people descend on the town for , a celebration of the world’s most famous footpath (I’ve attended several times and can tell you that through-hikers like to party).

And the A.T. is just one option here. The 34-mile is one of the greatest rail-trail bike rides in the South because of its length and mountain scenery, and the is a rocky hike and bike trail with ridgeline views that was part of the Appalachian Trail until a reroute in the 1970s. But I like Damascus mostly for its proximity to Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, which protects 200,000 acres of Virginia’s tallest mountains, boasting more than 400 miles of trail for hiking and biking.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Damascus, Virginia

• If your idea of a good time is riding a bike for 17 miles downhill without ever having to pedal (and really, who wouldn’t like that?), you should definitely do the Virginia Creeper Trail, part of which passes through the Mount Rogers rec area. I took my kids to ride the Creeper when they were in elementary school, and it was probably the only time they didn’t complain about the pedaling. Start at Whitetop Station and cruise the crushed-stone path back into town. There’s at least one ice-cream stop along the way. has bike rentals (from $15) and shuttles (from $24).
• To see the best of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, hike this on the A.T. that starts in Grayson Highlands State Park and crosses Wilburn Ridge, where a herd of wild ponies roam, and ends on top of the 5,729-foot Mount Rogers. I go for the above-treeline views, and I could spend an entire afternoon scrambling on the trail’s boulders, but it’s the feral ponies that make this hike so unusual and photogenic.

Where to Stay in Damascus, Virginia

• has 13 suites in the heart of downtown. The place partners with Speckled Trout Outfitters for stay-and-play packages that include guided hiking and fly fishing (from $157 a night).

Where to Eat and Drink in Damascus, Virginia

• The Wicked Chicken focuses on hot wings (dry rub and sauced) and burgers, served on a large outdoor patio. Appalachian Heritage Distillery and Brewery is located directly on the A.T. in downtown Damascus. It makes vodka, gin, and a variety of whiskies out of a pot still, and the bar serves classic cocktails and hosts live music and karaoke on weekends.

5. Davis, West Virginia

Population: 660

Best Known For: Skiing. Seriously. The skiing is great.

I mentioned Davis in my guide to West Virginia, but this tiny town deserves its own spotlight. Thanks to a duo of downhill resorts and a cross-country touring center, Davis is a ski town first and foremost, which is a rarity in the Southern Appalachians, but it has just as much to offer bikers and hikers.

The chain of mountains running along the border of West Virginia and Virginia make Davis hard to reach if you’re driving from the east, and the 100 miles that separate it from Harrisonburg can take more than two hours, but this journey of a thousand curves (a challenge to my motion-sick-prone stomach) is worth the effort.

Davis is small, but has just enough conveniences (a few restaurants, a brewery, cabins, and a couple of hotels) to make it comfortable, and it certainly has more than its share of outdoor adventures, from waterfalls to single track to the ski runs.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Davis, West Virginia

• There are almost 20 ski resorts scattered across the Southern Appalachians, but Davis might be the region’s only true ski town. Canaan Valley Resort and offer a combined 200 acres of lift-served terrain. Canaan Valley is great for beginners and intermediates, with long, usually uncrowded groomers, but I love Timberline’s steeper terrain and gladed runs, which will entertain even the best skiers. has rentals (from $35) and a full array of winter gear, such as the gloves you forgot at home. is the cultural hub of the town, not just for its 18 miles of groomed track and copious backcountry XC options, but for its lively apres vibe. I’ve never had a bad time at Whitegrass. Never.

• The warm months are full of hiking and biking. protects 2,358 acres a mile south of downtown, including a chunk of the 1,000-foot-deep Blackwater Canyon. The hike to Lindy Point is only .3 of a mile, but you should do it, as a prominent rock outcropping gives you a bird’s-eye view into the chasm.Blackwater Falls State Park, in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia, feature the 62-foot cascade of Blackwater Falls, and 20 miles of trails.
• Mountain bikers can pedal the 18-mile , a gravel and dirt forest road that traverses the valley, crossing streams, running through meadows and leading to a variety of singletrack options, like the , which connects with Canaan Loop Road, dropping 600 feet in under three miles of rocky, rooty fun. Check out for rentals (from $50 a day) and more local trail beta than you could ever possibly need.

Where to Eat and Drink in Davis, West Virginia

• brews a variety of beers in town, but is at its best when crafting an IPA. Try their Holy Citra double IPA if you don’t have to wake up early in the morning. has always had what I need to fix that double IPA fog, and is a town staple.

Where to Stay in Davis, West Virginia

• has lodge rooms and cabins, all renovated in the last few years (from $178.50), and you’ll be able to pick up the trail system right out your door.

6. Harrisonburg, Virginia

Population: 51,000

Best Known For: Mountain biking and Shenandoah National Park

Harrisonburg sits in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, sandwiched between Shenandoah National Park to the east and the Allegheny Mountains to the west. It’s one of the larger towns on this list with a busy downtown full of breweries and eclectic restaurants, all with a progressive vibe thanks in part to the presence of James Madison University and its college-student demographic.

Venture past downtown and you hit bucolic pastures quickly, as Shenandoah Valley is known for its patchwork of small farms. Outdoor adventure is also imminently accessible.

Harrisonburg is probably a bike town first, hosting a number of events, from the Shenandoah Mountain Bike Festival to the Alpine Loop Grand Fondo, and the town has earned Bronze Level Ride Center status from the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) for its quality of trails and events and prevalence of good bike shops. But there’s also downhill skiing 15 miles east of town at Massanutten Resort and hiking and fly fishing 25 miles east in Shenandoah National Park.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Harrisonburg, Virginia

• OK, I made a big deal out of the mountain biking around Harrisonburg, but if I have to pick a single ride to do in the area, it’s a road ride of , the 105-mile two-lane blacktop that runs through the center of Shenandoah National Park. This is bucket-list road-ride territory with dozens of overlooks, more than 10,000 feet of climbing if you do the whole thing, and national-park lodging, like , along the route so you can break it up into multiple days. I haven’t done it yet, but friends have told me it’s amazing.
• For a quick hike, head to the Hone Quarry Recreation Area, in George Washington National Forest, 20 miles west of town, and climb the steep but short one-mile out-and-back to a rocky outcropping with long-range views of the Allegheny Mountains. Several trails begin in the recreation area, so you can pick up others if you want to go longer, or hit the 5.5-acre Hone Quarry lake to fish for stocked trout.
• Mountain bikers will love , a stacked-loop system built by the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition in the 75-acre Hillandale Park, with short cross-country loops, jump lines, and a pump track. Stop into for tuneups or in-depth info about the local trails. The place also has beer on tap.

Where to Eat and Drink in Harrisonburg, Virginia

• Harrisonburg is home to half a dozen breweries, but is my favorite. Their downtown Collab House always has a small batch beer on tap that rotates weekly. has an upscale college-bar vibe with a great whiskey selection and southern fare, like the Wafflewich, which places fried chicken between two thin waffles.

Stay: Most of the lodging in Harrisonburg trends towards big chain options, but if you want something more historic, book a room at , a bed and breakfast in a restored Civil War-era home (from $159 a night).

7. Ellijay, Georgia

Population: 1,927

Best Known For: Mountain biking

Ellijay is the unofficial mountain-bike capital of Georgia, with some of the prettiest and most technical singletrack I’ve ridden east of the Mississippi within 10 miles of the town. The mountains aren’t particularly tall (most peaks tap out below 3,000 feet), but the forest is dense and the trails are decidedly old school, with plenty of fall-line descents and climbs. Or go whitewater paddling or check out the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail close to town.

The town is just 75 miles north of downtown Atlanta, and has become a popular weekend getaway for adventure-minded city dwellers there. Ellijay is a little sleepier than many other mountain towns this close to the South’s biggest city, so you come here for the adventure, not the nightlife.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Ellijay, Georgia

• There’s plenty to do around Ellijay, but mountain biking is the main attraction. In general, the singletrack is technical with lots of roots and plenty of steep climbs, and you’re riding through a thick hardwood forest loaded with creeks to cross and waterfalls to see. The 22-mile loop is my favorite ride, because it combines choice pieces of the best downhills in the area on Bear Creek Trail and Pinhoti Trail with plenty of gravel road climbs.
• You can paddle or tube a three-mile section of the Cartecay River upstream from downtown Ellijay with class II-III whitewater. I grew up an hour from Ellijay, and this was the first whitewater I ever paddled. The rents out kayaks (starting at $30) and runs shuttles (starting at $7 per person).

Where to Eat and Drink in Ellijay, Georgia

• Climb up to the covered third-floor patio of The Roof Ellijay, which has southern comfort food, from boiled peanuts to shrimp and grits, with a view of downtown and the green slopes rising beyond. Cartecay River Brewing, a small operation on the outskirts of town, has a beer garden overlooking the river.

Where to Stay in Ellijay, Georgia

• is a mountain-bike camp with cabins and campsites on a property that has its own pump track, bike shop, hot tubs, and restaurant (rustic cabins start at $60 per person). It’s a very cool scene that attracts mountain bikers from all over the southeast; I try to hit Mulberry Gap at least once a year. The facility is 12 miles west of downtown, but you can ride straight from the property and hit some of North Georgia’s most storied trails.

8. Helen, Georgia

Population: 578

Best Known For: Its Bavarian-themed downtown

OK, let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: Helen has a faux Bavarian vibe. Last time I was there, they were pumping polka music through outdoor speakers hidden in the bushes. Towns with themes aren’t for everyone. I’m not even sure they’re for me. But I still love Helen because the cheese factor is harmless and the location of the town is prime.

I’ve used the Bavarian burg as a basecamp for road-cycling adventures, hiking excursions, and fly-fishing escapades for years. You can even (or fish) the Chattahoochee River right through downtown. Helen is surrounded by Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, within striking distance of North Georgia’s best hiking and rock climbing, while Unicoi State Park’s 1,029 acres sit just two miles north of downtown.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Helen, Georgia

• Hikers should head six miles south of Helen to ascend Yonah Mountain, a 3,166-foot-tall knob with a granite face (located on one side, with the main area southwest-facing) that’s been attracting Atlanta-based climbers for decades. But the views from the top are just as sweet if you hike the 4.4-mile out and back , which rises 1,500 feet over a mix of dirt road and single track trail before delivering you to a grassy meadow at the granite-edged summit. On a clear day, you can make out the skyline of Atlanta 80-ish miles south.
  

• The mountains of North Georgia are loaded with high-quality fly fishing, from wide, floatable rivers to tight backcountry creeks. The Chatahoochee is the obvious draw for anglers visiting Helen, although the tubers do a good job of scaring away the fish in the section through town. For quieter water, I head to Smith Creek, within Unicoi State Park, where a mile-long section of the stream below Unicoi Lake is known for producing foot-long rainbow and brown trout. Ìęeven offers an intro to fly fishing class if you’re new to the game.
• A number of classic road-cycling rides begin and end in Helen, including the classic , which takes in six iconic mountain climbs surrounding the town. I’m not always game for a century ride, so I typically choose the the , which is part of the annual Gran Fondo, a large group ride that focuses on camaraderie over racing, on a smaller loop through Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, but still climbing more than 1,700 feet.

Where to Stay in Helen, Georgia

• Unicoi State Park has a variety of lodging options, from lodge rooms to barrel cabins. Check out the , which are fully-furnished safari tents within walking distance of Smith Creek (from $149 a night).

