Discover America USA Travel Guide

The Great Outdoors

Pedal, paddle, hike, bike or enjoy the USA’s great outdoors from a motor coach or cruise ship – the options are endless, the choices are yours.

Zion National Park, Utah. www.Utah.travel (Geir Olav Lyngfjell/Shutterstock)

On your first visit to the United States, you will likely start your journey in a major gateway city such as New York City, Miami, Houston, Los Angeles or Seattle. Beyond these metropolitan areas, however, you´ll discover the world's richesst and most diverse options for outdoor recreation.

Within a half day’s flight or drive from your gateway city, you can experience America’s natural wonders first-hand — from scenic drives, birding trails and hiking routes to canoe trips, snowboarding jumps and rock climbs that will astonish you as much as anything you’ll see in town.

NATIONAL PARKS

In 1872, the United States created the concept of the national park — land protected by federal law to preserve its pristine natural conditions. Today, you can explore fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of additional National Park Service recreation areas, monuments, historic sites and preserves across the country.

Jagged peaks give way abruptly to alpine lakes and wildflower-strewn meadows at Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming, providing the setting for perfect outdoor photographs. Next door in Montana, the Going-to-the-Sun Road inside Glacier National Park leads past more than fifty miles of equally majestic views.

If you enjoy watching wildlife, Yellowstone National Park, which spans parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, is the place to be. Yellowstone was America’s first national park, and is home for thousands of bighorn sheep, bison, elk, gray wolves, mule deer and pronghorn antelope. Moose swim the waters around Isle Royale National Park in Michigan.

Everglades National Park in Florida is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. A designated World Heritage Site, its residents include alligators, crocodiles, herons, manatees and turtles. Off the coastline at the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts, you can spot whales surfacing in all their magnificence.

In the winter, practice Nordic skiing on the cross-country trails inside Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Or trek on snowshoes through Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

Marvel at the desert landscape inside the Saguaro National Park in Arizona, filled with thousands of saguaro cacti that can grow up to fifty feet tall and weigh more than eight tons. Feel the fury of the earth at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. Active volcanoes here stir up molten lava flows and send steam rushing through cinder cones and lava tubes to the sea.

SCENIC BYWAYS

Set your own pace by planning a road trip, from a half-day car drive to a week-long trek in a rented RV or campervan. The Blue Ridge Parkway stretches 469 miles from northern Virginia to eastern North Carolina. Along the way, visit the Biltmore Estate, known as America’s largest home, and stop for an apple butter snack.

Escape into the North Woods on the forty-seven-mile Edge of the Wilderness Scenic Byway in Minnesota. You’ll drive past stands of aspen, birch, oak and sugar maples on your way into Chippewa National Forest, where more bald eagles live than anywhere else in North America.

Your children will always remember walking alongside dinosaur footprints at the world’s largest dinosaur quarry on the 480-mile Dinosaur Diamond Prehistoric Highway crossing Utah and Colorado. In that same region, your family can climb down ladders to peek inside ancient Native American cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park, and wander among towers and pueblos in the archaeological sites on the Trail of the Ancients.

Follow the footsteps of Native Americans, colonial settlers and Revolutionary War soldiers along the 499-mile Connecticut River Byway in New Hampshire and Vermont. See the restored “iron horse” locomotive in White River Junction and marvel at America’s longest wooden covered bridge, spanning the Connecticut River and connecting the towns of Cornish, New Hampshire and Windsor, Vermont.

AMERICA’S TRAILS

Thousands of hiking trails crisscross the United States, from desert to seashore and mountain to riverbed, offering many options for a day-long trek or an entire season of walking through nature. The most famous route is the Appalachian Trail, running 2,175 miles from Maine to Georgia. The 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail offers a more rugged challenge, as it crosses the Sonoran and Mojave deserts through the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges on the way from Mexico to Canada. The 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail takes you into the
Rocky Mountain backcountry through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.

