Collections across the United States.
Cross-state guides to the national parks, the best beaches, the Blue Ridge and the Rockies.
The United States National Parks
All 63, for anyone keeping count, with the famous ones up top and the quieter ones further down.
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Best Beaches in the US
Twenty-six US beaches, five of them in Hawaii, picked mostly for having nothing built behind the sand. Siesta Key, Coronado, Ka'anapali and Cape May are the town beaches we kept anyway.
See all 26 places →
The Blue Ridge Mountains
Pick one end. Nobody drives the Parkway fast, so the Virginia stretch and the North Carolina mountains make two trips.
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The Rocky Mountains
A summer list, mostly. Several of the high roads here close for the winter. July and August are the safe bet for driving all of them.
See all 21 places →
America's Best Caves
The Park Service runs eight of these 22 caves, and most of the rest are commercial show caves at $23 to $36 an adult. If you only pay for one, make it Ruby Falls: you ride an elevator 26 stories down inside Lookout Mountain and walk to a 145-foot waterfall.
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15 placesBest Waterfalls in the US
Yosemite Falls is the tallest in North America, and by August it can be dry. Most of these run on snowmelt and are fullest in spring. By late summer, irrigation upstream can take Shoshone down to a trickle. Burney and Havasu are spring-fed, so the month doesn't matter there.
15 placesBest Dark Sky Stargazing in the US
Where to go when you want the Milky Way instead of a glow on the horizon. Time it for a new moon: a full one washes out the sky even at the darkest of these.
15 placesBest Slot Canyons and Red Rock in the US
Antelope, Buckskin Gulch, the Narrows and Peek-a-boo with Spooky are the true slots here; the rest are the red-rock parks around them. From July into September the monsoon can flood a slot under a clear sky, so go after it's over.