Where to Eat and Drink in Helen, Georgia

• You’re in a cute facsimile of Germany, so you should probably get a bratwurst and pretzel at Hobfrauhaus, and then wander down the street to King Ludwig’s Beer Garden and have a German lager outside.

9. Travelers Rest, South Carolina

Population: 8,486

Best Known For: Greenway pedaling and the Great Blue Wall

The western border of South Carolina is defined by a string of mountains that rise steeply from the Piedmont in a dramatic fashion known as the Great Blue Wall. Travelers Rest sits at the base of that wall of peaks, making it the perfect basecamp for exploring the area’s lakes, waterfalls, and thick, jungle-like forests.

It would be easy to label Travelers Rest as just a bedroom community for the larger city of Greenville, South Carolina (you can ride your bike the ten miles between the two towns, after all). But Travelers Rest has its own small-town charm as well as access to the Upstate’s copious outdoor gems, from steep cycling routes to steeper rock climbing routes and everything in between.

I’ve watched downtown Travelers Rest grow with new restaurants and breweries over the last several years, thanks largely to the development of the Swamp Rabbit Trail, a 17-mile paved rail trail, popular with cyclists and runners, that begins on the edge of town and finishes in Greenville. There’s also downhill mountain biking, rock climbing, and plenty of hiking.

Best șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs in Travelers Rest, South Carolina

• Travelers Rest offers quick access to a trio of public lands. Let’s start with Paris Mountain State Park, eight miles east of downtown, which has almost 20 miles of mountain-bike trails. The park is known for its technical climbs and fast, flowing downhill. A 10-mile lollipop loop, the , takes in the best trails, including Sulphur Springs Trail, which is loaded with sweeping, banked turns and drops.
• Higher up on that great blue wall, Jones Gap State Park and Caesars Head State Park combine to form the 17,000-acre Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area, with more than 60 miles of hiking trails. The Middle Saluda River offers quintessential backcountry trout fishing, thanks to the tight corridor and steep nature of the stream, which drops 1,000 feet in four miles. Or hike the easy to Jones Gap Falls on Jones Gap Trail.
  

  

• A 2,684-tall granite dome, the Cherokee landmark Table Rock, is the centerpiece of Table Rock State Park, 20 miles west of town. It’s a beacon for climbers looking for a multi-pitch adventure with a long approach hike and mega exposure. Access is limited to certain sections of the monolith because of peregrine-falcon nesting, but the of the rock are open. has all the gear you could need, as well as bike and boat rentals (from $20 for a half day).

Where to Stay in Travelers Rest, South Carolina

• Splurge for a room at , a high-end lodge owned by the retired pro cyclist George Hincapie that draws inspiration from European chateaus in its architecture and cuisine. The inn also has an onsite sauna and cold plunge, as well as a fleet of rental bikes that come pre-loaded with Hincapie’s favorite training routes that begin from the property (rooms start at $378 a night).

Where to Eat and Drink in Travelers Rest, South Carolina

• The food scene in Travelers Rest has come a long way in recent years, so you can get everything from Caribbean fusion to street tacos. Check out Monkey Wrench Smoke House for BBQ staples like pulled pork and brisket, served on an expansive back lawn. Swamp Rabbit Brewery, which is known for its award-winning stout, sits in downtown.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national-parks columnist. He’s lived in multiple mountain ranges and on both coasts, but settled down in the Southern Appalachians 20 years ago and has yet to regret it.

For more by this author, see:

The 10 Best Bike Towns in America, Ranked

8 Surf Towns Where You Can Learn the Sport and the Culture

The Best Ways to Get șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű in West Virginia

The post 9 Beautiful Mountain Towns in the Southeast appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

The U.S. was built for cars. I’m talking about our infrastructure: the interstate system, traffic laws, speed limits, and streets. They’re all designed with vehicles in mind. And yet, some communities have embraced and are moving toward the bicycle over the car.

These towns have done so much: created bike-lane infrastructure and robust greenway systems, leveraged their natural attributes by building singletrack, and put in signage and lower speed limits to make country roads safer. Bike towns vary wildly, some filled with people who pedal to work and shuttle toddlers around via cargo bikes, others good for those who exist solely to shred dirt trails or ascend mountain roads.

To create this list of the Best Small Bike Towns in America, I studied data collected each year by , a non-profit that ranks the “Best Places to Bike” based on factors like local speed limits and cycling infrastructure, giving each community a score from 0 to 100. The average city in the U.S. scores in the mid-20s, while the most bike-friendly places rate in the 70s to low 90s.

I doubled down on data by bringing in info from the , a non-profit that promotes cycling through education and advocacy, and rates communities with Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze status dependent on a town’s numbers of bike lanes and lane connectivity.

Safe streets and being able to commute to school and work are important, but other factors determine a great bike town, like the number of dirt trails and mountains nearby to ascend. So I also sought data from Ìęwhich catalogs the number of mountain-bike trails within feasible reach of each community, and looked for towns that also have access both to world-class road-cycling routes and lonely gravel roads to explore. (Trailforks is owned by șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc., the same company that owns șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű.)

I wanted to focus on small towns across the U.S., so I capped populations at 100,000, which left out some big hitters like Boulder, Colorado, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, both outstanding places to live if you want to bike. My compliments to those communities—please keep up the good work.

While I used as many data points as I could find, this list also contains some subjectivity based on my own experience. For example, Park City, Utah, is in here even though it receives a middling score from People for Bikes. Why? The mountain biking is amazing and there’s so much of it. I also included towns that go above and beyond for commuters, others that have vibrant social cycling scenes (like group rides and events), and others with epic road routes.

Of course, some cities do it all, and I put them at the top of the list. Here are the 10 Best Small Bike Towns in America, ranked.

1. Crested Butte, Colorado

Population: 1,654

People for Bikes Score: 87

League of American Bicyclists: Gold

Why I Chose It: This small Colorado ski town could have earned a spot on this list solely based on its assessments in People for Bikes and the League of American Bicyclists for its bike infrastructure and safe streets. But Crested Butte rose to the top of the pack because it’s also a fantastic mountain-bike mecca, with a lift-served downhill park on the edge of town and access to more than 750 miles of trails within the greater Gunnison Valley.

Oh, and it’s an underrated road-cycling destination, with mixed gravel and paved rides beginning in town and climbing to scenic lookouts like Ohio Pass and Kebler Pass, where the Elk Mountains rise ahead in a mix of craggy peaks and aspen-clad slopes.

Number of Bike Trails: 247

Most Popular Bike Trail on Trailforks: tops the lists. This eight-mile, mostly downhill high-alpine trail begins at Schofield Pass and drops more than 1,000 feet, passing through wildflower meadows with views of the Gothic Valley and Mount Crested Butte.

2. Davis, California

Population: 68,000

People for Bikes Score: 77, highest ranked medium-sized city in its report

League of American Bicyclists Status: Platinum

Why I Chose It: Davis, a college town on the outskirts of Sacramento, is a bike commuter’s dream. It was the first city in the U.S. to implement dedicated bike lanes, back in 1967, and has only improved its bike infrastructure since. Currently, more than have bike lanes, giving locals 102 miles of those and 63 miles of off-street paths to pedal. Many intersections have bike-specific signals, and there are even bike boulevards, meaning streets shut down to motorized vehicles. Davis has been repeatedly touted as the most bike-friendly city in the U.S. by organizations like People for Bikes, and the League of American Bicyclists estimates that 22 percent of residents commute regularly by bike.

Number of Bike Trails: 7. Davis proper isn’t much of a mountain-bike community–most of the in-town trails are short paths cutting through neighborhoods and parks. But there are good trail systems within the greater Sacramento Valley, known for its patchwork of vegetable and fruit farms, including the 20 miles of trail at Rockville Hills Regional Park 30 minutes south.

Most Popular Bike Trail on Trailforks: , in Rockville Hills, connects you from the trailhead parking lot to the gems within the stacked-loop system, including Lake Front, which has a fun, easy downhill before skirting Grey Goose Lake.

Ìę3. Jackson, Wyoming

Population: 10,698

People for Bikes Score: 79

League of American Bicyclists Status: Gold

Why I Chose It: Jackson Hole made this list for its bike-lane connectivity. More than 100 miles of paved trails run through and beyond town, with 115 miles of singletrack surrounding it—and that’s just within the valley known as Jackson Hole. Not only can you bike to the grocery store on a designated route, you can pedal into the National Wildlife Refuge and Grand Teton National Park on a paved trail (it’s 20 miles from Jackson to Jenny Lake inside the park), with views of the jagged Teton Range and herds of elk.

Trailheads for popular singletrack begin right on the edge of neighborhood streets, and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s extensive lift-served routes are 15 minutes from the town center. Biking is woven into the fabric of the community, through the extensive infrastructure and events like bike swaps, youth programs, and In June, a landslide closed a 10-mile stretch of the Teton Pass mountain road for three weeks, impeding the commute between Jackson and less expensive communities in Idaho. The silver lining? Cyclists enjoyed a car-free pedal to the top of the pass. Teton Pass is open now, and classic rides like Parallel Trail, a 1.5-mile downhill with lots of jumps, are once again easy to access.

Number of Bike Trails: 105

Most Popular Bike Trail on Trailforks: takes top honors. This beginner-friendly three-mile cross-country trail begins at the Cache Creek Trailhead and has a number of connectors that allow you to form fast, rolling loops with other trails in the same system, like , for nearby post-work romps.

4. Aspen, Colorado

Population: 6,741

People for Bikes Score: 75

League of American Bicyclists Status: Gold

Why I Chose It: Aspen checks all the boxes, scoring high marks from People for Bikes and the League of American Bicyclists thanks to its infrastructure and low-speed streets. The city of manages more than 22 miles of paved bike trails connecting parks within the town’s limits, and the Rio Grande Trail offers 42 miles of no-traffic asphalt from Aspen to Glenwood Springs.

Aspen also has a bike-share program in the form of , which has stations throughout the Roaring Fork Valley and offers 30-minute free rides in town.

Aspen-Snowmass and the Roaring Fork Valley was the first destination in Colorado to earn Gold Level Ride Center status from the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA). The Roaring Fork Valley has more than 300 miles of trails, from lift-served descents at Snowmass Mountain Resort to hut-to-hut bikepacking through some of the cabin system. And then you have the road routes, like the bucket-list-worthy 16-mile roundtrip from downtown to Maroon Bells, where the twin 14,000-foot Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak rise above the placid Maroon Lake.

Number of Bike Trails: 191

Most Popular Bike Trail: The crown goes to , a 4.4-mile downhill romp in Snowmass’ Bike Park that is full of berms and rollers from top to bottom. Both beginners and pros love it as being fun regardless of how fast you tackle it.

5. Ashland, Oregon

Population: 21,285

People for Bikes Score: 70

League of American Bicyclists Status: Gold

Why I Chose It: Ashland is celebrated for its annual Shakespeare Festival, but this southern Oregon town deserves to be just as famous for its biking. The only question is which riders have it better here, the roadies or the mountain bikers? Road cyclists have the 55-mile Cascade Siskiyou Scenic Bikeway, which begins and ends downtown and climbs 5,000 feet out of Bear Valley, with views of iconic landmarks like the volcanic Pilot Rock and the 9,000-foot tall Mount McLoughlin.

Hundreds of miles of rural paved roads extend into the surrounding Siskiyou Range. Mountain bikers enjoy the 100-mile trail system in the 15,000-acre , where singletrack ascends to the top of 7,532-foot Mount Ashland and runs all the way back into town, more than 5,000 feet below. runs shuttles ($30 per person), so you can skip the climb up Mount Ashland and focus on the descent during your 13- to 25-mile (depending on the route) ride.