You can capture the sights and sounds of native bird species by walking popular routes such as the Lake Champlain Birding Trail in New York and Vermont, looping 300 miles through marsh, grassland and forest habitats. The Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail connects more than 225 viewing sites along the state’s coastal plain, while the Central Coast Birding Trail in California features waterfowl migration sites located near Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura.

Many major U.S. cities maintain bike trails for smooth riding in the outdoors — from the winding paved trail around Busse Lake near Chicago and the Cherry Creek Bikeway in Denver, to the 25-mile Seattle Trail Ramble and the Sugar Loaf Mountain Challenge that winds through citrus groves near Orlando, Florida.

EXPLORING NATURE

Cast your fishing line — on your own or with an expert guide — in search of Apache and rainbow trout in the lakes of the White Mountains in eastern Arizona. If you prefer Coho salmon, venture to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in Wisconsin. America’s numerous rivers provide the perfect setting for lazy canoe rides. Guide your canoe past the tree-lined banks of the Green River in Kentucky, including a section that flows through Mammoth Cave National Park. Several caves can be scouted at the water’s edge. You’ll find the highest bluffs in the Ozark Mountains along the Buffalo River in northern Arkansas, as well as numerous springs, natural bridges and swimming holes to enjoy. Or, you can float past moss-draped cypress and palmetto trees along the Suwannee River from Georgia into Florida.

Houseboating is an especially family-friendly U.S. vacation option. You can rent a houseboat and spend a week on the water at Lake Havasu or Lake Powell, two man-made reservoirs on the Colorado River in Arizona. You may be surprised when you come upon the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. An American businessman bought, dismantled and reassembled the span here.

Stretch your legs with a gentle hike through the petrified forest at Zion National Park in Utah. At Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California, walk around sequoia trees rising hundreds of feet, including the General Sherman tree, billed as the “World’s Largest Living Thing.” Or amble along the wildflower trails at Ash Mountain, the gateway to Sequoia National Park.

The rangers at Acadia National Park in Maine have set aside numerous car-free roads in this heavily-forested region, giving you full rein to ride bikes through the surrounding woods. If you prefer wide-open spaces for riding, try the solitude of the bike trails at Big Bend National Park in Texas.

ULTIMATE ADVENTURES

Take the challenge: claw your way up the side of a cliff, maneuver your bike through hairpin turns, slam through river rapids or tumble down the side of a snowy mountain. Thrill-seekers will not be disappointed by all they’ll find to test their mettle in the U.S. outdoors. The Kokopelli Trail offers numerous canyons, ridges and valleys for mountain bikers, from where the trail begins in the high-country terrain of Moab, Utah to where it ends in Grand Junction, Colorado. Or, muscle your bike through the Black Hills in South Dakota along the Centennial Trail, likely passing a few bison along the way.

Thousands of routes await rock climbers in Joshua Tree National Park in California, from the overhang at Timbuktu Towers to the gnarly face routes in the Hall of Horrors. Learn the arts of roped glacier travel and ice climbing on the Disappointment Cleaver/Ingraham Glacier Route on Mount Rainier in Washington. And, if you’re very brave, inch your way to the top of Stolen Chimney, a 400-foot tower of sandstone with a treacherous corkscrew summit, in Moab, Utah.

Get soaked in your kayak as you brave the “Beast of the East,” a 26-mile run on West Virginia’s Gauley River that will tempt you with more than one hundred rapids rated up to V+ in difficulty. On North Carolina’s Outer Banks, take it easy as you glide through the salt marshes along the shore or paddle alongside a dolphin in the Atlantic Ocean.

Rafting the 105-mile Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho will keep you on edge, with more than one hundred different rapids. On Oregon’s Rogue River, you’ll need to paddle hard to navigate around obstacles like Submarine Killer rock. Or experience America’s ultimate water ride with a whitewater trip 187 miles down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

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