All cyclists get to pedal the 20-mile Bear Creek Greenway that runs north from the edge of town, connecting Ashland with surrounding communities. Fun fact: Ashland is home to the United Bicycle Institute, a school for bike mechanics and builders, that has offered one- and two-week programs since 1981.

Number of Bike Trails: 86 trails

Most Popular Bike Trail on Trailforks: Locals love the two-mile , which drops almost 1,000 feet of elevation in a series of machine-built berms and tabletops. (Hand-built trails are narrower and often more technical.)

6. Park City, Utah

Population: 8,374

People for Bikes Score: 48

League of American Bicyclists Status: Gold

Why I Chose It: Park City’s People for Bikes score isn’t stellar. While at 48 it’s well above the U.S. average, it still doesn’t crack their list of the top 10 small cities due to the city’s lack of bike-safety projects and like grocery stores and hospitals. But its ranking is climbing—up 15 points, from 33, in the last three years—and the town is interlaced by an impressive of non-motorized bike paths. Park City also has a share fleet of electric bikes, and the city introduced a that actually pays people to commute during winter.

All of that is great, but I chose Park City for this list because of its mountain biking. It is an IMBA Gold-Level Ride Center, with more than of singletrack extending directly from town into the Wasatch Mountains. I live in a good city for mountain bikers (Asheville) but am jealous: the you can pedal in Park City is absolutely bonkers: this might be the best town in America to live in if you’re a mountain biker. The only downside is the trails’ seasonality; you’re not riding dirt in the winter, but that’s why they make skis.

Number of Bike Trails: 629

Most Popular Bike Trail on Trailforks: The Wasatch Crest Trail is a classic mountain-bike ride in Park City, running for 13 miles west of the city with plenty of high-alpine ridgeline singletrack and accompanying big-mountain views. Almost all of the trails are amazing, but locals love , a short A-line section of the Wasatch Crest Trail, with crazy exposure on a knife-edge ridge.

7. Harbor Springs, Michigan

Population: 1,271

People for Bikes Score: 92

League of American Bicyclists Status: Not Ranked (communities must apply for consideration)

Why I Chose It: Harbor Springs, a small waterfront village on Lake Michigan, earned an outstanding score in People for Bikes’ latest rankings for connectivity: cyclists can pedal everywhere safely, from grocery stores to schools to parks, thanks to low-traffic, low-speed streets (that are pretty flat, too), and the Little Traverse Wheelway, a 26-mile greenway that connects Harbor Springs with several communities and parks along Little Traverse Bay.

Pedaling isn’t just relegated to in-town cruising, though. The place has a vibrant mountain-biking scene thanks largely to , a lift-served bike park with 22 miles of mountain-bike trails. There’s a mix of trails for all levels, while cyclists just looking to cruise will find several miles of wide paths at the and the .

Number of Bike Trails: 54

Most Popular Bike Trail on Trailforks: The short , a double-black downhill trail at the Highlands Bike Park, gets top honors for its bevy of wooden features like jumps, drops, and berms.

8. Provincetown, Massachusetts

Population: 3,664

People for Bikes Score: 96

League of American Bicyclists Status: Silver

Why I Chose It: Provincetown had the second-highest score of any town in the U.S. thanks to its suite of low speed limits, multiple bike paths, a dedication to the commuting cause, and the lack of hills. The secluded island community of Mackinac Island, Michigan, had the only higher score, and while I love the idea of a town that bans cars, I ultimately left the place off this list because of its seclusion and the inherent difficulty of living and working there. (Mackinac only has 500 year-round residents.)

Provincetown has a Bicycle Committee that plans projects and prints an annual . A beach town on the tip of Cape Cod, it was essentially built for single-speed cruising—think pedaling to the ocean and then to get ice cream—and that sort of low-speed, casual cruising remains a fixture of the lifestyle. The year-round population is just over 3,000, and yet Provincetown has five bike shops. A five-mile loop trail traverses the forests and dunes outside of town, with spurs to beaches facing the Atlantic.

Number of Bike Trails: 21

Most Popular Trail on Trailforks: Province Lands Bike Trail is the main attraction with a hilly, paved 5.25 mile loop through sand dunes and beech forest. Check out the 3.5-mile , which connects two popular beaches on opposite ends of the Cape.

9. Sewanee, Tennessee

Population: 2,922

People for Bikes Score: 83

League of American Bicyclists Status: None, but the University of the South in town has a Bronze ranking

Why I Chose It: Sewanee is a small college town on the top of the Cumberland Plateau in Middle Tennessee with beautiful Collegiate Gothic architecture and stunning fall foliage. Life revolves around the University of the South, and the community in general has the languid pace of a tiny southern mountain town, which, frankly, is ideal for someone riding around. Sewanee is the number-one-ranked Bike Friendly Community in the South, according to People for Bikes, based on the low-traffic streets and bike access to essential destinations like schools, jobs, and grocery stores.

Cyclists could probably live a car-free (or car-light) life, but there’s more here than just going from A to B. The 22-mile Perimeter Loop is a mix of singletrack, double track, and pavement that encircles the university’s campus and provides access to other trails in the area, while the 12-mile Mountain Goat Trail is a paved off-street option that traces an old railway from Sewanee northeast to the town of Monteagle. Road cyclists can create 25-mile-plus loops using the country roads that descend and ascend the 1,000-foot-tall Cumberland Plateau.

Number of Trails: 34

Most Popular Trail on Trailforks: The 14-mile singletrack portion of the is the locals’ favorite option thanks to its cross-country flow and mild technical difficulty.

10. Fayetteville, Arkansas

Population: 99,285

People for Bikes Score: 50

League of American Bicyclists Status: Gold

Fayetteville barely made it under our population cap of 100,000, but this southern mountain town is a great sleeper destination for cyclists. It may not get quite the attention of hot towns like Bentonville, but Fayetteville is surrounded by the Ozark Mountains, with 50 miles of singletrack in town and the nearby ridges, not to mention hundreds of miles of gravel roads.

Within the city, cruisers have 50 miles of paved bike trails, and the future is only looking brighter. Fayetteville’s council a community where every resident is within a two-minute pedal of an established trail, and the town is building an average of two to three miles of paved trail every year. Fayetteville is also the beginning of the , a 40-mile regional bike path that connects communities throughout Northwestern Arkansas.

Number of Trails: 154

Most Popular Trail on Trailforks: Mountain bikers love , an intermediate flow trail that connects with two downhill trails, Red Rum and Chunky.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national-parks columnist. He rides his bike everywhere around his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, even though it has a poor People for Bikes score because of a lack of .

For more by this author, see:

8 Surf Towns Where You Can Learn the Sport and the Culture

The Best Ways to Get șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű in West Virginia

The 10 Best National Parks in Canada

The 5 Best National Park Road Trips in the U.S.

The post The 10 Best Bike Towns in America, Ranked appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

We get it—not everyone wants to pitch a tent and forego showers when visiting our public lands. And honestly, because of a recent boom in new national-park lodging, you don’t have to. In 2020, I moved into my minivan and traveled to nearly every park in the U.S., penning dispatches about them for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. When I wasn’t catnapping in the back of my vehicle, I occasionally splurged on fun motels and lodges in gateway towns.

Whether you’re headed to the rust red maw of the Grand Canyon or the wooded summits of Great Smoky Mountains, loads of new hotels and glamping retreats are popping up to meet the demands of park visitors, whose numbers have exploded since the pandemic. From retro-futuristic roadside motels to Dolly Parton-themed resorts and remodeled national-park lodges, there’s a little something for everyone on this list.

1. Ofland Escalante

Closest national park: Bryce Canyon, Utah

Best for: Chic glamping, tiny homes, post-hike hot tubs

With its modernist cabins, spa-inspired bathhouses, and food truck that serves up Americana fare (like meatloaf patty melts and cornbread French toast), this newer outpost on Southern Utah’s stunning Highway 12 just rebranded and added deluxe cabins in 2024 and is a true outdoor-lover’s paradise. Situated a mere ten minutes from Hole in the Rock Road, the washboard byway leading to many of Grand Staircase Escalante’s top slot canyons, is the ultimate, pet-friendly base camp for exploring the Beehive State’s red-rock country.

An hour’s drive delivers you to the colorful hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, while a 90-minute car ride gets you up to my personal Utah fave, Capitol Reef. In the evening, enjoy a steamy outdoor shower, followed by a drive-in movie with free popcorn at Ofland’s own big-screen theater, or plop into the property’s pool and hot tub before enjoying the snap, crackle, and pop of your personal fire pit. If it’s not too hot, spend an afternoon clambering around in Peek-a-Boo and Spooky Slot Canyons.

2. Populus Hotel

Closest national park: Rocky Mountain, Colorado

Best for: Eco-friendly amenities, luxe dining, nearby art museums

Set in downtown Denver, a stone’s throw from the State Capitol, the Denver Art Museum, and Civic Center Park, is making history in 2024 as the nation’s first carbon-positive hotel. It has been designed from the ground up to utilize solar and wind power, highlight locally sourced ingredients from Colorado in each of its dining concepts, and closely monitor all emissions so that remaining carbon is balanced out by supporting projects that capture carbon elsewhere. The hotel has already planted over 70,000 trees (and counting).

A stay at Populus is ideal for the Denver-bound traveler who wants to experience the best of two worlds: city-focused creature comforts with the option to hike amidst the Rocky Mountain National Park tundra or scramble up . With the Wild Basin entrance roughly 66 miles away, it’s an easy day trip to the park. Rooms here are jaw-droppingly gorgeous and themed after the state’s famous aspen trees, with ultra-soft earth-toned bedding, natural forest sounds in the elevators, and eyelet-shaped windows overlooking the Denver skyline.

Chow down on post-hike grub with dreamy sunset views at the on-site rooftop restaurant Stellar Jay or enjoy fresh, seasonal Colorado fare at the downstairs restaurant Pasque, both helmed by executive chef Ian Wortham.

3. The Pathmaker Hotel

Closest national park: Acadia, Maine

Best for: Exploring downtown Bar Harbor, ocean strolls, simple elegance

With a primo location in downtown Bar Harbor, two blocks from the Bar Island Trail, whale-watching tours and the delicious, creamy rolls at Stewman’s Lobster Pound, opens in late 2024. Featuring suites, double queen, and classic king-sized rooms decorated in elegant neutral tones, this hotel also offers kitchenettes with mini-fridges and microwaves. What’s even better is that breakfast is included, making it easy to start your morning hike up neighboring or a stroll around Sieur de Monts’ historic gardens with a full belly.

It’s also worth noting that Acadia is home to 45 miles of crushed-stone carriage roads, which are all bike- and dog-friendly. Rent a bicycle at Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop, a five-minute walk from the hotel’s front door, and spend a day zipping around the park without your car before relaxing with a pot of tea and freshly made popovers at Jordan Pond House–it was one of my favorite things I did on my giant parks road trip.

4. The Rusty Parrot Lodge and Spa

Closest national park: Grand Teton, Wyoming

Best for: Spa getaways, Jackson ski and hiking trips, luxury mountain vibes

Just remodeled and reopened in early July, following a devastating 2019 fire, this Jackson Hole favorite is back and better than ever. rooms and suites boast a bit of a chic hunting-lodge feel, complete with stone fireplaces, tufted headboards, and the occasional pop of cowboy-themed art.

Fly fish in the Snake River, feel the leg burn on a hike up , or pop on over to the nearby National Elk Refuge for a . When you’re done exploring the toothy Teton Range, fill up on Idaho Trout Saltimbocca at the lodge’s Wild Sage Restaurant, or indulge in a CBD-infused herbal sugar scrub at its Body Sage Spa. Either way, you’ll leave feeling full and rejuvenated.

5. Wildhaven Yosemite

Closest national park: Yosemite, California

Best for: Affordable glamping, Yosemite Valley exploration, communal hangs

is making waves this year as the newest glamping resort outside the Free Solo-famous Yosemite National Park. Situated 34 miles from the Arch Rock Entrance Station on 36 rugged acres of rolling Sierra Nevada foothills, the property offers 30 safari tents and 12 tiny cabins, well-appointed with amenities like fire pits and private decks.

A communal BBQ area boasts grills and shaded picnic tables, while glamping sites share communal bathrooms and showers. After a day of hiking and snapping photos of from Cook’s Meadow, recharge your electronics with electricity access in every tent.

Complimentary coffee and tea help start your day off, and every stay at Wildhaven includes access to on-site classes and events, like Yogasemite yoga classes and Sierra Cider tastings, for when you’re not huffing and puffing up Upper Yosemite Falls for those epic views. Looking for even more regional glamping news? A top national-park lodging purveyor, , has announced that it’s also opening a brand-new Yosemite location near Big Oak Flat in 2025.

6. Field Station Joshua Tree

Closest national park: Joshua Tree, California

Best for: Mountain bikers, large groups, pool hangouts

are designed with the intrepid outdoorsperson in mind. Bike racks for your hardtail are in every room, hooks for hanging packs are in ample supply, and an on-site gear shop makes it easy to grab any of the Ten Essentials you might have forgotten before speeding off and into the park, which is just 13 miles (a 20- to 25-minute drive) away by car. If you’re a diehard coffee drinker, you’ll be thrilled that the lodge has a small espresso bar, Little Station Coffee & Kitchen, which serves everything from cold brew to toasted bagels to start your morning out right.

Choose between standard king-bed rooms and double-queen bunk rooms (which sleep up to 10) and have plenty of space for your whole crew to spread out and save cash, then head on over to the North Entrance (it’s the closest one) of Joshua Tree and enjoy epic trails like the or bouldering along the formation-filled .

When you’re not adventuring in the park, don’t miss the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Museum in town, which exhibits loads of large-scale found-object art, like TVs and rubber tires.

7. Dollywood’s HeartSong Lodge & Resort

Closest national park: Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee and North Carolina

Best for: Families, pool time, East Coast hikers

Opened in November 2023, seems tailor-made for families traveling with young kids. Even the hotel’s standard-issue rooms offer fun extras, like murphy beds, sleeper sofas, clothing-storage space, and mini fridges. Lovely mid-century modern furnishings combine with a massive stone fireplace in the four-story, atrium-style lobby, where guests can chill out when they’re not splashing about in the large pool complex or dining at one of the lodge’s four restaurant options.

Though the resort is clearly geared towards travelers heading into the Dollywood theme park (there’s complimentary trolley service from the hotel), it’s also a brief 15-mile (20-minute) drive to Great Smoky Mountains’ Sugarlands Visitor Center. From there, visitors can easily drive to the exceedingly popular , or gaze out at verdant, forested hills at Newfound Gap, which marks the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. Best of all, adjoining rooms and roomy family suites with cozy bunk beds make it easy for you and your loved ones to spend loads of time together, whether that’s in the lodge or trekking to the park’s many rushing waterfalls.

8. Flamingo Lodge

Closest national park: Everglades, Florida

Best for: Birders, paddlers, Tropical Florida ambiance

Initially opened in the 1960s as part of the National Park Service’s retro-futuristic Mission 66 Project, Flamingo Lodge was forced to shut its doors in 2005, after suffering extensive damage from Hurricane Wilma, when storm surges swelled up to nine feet. Thankfully, , which is named after the distinctive pink birds that once migrated to the area in droves, before plume-hunters nearly poached them out of existence, has been fully rebuilt and reopened in October 2023.

It’s the only non-camping, non-houseboat option for accommodations inside the parklodging available inside Everglades National Park, and given the park’s enormous acreage (at 1.5 million acres, it is roughly twice the size of Yosemite), creates a welcome bastion for beachgoers exploring the state’s coastal prairie and boaters enjoying the sunshine and warm, tropical air of the Florida Bay.

Inside the lodge’s four eco-friendly container buildings are 24 spacious guest rooms, ranging from studios to two-bedroom suites, in clean neutral hues with the occasional pop of tropical jewel tones. Also onsite are a restaurant serving organic, locally sourced cuisine (think breakfast burritos and pineapple pulled-pork sandwiches) and a marina, where visitors can rent anything from bicycles to double kayaks and pontoon boats. Spend a day cycling the and keep your eyes peeled for huge herons.

9. Americana Motor Hotel

Closest national park: Grand Canyon, Arizona

Best for: Travelers with dogs, EV road trips, hipster pool scene

There’s so much to love about the Jetsons’-style that it’s hard to fit it all into a single paragraph, but we’ll do our darndest. Set in the northern Arizona city of Flagstaff, one hour from the Grand Canyon and 90 minutes from Petrified Forest, this vintage-style motor lodge should check every box on your Route 66 daydream list. First of all, there are EV chargers aplenty, free morning coffee, and communal fire pits with outdoor hang space.

But this site truly goes above and beyond the standard-issue motel amenities by offering loaner telescopes for optimized night-sky viewing, year-round heated pool, and a fenced-in “barkyard” with a dedicated dog-wash station to rinse off your muddy trail pooch. They’ve even got free hotel bicycles for those wishing to take a spin around Flagstaff.

The interiors of the rooms are just as fabulous as the resort’s exterior, with space-age dĂ©cor (think astronaut sculptures and galaxy wall art), walk-in showers, and disco balls. Hungry? After a trek down to or a stroll along the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, fill up at the Americana’s Pacific Mexican seafood truck, Baja Mar, which dishes out badass shrimp ceviche and battered fish tacos to hungry hikers.

Emily Pennington is a freelance journalist specializing in outdoor adventure and national parks. She’s traveled to public lands on all seven continents and visited all 63 U.S. national parks. Her book, , was released in 2023. This year, she’s getting more acquainted with her new backyard, Rocky Mountain National Park.

The post The Best New Hotels with Easy Access to U.S. National Parks appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Rolling hills, scenic state parks, river views, and southern cooking. These are only some of the things that Tennessee has to offer cyclists. If you’ve never biked on Tennessee’s quiet back roads or through its historic small towns, you’re in for a treat. has created a collection of 52 road cycling routes with the help of Shannon Burke, cycling route developer and owner of Velo View Bike Tours in Chattanooga, to make finding the perfect ride easy. Each route was carefully designed to optimize the cycling experience for safety, fun, and scenery. To learn more, we heard from Burke and Jenni Veal, rural destination development manager at the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development. Here’s what they had to say.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: What makes Tennessee a premier cycling destination?Ìę

Shannon Burke: Tennessee has a wealth of low-traffic scenic back roads that are perfect for road cycling adventures. But more than the abundance of great cycling roads, the state has an incredible diversity of landscapes, from massive climbs to rolling hills to flat farm roads, making it an ideal destination for road cyclists of all levels. Tennessee’s mild climate also makes it possible to ride year-round.

How can cyclists get access to detailed navigation and route information?

Burke: Bike Tennessee makes it easy for cyclists to find safe and scenic road cycling routes across the state. Each route listed on the site connects to a route map and description, which can be downloaded to a bike computer or phone app. The Ride with GPS maps also include the option to print a paper cue sheet with turn-by-turn directions. In addition to the Ride with GPS features, the website includes short descriptions of each route, so you know what to expect on the ride, including distance, elevation, terrain, and points of interest.

As a professional cycling guide, why do you think these routes offer visitors the best Tennessee cycling experience?

Burke: I followed the same approach I use for my guided tours when designing these routes for Bike Tennessee. I made sure we were checking the following boxes for riders:

Is the traffic low enough to permit a safe and enjoyable ride?

Are the roads fun to ride?

Is the landscape scenic?

Are there scenic overlooks, historic markers, or points of interest along the way?

Does the route have amenities for travelers, such as restrooms and food options?

These are only some of the considerations we made while designing routes for Bike Tennessee to offer exceptional road cycling experiences.

What are some of the top attractions featured on the mapped routes?

Jenni Veal: All 52 Bike Tennessee routes travel the state’s most scenic areas. All together, the routes cross 53 counties, including 14 state parks. Each ride is mapped as a loop or out-and-back to highlight points of interest like quaint downtowns, historic sites, and some of the best food in the South. These are some of my favorite sites to explore:

• The and both utilize the beautiful Memphis River Parks system and cross “Ol’ Man River” along the Big River Crossing bridge into West Memphis, Arkansas, and include a trip through Mud Island and Harbor Town.
• The , near historic Greeneville in northeast Tennessee, starts at David Crockett Birthplace State Park, situated along the Nolichucky River. The state park offers river rentals, camping, and interpretive exhibits—and you can buy a Davy Crockett–style raccoon hat at the visitor center.
• The , near Mountain City in northeast Tennessee, follows a section of Watauga Lake and ends at two award-winning Tennessee wineries: Watauga Lake Winery and Villa Nove Vineyards.
• The challenge, in middle Tennessee, starts in historic downtown Lynchburg, best known as the home of Jack Daniel’s Distillery. Cyclists can end their ride with a distillery tour and a meal at any number of famous Lynchburg restaurants.
• The , at Pinson Mounds State Archeological Park in West Tennessee, preserves more than 15 Native American mounds. Some are more than 70 feet high and 2,000 years old.

How can visitors start planning the perfect cycling-inspired adventure in Tennessee?Ìę

Veal: The Bike Tennessee website makes it easy to search for routes on the map or by a nearby city. Once you know what region and route you’ll be exploring, recommendations for other things to do in the area populate at the bottom of the page, making planning a cycling vacation easier than ever. The Ride with GPS Ambassador pages also include photos and points of interest—places to eat, restrooms, and attractions—as well as website links for more localized tourism information. Additionally, you can find a variety of fun happening year-round across the state.

Tennessee offers visitors world-class music, live entertainment, family-friendly experiences, charming communities, innovative and classic culinary creations, renowned scenic beauty, and outdoor adventure—all centered at the crossroads of rich history and unrivaled hospitality. Vacations “sound perfect” in Tennessee. Visit and follow @TNvacation on, , and for travel inspiration.

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Health and wellness is highly personal. Sometimes our bodies want a challenging mountain trek and a big dose of carbs. Or, after I’ve adventured hard, I might crave a nourishing week of yoga or a few days of planted-based meals and mindfulness sessions, preferably on a beach somewhere. Other times, I long for the support of a like-minded community while exploring a new place.

Whatever your needs, what you’ll find below aren’t your typical . They’re for active people who like to travel in some of the most beautiful places in the world. I chose spots with a variety of price ranges that meet a number of different goals, from hiking in spectacular mountains to surfing perfect swells to chilling out at a zen center. Better yet, I’ve been to many of them and share my personal take on why they’re the best places to recharge. Here’s to your health. Now get planning.

Aro Ha Wellness Retreat, Glenorchy, New Zealand

Best For: Hikers who want to explore the Southern Alps

The Experience: The Tolkien-worthy views are breathtakingÌęat this 21-acre, just outside of Queenstown on the South Island. Sparkling Lake Wakatipu and the snow-capped peaks of New Zealand’s Southern Alps are on full display from the 20 suites, yoga deck, and outdoor plunge pool of its minimalist lodge. Daily, guided hikes immerse guests in the beauty of the mountains. There are treks for all fitness levels, from mindful walks through towering beech and medicinal Manuka trees to quad-burning climbs of up to 10 miles, including a portion of the famed Routeburn Track. Six-to-eight-day retreats are designed around the concept of rewilding mind, body, and spirit.

A typical day starts with a sunrise vinyasa flow class, followed by a bowl of fennel coconut muesli, then a three- to-four hour hike and a well-earned plant-based lunch like veggie Pad Thai. Free time allows for a therapeutic massage or kayak outing before an afternoon workshop in fermentation or journaling. Dinner might be accompanied by a tart cherry and magnesium shot (alcohol and caffeine aren’t allowed) and all the fresh air and physical exercise guarantees you won’t have any trouble falling asleep. Aro-Hā bills itself as a mind-body reboot, but it’s also great conditioning if you want to extend your stay three days and tackle the full 20-mile Routeburn Track.

The Cost: All-inclusive six-day retreats from $4,320

Ojo Caliente Spa and Resort, Ojo Caliente, New Mexico

Best For: Hot spring devotees who love the southwest

The Experience: This located halfway between Abiquiu and Taos is steeped in history and healing. For thousands of years, Northern Pueblo communities made pilgrimages to the area’s restorative thermal waters. When Ojo Caliente opened in 1868, it was considered the country’s first health spa. Today, the resort includes a farm-to-table restaurant, suites with kiva fireplaces and vintage trailers, and a spa. But the sulfur-free, therapeutic hot springs are why people come. You can devise a soaking circuit to soothe whatever ails you. A pool of iron-rich water provides an immune boost, while the arsenic spring may help achy muscles. The soda pool promises digestive relief and if you’re feeling down, the lithia pool is purportedly a natural mood enhancer. There’s also a mud pool where you can cover your body in purifying clay and new bathhouses with saunas and steam rooms. Drop in for a day soak or create a DIY wellness weekend and join vinyasa flow sessions in the yoga yurt and bike and hike the high-elevation trails right at the resort’s doorstep. The trailhead for the cottonwood-lined 1.8-mile Bosque Loop is steps from the lobby. Nearby, the Abiquiu Lake Vista Trail system offers sensational views of the 5,200-acre reservoir, Cerro Pedernal mesa, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s beloved summer home, Ghost Ranch.

The Cost: Rooms from $239 + communal soaking from $45

Euphoria Retreat, Peloponnese, Greece

Best For: History buffs who want to sightsee while they sweat

The Experience: Programs at Euphoria combine the physical training of ancient Spartan warriors and the wellness wisdom of Hippocrates, with influences of Taoist philosophy, traditional Chinese medicine, and the latest science-based therapies mixed in. The resembles a medieval village on 90 acres of hills in Mystras, a 13th-century town outside of Sparta in the Peloponnese region of southern Greece. A sprawling four-story spa complex is built around a heated, sphere-shaped pool with an underwater soundtrack of whale songs. All guests have access to the Byzantine hammam (a type of steam bath), salt therapy room, infrared sauna, sensory deprivation pool, and gym. You can also customize your vacation with a la carte treatments, like a detox cupping massage or sign up for a retreat, like the Spartan Spirit of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. This multi-sport program doubles as a sightseeing tour over three, five, or seven days. Every day you’ll be challenged with two to three hours of physical exercise. You might trek to the 7,890-foot peak of Mount Taygetus mountain or go rock climbing at Lagada, one of the best sports crags in Greece. Meals are customized for each guest based on a test that looks at metabolic markers such as glucose and glutathione, and can feel, well, a bit spartan. We won’t tell if you hit up one of the nearby tavernas.

The Cost: From $284 per night, including group activities

Blackberry Mountain, Walland, Tennessee

Best For: Active people who like good food and a tipple of whiskey after a hike

The Experience: Blackberry Mountain’s deep selection of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon was my first hint that this wasn’t your typical wellness retreat. The second: I was encouraged to work up an appetite. The spectacular setting makes that easy. Situated 20 minutes from the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this Ìęfeels like a private playground, laced with 36 miles of hiking trails and 8 miles of singletrack. You can get after it trail running, bouldering, and mountain biking, then revive your muscles with fascial flossing (a technique that simultaneously elongates and contracts the fascia) at the recovery lab.

Or slow things down with aerial forest yoga followed by spa treatments like candlelight sound bathing and crystal reiki. An on-site art studio encourages guests to flex their creative side with pottery and watercolors. Blackberry Mountain puts a lighter spin on the decadent seasonal Southern cooking of its sister property, culinary mecca Blackberry Farm. I fueled my days with sweet potato oatmeal cakes topped with honey creme fraiche, then rewarded my efforts at night with dishes like hanger steak, smoked carrots and oyster mushrooms, and a sip of whisky. I left feeling like I’d just spent an energizing weekend at adult summer camp.

The Cost: Rates start at $1,595 per night based on double occupancy and includes meals and unlimited morning fitness classes

Kamalaya, Koh Samui, Thailand

Best For: Ayurvedic-focussed healing on a stunning island

The Experience: Founded by a former yogi monk and a master of traditional Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurvedic philosophy, this sits on a dreamy slice of jungle shrouded sand. You could come to the island for a beach vacation and book a la carte therapies. But the majority of guests are drawn to the 20-plus programs Kamalaya offers that range from three to 21 days and address everything from gut health to burnout. A team of in-house experts—including osteopaths and naturopaths, as well as visiting practitioners— administer treatments like Chi Nei Tsang, a Taoist abdominal massage, in treehouse-inspired rooms.

If you’ve come for the signature detox program, you’ll dine on ​​flavorful, yet portion-controlled plant-based, low-inflammatory, low-allergenic, and low-glycemic food. Otherwise you can indulge in Thai specialties, like thom kha gai (chicken and coconut soup). All programs have downtime to take advantage of activities, like a half-day cruise aboard a wooden Turkish Ketch along the southern coast.

The Cost: Three-night minimum. Three-night programs start at $1,400, including meals and treatments

Root șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs, Peru + Puget Sound + Banff

Best For: Those seeking outdoor adventure and community

The Experience: A lot of wellness retreats cultivate mindfulness and push us physically, but also emphasizes the importance of being part of a diverse, inclusive community. Domestic and international itineraries combine the knowledge of local guides with the expertise of Root șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs’ tour leaders, who include yoga instructors, wilderness therapists, justice advocates, and body positivity coaches. Most trips are capped at 12 people and pre-trip Zoom calls allow participants to bond while post-trip calls keep new friends connected and help reinforce new habits with supportive coaching.

Itinerary highlights for 2024 include:

• A four-day kayak and low-impact camping expedition around Puget Sound ($2,995) with daily yoga and meditation, locally-sourced food, and possible orca sightings.
• A challenging nine-day trek in the Andes of Peru ($4,595) that involves five to eight hours of hiking a day, journaling sessions, and camping in local communities.
• And a six-day backpacking and camping adventure in the rugged Canadian Rockies around Banff ($3,595), where you’ll wild swim and forest bathe.

Mountain Trek Health Reset Retreat, Nelson, British Columbia

Best For: Mountain lovers who want to recharge in the Canadian Rockies

The Experience: A good wilderness ­ramble can do wonders for our health. Ìęamplifies the benefits by complementing rigorous hikes with holistic healing therapies, lifestyle workshops, and a diet free of processed foods, caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. A team of 40 experts, including nutritionists, naturopaths, and certified forest bathing guides, take care of 15 guests each week. Based out of a timber lodge in B.C.’s gorgeous Kootenay Range, the daily schedule starts with sunrise yoga, followed by three to four hours of nordic hiking with a break for a picnic lunch. Groups are broken up based on fitness levels and depending on the season, you might trek past meadows of alpine wildflowers or patches of golden larch, and spot bear, moose, or marmots. Back at the lodge, you’ll attend lectures on topics like the art of goal setting and have down time to soak in the hot tub or the natural mineral hot springs just a five-minute walk away. Dinner is at 5:15 p.m. and might feature cedar plank grilled salmon and baby spinach and arugula salad. A post-meal crystal singing bowl session ensures you’ll wind down for a deep sleep.

The Cost: $6,700 a week, all-inclusive

Crestone Mountain Zen Center, Crestone, Colorado

Best For: Those craving solitude and quiet

The Experience: When life gets overwhelming, this Zen Buddhist tucked sixty miles south of Salida between the jagged Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Colorado’s vast San Luis Valley, is the ultimate escape to still the mind and reset. And a visit doesn’t resign you to a monastic life of 4:30 a.m. wake up calls and marathon meditation sessions. You can create a custom retreat from four days to three months, be it solitude in the wilderness or a quiet, distraction-free space to read, breathe, hike, or regroup. Accommodation options range from a 10-site campground and a yurt to simple cabins and a five-room guest house. Stays include three garden-grown vegetarian meals per day and guests are welcome to join residents in group meditation. It’s also a great base if you’re craving some contemplative solo adventure time. The campus is surrounded by 240 trail-laced acres of piñon pine and juniper forest and is at the doorstep of some of Colorado’s most majestic hikes, like the Spanish Peak Trail and Kit Carson Peak, as well as natural hot springs.

The Cost: Starting at $75 a day for camping

SHA Wellness Clinic, Alicante, Spain + Riviera Maya, Mexico

Best For: Those looking for a total reboot

The Experience: This is in the middle of Spain’s Sierra Helada Natural Park. Of every 100 guests who arrive, more than half are repeat visitors who consider this a health check up that doubles as a vacation. SHA’s sleek, white-washed design and cabana-lined, rooftop infinity pool could be mistaken for a fancy seaside resort in the Mediterranean. But the real draw is a tried-and-true holistic approach to biomedicine backed by a team of 30-some full-time doctors and specialists who work in partnership with Harvard Medical School and NASA. Personalized health programs range from four to 21 days and address nine areas, including nutrition, cognitive stimulation, and physical performance. Diagnostic tests measure everything from nervous system activity to melatonin biorhythms. Based on results, you’re prescribed a routine that might include sound therapy with Tibetan singing bowls, a photobiomodulation session where you wear a helmet of LED infrared lights to stimulate cell repair, and a daily visit to the hydrotherapy circuit where you’ll rotate through the sauna, cold plunge, Roman and Turkish baths, and therapeutic water jets. Customized meals are inspired by Japanese and Mediterranean culinary traditions, and SHA’s Healthy Living Academy offers cooking classes, as well as workshops on meditation and fitness coaching, to send you home with healthy habits. On January 26th, SHA will open its second outpost in the beach town of Costa Mujeres, Mexico, with a sea-to-table culinary concept and activities like swimming in cenotes and scuba diving in the large coral reef in the Americas.

The Cost: Four-day program, all-inclusive at SHA Wellness Clinic Spain from $7,796 and at SHA Wellness Mexico from $5,770

Eleven Deplar Farm Live Well Retreat, Troll Peninsula, Iceland

Best For: A bucket list splurge packed with adventure and relaxation

The Experience: șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű collective Eleven is known for its high-thrill experiences. But the company’s new Ìębring your body back to baseline with a float tank and yoga nidra sessions after the adrenaline. Deplar Farm, a remote 13-room lodge with floor-to-ceiling windows framing craggy peaks, is the perfect setting for transformation. At a visit here last winter, I braved the extreme elements on Icelandic horseback expeditions, Arctic surf missions, and cross-country ski outings to a silent lunch in a cozy cabin.

Back in the comfort of the lodge, I reset my nervous system with guided breathwork, sound baths, and a Viking sauna ritual that involved alternating between sweating in what looked like a hobbit house, then dunking in the cold plunge. Nourishing meals highlighted Icelandic ingredients in dishes like wolf fish with braised cauliflower puree and deconstructed skyr cake with almond crumble. At night, I’d watch for the Northern Lights from the geothermally-heated saltwater pool and would lull myself into a meditative state.

The Cost: Four-night retreat from $11,000

The Ultimate Costa Rica Wellness Retreats

A hotspot for wellness and longevity—the country’s Nicoya Peninsula is one of the world’s blue zones, a place people regularly live past the age of 100—I couldn’t leave Costa Rica off this list. Here are four more incredible trips that will leave you re-energized.

Surf Synergy

Best For: Surfers who crave personal instruction

The Experience: This in the beach town of Jacó was co-founded by Marcel Oliveira, Costa Rica’s reigning national SUP champ. Week-long one-on-one surf and SUP immersions include twice-weekly massages, ice baths, daily yoga, breathwork training, and healthy meals featuring ingredients from the on-site permaculture garden. With six beaches within easy reach, programs can be tailored to all experience levels and coaches provide video analysis that breaks down your technique.

The Cost: Seven nights, all-inclusive from $2,765

Hike Coast to Coast Along el Camino de Costa Rica

Best For: Hikers who like to explore

The Experience: I thought all of Costa Rica had been discovered until I trekked el Camino de Costa Rica, a 174-mile trail stretching between the Caribbean and the Pacific. Its 16 stages highlight rural communities, an Indigenous territory, and rarely visited parks and nature reserves. During my hike with I spotted an insane amount of wildlife, from glass-winged butterflies to two-toed sloth and racoon-like coati, dined in the homes of welcoming locals, and overnighted at simple hot springs hotels and low-frills eco-resorts. Be warned, this isn’t a walk in the park. Each stage averages four to 24 miles and the trail contains some serious elevation gain and requires a few river crossings.

The Cost: 16-day trips on the Camino de Costa Rica with Urri Trek from $1,950

Blue Osa Yoga Retreat, Osa Peninsula

Best For: Yogis who love the beach

This solar-powered in the southwest province of Punta Arenas is steps from a quiet stretch of sand. You can customize your own wellness vacation (beach yoga, a coconut body scrub at the spa, a day-trip to Corcovado National Park) or book a structured retreat. The Best of Costa Rica program is packed with yoga sessions but also takes groups off property on mangrove kayak tours, hikes to waterfalls, and birdwatching. Communal meals are a highlight (there’s even a Blue Osa cookbook) and showcase produce from the lodge’s on-site organic garden and local farmers. Start the day with Costa Rican coffee and tropical fruits, midday, refuel with a vegan chimichurri sweet potato bowl, and at night, feast on house-made rosemary focaccia and pesto pasta.

The Cost:Ìę$1,440 for a four-night, all-inclusive retreat

Surf with Amigas

Best For: Solo surfers looking to make new friends

The Experience: This founded by former pro Holly Beck runs trips around the globe, but Costa Rica is hands down the most popular destination thanks to the variety of surf and pura vida vibes. The week-long, women’s-only Northern Costa Rica Surf & Yoga itinerary is perfect for both beginners and shortboard shredders. Your hotel, located 40 minutes outside of Tamarindo, sits on a long sandy beach known for super consistent waves that break both right and left. Daily yoga classes help revive paddle-weary muscles and if the surf isn’t up, you’ll tour local farms, go on horseback rides, and visit national parks.

The Cost: From $2,400, all-inclusive

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű correspondent Jen Murphy is constantly on the road finding the best places to adventure. Her next stop? Surf Synergy in Costa Rica to work on her surfing skills.Ìę

The post The 14 Best Wellness Retreats in the World for Active Travelers appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

With plenty of spandex clothing, flashy social-media activations built just for a weekend, and massive laser shows beaming out over the crowd, modern festivals might not look like hotbeds of activism. But it’s embedded in their DNA. Woodstock, the Monterey International Pop Festival, and the Harlem Cultural Festival in the 1960s, all carrying a peace-and-love political valence, were their precursors.

Today’s versions remain rock-star-studded and intend to fix world problems—and now they’re aware of the amount of carbon humans have since released into the atmosphere, too. Festivals are increasingly becoming a gathering place for young people concerned for our environment and hoping to create positive change—as well as have a great time.

As a music, food, and travel editor, I’ve attended dozens of festivals, clomping around on the grassy fields or beaches where thousands of people gather. I’ve been most impressed by a growing group of socially minded festival organizers, chefs, and musicians who are greening their events’ infrastructures, sharing their stages with environmental activists, and making sure attendees understand climate change and how to help.

Collectively, these fests now reach hundreds of thousands of people and are having a tangible impact. The Great Northern, a winter festival in Minnesota, reliably draws 200,000 attendees. Farm Aid attracts 30,000 and has multiple times campaigned Congress to incorporate climate-resilient agriculture into legislation.

Here are my favorite U.S. festivals pushing for a greener world.

1. The Great Northern

Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota,ÌęJanuary 25 to February 4, 2024

Mission: Communicate the importance of winter and how to protect it as temperatures rise

One way to communicate the urgency of climate change to a wide swath of people: creative programming. Hence , which celebrates the cultural and environmental importance of winter in Minnesota, will have 50 events in 2024.

The eye-catching offerings range from a village of saunas and a 100-foot-long outdoor bar—yes, the kind that serves alcohol—carved out of ice, to a “Climate Solutions” speaker series with talks by the Project Drawdown executive director, Jonathan Foley, and the well-known eco-drag queen Pattie Gonia, among others. Melanin in Motion, an organization dedicated to getting Black people involved in outdoor recreation, will host a fireside chat, and the sauna village will have nights geared toward queer, trans, and body-positive communities.

Jovan C. Speller Rebollar, the event’s executive director, says she is particularly excited about The Last Supper, cooked by the celebrity chef Sam Kass using ingredients at risk of disappearing as global temperatures rise. On the menu are chocolate, chickpeas, and more.

“We love our food here,” Speller Rebollar said. “[Climate change] becomes real when you can’t have the things that are a part of the ways in which you celebrate, the ways in which you come together 
 and take care of yourself.”

At the last festival, on January 29, the ecological-death-care advocate Katrina Spade spoke on natural organic reduction, a burial process that turns the human body into soil. The former Minnesota State Senator Carolyn Laine was an attendee, Speller Rebollar said. On March 6, Minnesota State Representatives John Huot, Mike Freiberg, and Samantha Sencer-Mura introduced a bill to legalize natural organic reduction.

2. Old Salt Festival

Location and 2024 dates TBA (2023 event was June 23 to 25, in Helmville, Montana)

Mission: Promote regenerative agriculture

The newest gathering on the list is Montana’s , an initiative of the Old Salt Co-Op, an association of generations of ranchers who want “to do for meat what microbreweries have done for beer,” as the event founder, Cole Mannix, said. Old Salt Co-Op promotes regenerative animal agriculture, and it processes meats that are sold through a restaurant and online shop.

Community and local sourcing are essential, and when Mannix says community, he is including not only his neighbors down the street but the non-human, ecological world. He envisions a society where everything, down to the shirt on his back, is locally sourced.

“It’s not easy to do regenerative agriculture. It’s a whole societal shift,” Mannix said. “We have to completely remake ourselves. All of us, customers, producers, the whole supply chain, and I don’t really know how to talk about that other than just spend three days together and immerse ourselves in a beautiful place.”

The first Old Salt festival took place in June on the Mannix family ranch in Helmville, Montana. Local writers recited poems about the land, local bands played, local vendors sold knives and leather goods, and regional conservation and ranching organizations spoke. An 80-pound anvil was launched 300 feet in the air, and 1,600 people ate food cooked over a live fire.

Mannix said, “You can’t do that in a conference room.”

3. Pickathon

Happy Valley, Oregon, 2024 Dates TBA (2023 event was August 3 to 6)

Mission: Create a model of a truly green festival

Festivals require gargantuan amounts of energy. From the light shows, to the sound systems, to the food vendors, the average festival emitted approximately 2500 tons of carbon in 2019, according to , a company that tracks European music festival emissions. A whopping 41 percent of those emissions come simply from attendees traveling to events.

That’s why Pickathon, an indie music festival outside of Portland, Oregon, chose a site only a 40-minute drive from the city and incentivizes attendees to bike or use public transit. Pickathon was also the first festival to utilize solar arrays and, in 2023, was selected by Toyota to be the first to use the company’s hydrogen fuel cell generator.

Originally founded in 1999, Pickathon has become an experiment in eco-friendly festivals, one that can seem radical compared to the industry standard. The stages here are built between the trees of a forest, and the materials for each are reused every year. The Treeline Stage, designed by architecture students at Portland State University, looks like a lattice of blooming plants and will be repurposed for an outdoor classroom. The Woods Stage is made from materials found lying on the forest floor, tree branches shaped into something between a nest and a cave. There is no single-use plastic. Attendees receive a metal cup upon arrival, and rent their dishware.

Though you may not recognize the Americana, rock, and hip hop names on the lineup, Pickathon bookers have an eye for up-and-comers: Sturgil Simpson, Andrew Bird, Leon Bridges, and Big Thief all played here before making it big.

4. Deep Tropics

Nashville, Tennessee,ÌęAugust 16 to 17, 2024

Mission: Show how electronic festivals can go green, too

Though Pickathon gives it a run for its money, Tennessee’s claims to be the greenest music festival in the country. Even coming close would be impressive for an EDM festival where DJs sit on stages in front of multiple movie-theater-sized screens flashing psychedelic visuals, the sound system must be clear and bone-shaking, and the light and laser displays that EDM is known for must expand over a throng of thousands.

According to the event website, by recycling, composting, minimizing single-use plastic, building Instagram-ready art with sustainable materials, and planting trees to offset carbon, organizers divert 93 percent of the festival’s waste from landfills and create more energy than they consume. (.) Vendors, too, focus on sustainability, selling vintage and upcycled versions of the sheer shirts, fringe jackets and occasional fedoras common among EDM fans.

Deep Tropics attracts top talent. In 2023, headliners included the critically-acclaimed SG Lewis, LP Giobbi, and Troyboi.

5. Sacred Acre

Ninilchik, Alaska, 2024 Dates TBA (2023 event was September 8 to 10)

Mission: Raise awareness about the dangers of bottom trawling

nearly triples the population of Ninilchik, Alaska, with an influx of 2,500 ravers. They come, yes, for the bass-heavy music, provided in 2023 by Of the Trees, Boogie T, and Daily Bread, but this EDM festival is a vocal advocate against bottom trawling, a fishing industry technique in which boats drag large, conical nets across the ocean floor.

Sacred Acre uses minimal plastic and educates attendees on the dangers of trawling, which can entangle sea turtles, dolphins, and whales, and harm the delicate plant life in seabed habitats. The festival also runs foraging and fly-fishing expeditions, and places its DJs to perform among the Alaskan waterfalls.

6. Farm Aid

2024 Dates TBA (2023 event was September 23, in Noblesville, Indiana)

Mission: Protect American farmers and age climate-resilient agricultural techniques

Giants of musical genres can definitely convene numbers. In the case of that number was most recently, 20,000, as the founders Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young performed, and so did Margo Price and Dave Matthews, who are board members.

Attendees ate shrimp and grits, burgers, brussel sprouts, chicken tenders, and more, all sustainably raised and sourced from local farms as part of the festival’s Homegrown Concessions. The Homegrown Village educated attendees on the work of American farmers, especially as it pertains to environmental health. Soil, like trees, sequesters carbon, and farmers can optimize it with the right techniques.

“Farmers have this incredible capacity to help us store that carbon through the ways that they’re stewarding soil and growing good food,” said Jennifer Fahy, Farm Aid communications director. “We’re supporting them doing that.”

7. Ohana Festival

Dana Point, California, 2024 Dates TBA (2023 event was September 29 to October 1)

Mission: Conserve the ocean environment

Like Farm Aid, utilizes the star power of its famous founder, in this case Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, to raise awareness for ocean conservation. The main stage abuts the sands of Doheny State Beach, where Veder learned to surf and now headlines Ohana.

Industry heavy hitters populate the rest of the lineup, which in 2023 included the Killers, Haim, the Chicks, Foo Fighters, and the Pretenders. There’s a collegial atmosphere, as performers pop in and out of each others’ sets as surprise guests. This past September, Van Halen’s lead vocalist, Sammy Hagar, joined the Killers for a cover of Van Halen’s “Why Can’t This Be Love?”

At the smaller Storytelling Stage, researchers, activists, politicians, and even surfers give talks about the environment, and attendees can sign up to volunteer at environmental organizations with booths nearby. Ohana gives a portion of its proceeds to the Doheny State Beach Foundation and San Onofre Parks Foundation.

8. Hawaii Food and Wine Festival

Hawaii, Maui, Oahu,ÌęOctober 18 to November 3, 2024, weekends only

Mission: Promote local, sustainably-sourced food in Hawaii

The , founded by the James Beard Award-winning chefs Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong, is all about foods local to the leafy islands. For 13 years, it has brought in dozens of the world’s top chefs, some with top awards of their own, and issued a challenge: prepare something excellent using at least one ingredient grown in Hawaii.

Each of the festival’s three weekends takes place on a different island, jumping from Hawaii, to Oahu, to Maui. The most popular events, like the Roy Yamaguchi Golf Classic and an extensive tasting at the Hawaii Convention Center, happen every year, along with newer offerings like adventures into the taro fields and fisheries, where attendees can try their hand at harvesting and, in 2023, an event highlighting indigenous cuisines from across the world. Expect plenty of color on your plate: black caviar served resting atop the bright white meat of a coconut cut in half, the pink of fresh raw fish, the green Hawaiian breadfruit ulu, and, of course, wine on the beach in whatever color you like.

A portion of ticket proceeds go to nonprofits that support sustainable agriculture like the Hawaii Ag and Culinary Alliance and the local hospitality industry, totalling $3.5 million over the festival’s lifetime. On November 18, after much of Maui burned in wildfires, a special edition of the Hawaii Wine and Food Festival was held on Maui to encourage responsible tourism to the area and raise money for the Kokua Restaurant & Hospitality Fund, which has supported industry workers impacted by the fire. You can also find more info here on how a visitor can give back after the tragedy undergone by Hawaii in 2023.

9. Art With Me

Miami, Florida, and ÇeƟme, TĂŒrkiye, 2024 Dates TBA (Miami event was December 8 to 10, and the Turkey event June 23 to 25, 2023)

Mission: Advanced sustainability and low-waste partying

Consider a photo negative of Art Basel Miami, a posh art festival with over-the-top, star-studded parties. At Art With Me, you can be barefoot. You can attend cacao ceremonies and talks on sustainability. You can do yoga, then lie in a circle of dozens of people, heads in the center, feet out, and meditate, all on Miami’s quiet Virginia Key Beach.

Happening the same week and in the same city as Art Basel Miami, which has some glam electronic-music afterparties of its own, Art With Me is a lower-key music-and-art festival. Programming is family-friendly and focuses on restoration for both its attendees and the environment. Through its Care With Me foundation, the festival has lobbied the Mexican government to ban single-use plastic. (Art With Me was founded in Tulum, Mexico, and has another iteration in Turkey.) And, through recycling and composting, Art With Me organizers say they create almost zero waste.

Art Basel and Art With Me share a love of art—massive sculptures dot Virginia Key Beach—and great DJs. In 2023, Polo & Pan and Underworld headlined Art With Me.

More Festivals!

If you have room in your schedule, check out , an EDM festival that’s received A Greener Festival’s highest level of certification;, an Alaskan folk festival committed to protecting salmon habitat; and one just outside of the U.S., , a Canadian electronic and arts festival that relies exclusively on reusable energy.

is a writer, editor, and former ski instructor based in Brooklyn who has covered music festivals since her college days in New Orleans, a city with more fests than days of the year. She is managing editor at the biannual music, food, and travel publication Fifty Grande.

See the below for two outdoor festivals still to go as 2023 wraps up. The Indio International Tamale Fest in Indio, California, is December 2 to 3, and the Ullr Fest, Breckenridge, Colorado, is December 7-9.

The 29 Best Outdoor Festivals in 2023, from Music and Sports to Food and Film

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Cemeteries are spooky. Cemeteries tucked into the woods miles from anywhere, like the one I stumbled into one night deep in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, are downright spine-chilling. My headlamp cast uneasy shadows in every direction.

I was backpacking in the Smokies to experience some of the history that the park encapsulates. When it was established in 1940, GSMNP swallowed up several communities, and the ruins of tiny timber towns can still be found. There are at least 150 cemeteries inside the park, according to the book Cemeteries of the Smokies. Some are still kept up by family members, and others are slowly being swallowed up by the forest.

Did I actually see a ghost that night? I sure thought I did, given all of the shadows and the noises coming from the woods around me. I set up my tent a quarter-mile away and barely slept, waking at the faintest sound. No wonder Great Smoky Mountains are littered with ghost stories: tales of witches who snatch children or glowing orbs that appear before the eyes of lost hikers.

As co-host of the podcast, Cassie Yahian often looks into such tales. She’s unsurprised that a number of people report supernatural events inside our parks.

“‘National park’ is a relatively new label placed on locations that have largely been around for time immemorial,” Yahian told me in an email. “The locations protected under that banner have historied pasts that include indigenous peoples, European settlers, pioneers, and beyond. The land remembers,” she said, “and shares those stories 
 sometimes through an icy chill or a disembodied whisper.”

Here are six of my favorite ghost stories from our national parks. Happy Halloween.

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

The Wailing Woman and John Wesley Powell

Roughly 900 people have died within Grand Canyon’s boundaries since the 1800s, including those in the tragic 1956 plane crash that killed 128. So you can imagine a ghost or two milling around here. Marjorie “Slim” Woodruff is a naturalist who has been hiking in the canyon for 50 years and knows all such stories. She’s even had a couple of experiences that she’s not sure have logical explanations.

Once, while backpacking deep in the backcountry inside the park, she and a friend heard footsteps outside their tent, even though there were no other hikers around. Another time, after joining a gathering inside the Shrine of the Ages multi-purpose building on the rim, she and a ranger, hanging out alone, heard music playing in another room. But when they looked, they found no one.

“We got out of there,” Woodruff says. “I wasn’t going to check it out any further.”

The most prevalent ghost story in the Grand Canyon, according to is that of a young woman who traveled there with her husband and son shortly after the Grand Canyon Lodge was built in 1928. The husband and son went for a hike on the Transept Trail, which travels from the lodge to the North Rim Campground, while the mother stayed behind. The father and son were caught in a storm, lost their footing, and fell to their deaths along the trail. The mother, dressed in a white dress with blue flowers, searched the trail when they didn’t return to the lodge, and eventually, upon learning that her son and husband had perished, ended her own life in the lodge.

Some visitors have reported hearing the sounds of a crying woman along the Transept Trail, while others say they’ve actually seen her ghost, dressed in a white dress with blue flowers. The Grand Canyon Lodge burned to the ground in 1932, and some witnesses reported seeing a woman’s face in the flames, according to Haunted Hikes: Spine Tingling Tales from North America’s National Parks.

Some science-minded folks are quick to point out that mountain lions make noises that sound like a woman screaming, but these people are no fun and shouldn’t be invited to your campfire.

Grand Canyon Spooky Hike: Phantom Ranch

You could hunt for the weeping woman along the Transept Trail, a three-mile jaunt between the Grand Canyon Lodge and the North Rim Campground. Or consider something more adventurous, like looking for the ghost of John Wesley Powell deep in the belly of the canyon at Phantom Ranch. The 101-year-old ranch, built on a plateau just above the river, consists of a handful of cabins and bunkhouses surrounding a larger lodge. Stones from Bright Angel Creek were used as pillars for the buildings, which blend in with the surrounding cottonwoods, and are classic “parkitecture.”

But people gathered on this plateau for centuries before the park was established. When John Wesley Powell voyaged through the Grand Canyon by boat in 1869, his expedition rested in this very spot, at the base of stone huts built by ancient Puebloans. Powell was a one-armed Civil War hero whose Grand Canyon expeditions helped fill in the last unknown swaths of the American West. He did not meet his end there, but supposedly his ghost still haunts the Phantom Ranch and nearby Phantom Creek.

Woodruff knows another ghost story surrounding Phantom Ranch: “Apparently, there’s a red-headed woman who comes up to people near the ranch and says, ‘I don’t know how to get out of here!’ and then she vanishes,” Woodruff says.

Hike the 7.5-mile descent from the South Rim on the to Phantom Ranch, passing some big overlooks (Ooh Aah Point and Skeleton Point). The dorm rooms at Phantom Ranch are closed through 2023, but the Phantom Ranch Canteen is open from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can’t camp at Phantom Ranch, but is .5 miles away.

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina and Tennessee

Floating Orbs

ÌęThe 500,000-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established in 1940, protecting one of the most biodiverse landscapes in the world. The mountains inside the park had been inhabited for centuries, by the native Cherokee and later by farmers and families who lived and worked in small mill towns tucked into the valleys. Thousands of people had to leave their homes when the park was created. The remnants of those communities, from churches to homesites to family cemeteries, can still be found inside the boundaries of the park. And whenever human history intersects with remote wilderness, you have a recipe for scaring
well, me, at least.

One of the coolest phenomenons—lights that defy a definitive scientific explanation—predate the park designation. The are bright, flashing lights that emanate from the undeveloped ridges of the Thomas Divide Ridge, deep inside the park. You can see them to this day from the Thomas Divide Overlook, at mile marker 464 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, while centuries ago the Cherokee saw the lights and considered them to be spirits of their ancestors.

Scientists have researched the phenomenon, guessing that they’re electric charges from the granite deposits in the mountains, or perhaps some sort of biogas release, but there’s no definitive answer. Similar mysterious lights can be seen in other spots throughout the world, including the Brown Mountain Lights in nearby Pisgah National Forest.

Steven Reinhold, owner of the guiding service , remembers seeing the lights when he was growing up near the Thomas Divide Ridge. “The lights would appear, and sometimes they’d float up into the air, sometimes they’d sink to the valley, sometimes they’d flash
they didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason,” Reinhold says. “But there are quite a few different lights in this area. Maybe it’s balls of methane gas, or maybe it’s ball lightning, or maybe there’s something supernatural. Some people believe this whole area’s mystical.”

The park is also supposedly home to a friendly ghost. Legend has it that before the park was established, a young girl from a local settlement got lost in the woods in the area that later, when dammed, became Lake Fontana. Her father went looking for his daughter but died during the search. According to lore, his spirit appears in the form of a glowing light along the north shore of Lake Fontana, guiding lost hikers back to safety.

That section of the park is home to a number of abandoned communities and cemeteries. I explored it on my visit 15 years ago, even camping near one of the cemeteries and exploring some of the buildings that still stand deep inside the park. I never saw any floating lights, thankfully—given, already, the juxtaposition of historic ruins with gravesites and thick, overgrown forest.

Great Smoky Mountains Spooky Hike: The Noland Creek Trail

You can try to see the ghost of the settler yourself by hiking the Noland Creek Trail, where hikers have reported seeing a floating light as held by the long-ago father. Pick up the trail on the north shore of Lake Fontana, at the end of Lakeview Drive, and hike six miles into the park on an old road bed. Up the ante by spending the night at one of the located off the trail near the abandoned communities and cemeteries ($8 per night, reservations required).

Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

Underground Ghosts

Mammoth Cave is the largest known cave system in the world, with 426 miles of mapped terrain. Artifacts found inside the cave suggest people have been exploring Mammoth for thousands of years, and yet scientists are still discovering new passageways and underground rooms. The cave became a national park in 1941. Before that it was a saltpeter mine during the War of 1812; then it was a privately owned tourist attraction; and it even served a brief stint as a tuberculosis clinic, with patients living underground for months at a time. A couple of the tuberculosis-patients’ cabins still stand inside the cave.

Cavers exploring the underground channels in the 1800s and early 1900s found mummified remains of Native Americans that dated back to 445 B.C. Also in the early 1800s, Stephen Bishop, an enslaved guide and explorer, discovered a species of blind albino fish inside the cave. Other scientists have found shark-teeth fossils.

Throughout modern history, visitors have reported ghostly apparitions according to Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave. Some have described the ghost of Floyd Collins, a caver who discovered many of the rooms that visitors now explore, but was trapped by a rock inside the cave in 1925. Collins died after two weeks stuck while other cavers mounted unsuccessful rescue attempts. Some say his ghost keeps cavers from getting lost or injured in the system.

Other visitors have reported hearing coughing from the TB cabins, or being shoved even though no one was near. One ranger wrote in the same book that several people say they have seen a ghostly figure standing on a rock in a room called Chief City, and that the man wore a distinctive hat with a drooping brim that was common among early guides and explorers.

“Other guides have mentioned seeing things, but it’s not something we talk about because we like to stick to facts,” says Autumn Bennett, who has been guiding tours throughout Mammoth Cave since 2003. She’s never experienced anything supernatural herself, but understands how people’s imaginations might get the best of them: “Mammoth Cave has been described as grand, gloomy, and peculiar. It’s dark and unfamiliar.”

Mammoth Cave Spooky Hike: Violet City Lantern Tour

More than a dozen different ranger-led tours will take you into the belly of the cave, but the ($25 per person) is the spookiest because it travels exclusively by lantern light.

“It’s a dynamic light,” Bennett says. “It moves, follows you, and gives you way more shadows. You really get to understand how easy it is to get carried away with just a lantern light and darkness around you.” Not only is the light spooky, but the three-hour tour traverses large rooms where the tuberculosis clinic was housed. You’ll even see the two remaining stone huts.

Death Valley National Park, California

Mystery Stones and a Ghost Who Was Hanged Twice

Death Valley is weird. Never mind its name, extreme temperatures, and vast expanses of desert—there are also stones that move on their own. At the , a dry lake bed between the Cottonwood and Last Chance ranges, stones large and small slide across the valley floor, leaving trails in the sand. Scientists researched the phenomenon for decades without finding a logical explanation. Ten years ago, while using GPS and weather-monitoring equipment, researchers developed a theory that a combination of ice, sunlight, rain, and high winds creates a scenario where the stones could feasibly be pushed across the firm but muddy surface of the former lake.

Beyond that, the park and surrounding area have more than their share of ghost towns. One is Panamint, which was founded by outlaws who struck silver while hiding out from law enforcement. They gave up their criminal ways, mined silver, and established the town, though it was eventually destroyed by a flash flood in 1876. Ruins of some buildings and mines still stand in the hills.

Another is Skidoo, where in 1908 “Hooch” Simpson was hanged twice—once for killing a banker, and a second time, in a staged event after he died, so that newspaper photographers could document it. According to , the townspeople actually dug Hooch up for the second hanging. By most accounts, Hooch was a fairly respectable businessman, but he was convicted of murder after shooting the popular banker and stealing $20.

After the second hanging, the town doctor cut Hooch’s head off, apparently looking for signs of syphilis (brain involvement is often an indicator), which might seem to explain his erratic behavior. The headless ghost of Hooch Simpson supposedly still wanders the area that was once Skidoo, looking for his noggin.

Just outside of the park, on BLM land, are the ruins of the town of Rhyolite, which was home to 10,000 people in its heyday in the early 1900s. You can wander the streets where several buildings still stand. The Goldwell Open Air Museum, next to the skeletal buildings of Rhyolite Ghost Town, is a large-scale sculpture installation created by a group of Belgian artists that’s complete with ghostly figures wearing white cloaks.

Not creepy enough? How about the town of , where the historic cemetery is filled with victims of a local fire from 1911 and a pneumonia outbreak from 1905, their graves marked with weathered wooden tombstones? Or consider that the ghost of George “Devil” Davis, owner of the local saloon and popular local character who was shot by his wife while he was playing craps, still haunts Tonopah, playing pranks on visitors.

Death Valley Spooky Hike: The Ghost Town of Skidoo

OK, this isn’t actually a hike; it’s a scenic drive on the well-graded gravel that you can pick up off the paved Emigrant Canyon Road. But after driving or mountain-biking the eight miles to the town site, you can hike around the area, finding remnants of the town such as broken bottles and tin cans. The remains of the old stamp mill, where ore was crushed to extract gold, stick up on the hillside. There are roughly 1,000 mines in the hills surrounding the ghost town. (Don’t go in the mines, and as a matter of practice leave everything as you find it, even if you think it’s trash.)

Indiana Dunes National Park, Indiana

Diana of the Dunes

One of the newest units in the national park system, protects 15 miles of coastline butting up against Lake Michigan’s icy waters. It’s a landscape full of beaches, tall dunes, and sandy hiking trails
with a woman ghost who stalks the dunes at night. The place being a Midwestern park, the ghost is by all accounts pretty damn polite.

Alice Mabel Gray, aka Diana of the Dunes, lived by herself in a shack for almost a decade in the early 1900s in the area that is now the national park. Gray had studied at the nearby University of Chicago and worked for the U.S. Naval Observatory after graduating, but chose to eschew modern life for a solitary existence in the dunes, hunting: When she moved to the dunes, she only brought a blanket, cup, knife, and gun. She was also fond of swimming naked in Lake Michigan.

Word got out, and journalists began documenting Gray’s alternative lifestyle, dubbing her “Diana of the Dunes,” after the Roman goddess of the hunt. Gray was an advocate for protecting the dunes, even writing op-eds in local newspapers. She lived in the dunes throughout her adult life, pairing with a man named Paul Wilson (who by most accounts was a violent individual suspected of murder at one point) and having two children. According to the park service, Gray died in her home within the dunes after giving birth to her second child.

Diana’s ghost is less frightening than peculiar; hikers and beachgoers have reported seeing a nude woman running along the sands disappearing into the frothy waters of Lake Michigan. She doesn’t bother anyone. She minds her own business, frolicking and enjoying her natural surroundings, much like Gray did.

“This is my favorite ghost story from a national park,” says Cassie Yahian, of National Parks After Dark. “So often haunted locations are that way because of traumatic, violent events, but Diana’s story is quite the opposite. The way she lived her life inspired so many and cemented her place in local legend. Her spirit is said to still roam the dunes that she so cherished in life.”

Indiana Dunes Spooky Hike: Diana’s Dare

The park has embraced the legend of Alice Mabel Gray and even named a hiking loop after her. ,1.5 miles, takes you from West Beach, on the edge of Lake Michigan, up a series of steps through sandy pine forest to the top of Diana’s Dune. From it you can see downtown Chicago, more than 30 miles away. If you want to have the best chance of seeing the ghost of Diana running for the water, I’d say hike the trail at night.

Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, Tennessee

Civil War Ghosts

The American South is fraught with historic battlefields from the Civil War. I grew up at the base of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park and as a kid would find bullets while digging around in my backyard. protects the battlefields surrounding the city of Chattanooga, where one of the war’s last key battles was fought, over possession of the city, seen by Abraham Lincoln as the gateway to the deep South. Bloody battles raged throughout the fall of 1863 along the banks of the Tennessee River, in pastoral valleys, and on the flanks of Lookout Mountain, a long, craggy ridge overlooking the city.

As you might imagine with that sort of tumultuous history, Chattanooga and the surrounding landscape are full of ghost stories. Amy Petula, owner of , knows them all.

“I didn’t believe in ghosts when I started these tours,” Petula says. “I just thought the stories were a fun way to teach people history. But we’ve had so many things happen on our tours, I definitely think there’s something to the stories now.”

Petula says she’s personally experienced something inexplicable while touring the Raccoon Mountain Caverns, a 5.5-mile-long cave system at the base of Lookout Mountain. “It was just a few of us, 200 feet underground, in complete darkness, and I saw this faint glowing light behind a girl in our group. It got brighter and started flashing, and then that girl felt something touch her,” Petula says. “It wasn’t a flashlight. It wasn’t another member of our group. Maybe it was a weird cave gas, or something else. I don’t know.”

Petula says there are stories about a mythical cat that stalks the woods near the battlefields at night, and tales of entire battalions of Confederate soldier ghosts roaming the military park. There’s the “Lady in White,” a specter wearing a white dress searching for her fiancĂ©, a soldier who died in the battle. The stories have gotten so prevalent that park management discourages people from exploring the park after dark in an attempt to dissuade ghost hunters from damaging the historic sites.

The best-known ghost story is about “Old Green Eyes,” a pair of glowing green eyes that harass travelers making their way through the park at night. Sightings date back at least to the Civil War, according to the . Some say the glowing eyes belong to the ghost of a soldier who lost his head to cannon fire during the battle of Chickamauga. Other people insist it’s a mythical cryptid creature similar to Bigfoot. Or maybe Old Green Eyes is also the ghost cat that stalks the woods. Or maybe he or she is a deer standing in the woods whose eyes only look like they’re glowing. Most of the sightings occur near Snodgrass Hill, where some of the most deadly fighting occurred.

Chickamauga Spooky Hike: Snodgrass Cabin

The battlefield has 50 miles of hiking trails to explore, including 30 miles of mountainous terrain on Lookout Mountain. If you want to walk through history, hike through the heart of , piecing together a series of short trails to form a big, 14-mile loop around the entire area that takes in gravesites, monuments, old farms, and historic cabins, including Snodgrass Cabin, which was used as a battlefield hospital for both Union and Confederate soldiers. If you’re not up for the full 14 miles, you can put together a shorter, two-mile loop around the cabin.The Snodgrass homesite is where the majority of Old Green Eyes sightings occur.

Looking over your shoulder yet?

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. He loves stories of ghosts and goblins and has even spent a couple of nights in the woods looking for Bigfoot. He’ll continue to believe all of these stories are real because life is more fun that way.

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