Home to huge sand dunes, panoramic vistas, rugged mountains, vast salt flats, colorful badlands and mysterious canyons, Death Valley National Park is a hiker’s paradise. In this post, I share my favorite Death Valley hikes, from easy strolls to strenuous loops.
To really experience the beauty and depth of iconic Arches National Park, there’s no better way than hiking. The Arches trails I’ve selected in this blog post take you to, through and around several of the 2,000+ natural rock arches in the park, the greatest concentration of those rock formations on Earth.
There are a number of Haleakala National Park trails in the park’s two tourist areas, from the desert-like Crater to the verdant Kipahulu rain forest, allowing you to explore each of them as you please. Feel like a challenging full-day hike? Or rather an easy coastal stroll? The hiking trails in Haleakala National Park are varied as its landscapes!
Although it’s one of the smallest U.S. national parks, you’ll find lots of things to do in Pinnacles National Park. It’s both a worthwhile weekend trip destination from California’s largest cities and the perfect stopping point on longer road trips, a quiet park that offers beautiful scenery and fun outdoor activities.
Approaching through the San Luis Valley, you might at first think that the rolling sand dunes set against the towering Sangre de Cristo Mountains are some kind of fata morgana. The opposite, however, is true. This landscape, however surreal it may look, is actually real.
Capitol Reef is a great place to get away from the crowds that overrun other nearby parks like Zion, Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon. It offers you the chance to enjoy wonderful desert scenery in solitude, go on hikes without running into hundreds of other hikers, and to explore both Native American and Mormon pioneering sites.
Featuring various lake activities, such as boating and fishing, as well as fantastic wildlife viewing, great hiking, breathtaking Quinault Rain Forest scenery, and some beautiful waterfalls, the many things to do in the Quinault Valley will keep you busy for a day or two. This is easily one of my favorite places in Olympic National Park.
Whether you’re hiking solo, with a partner or as part of a group, it’s important to adhere to the written and unwritten hiking guidelines. This hiking etiquette is the best way to show respect for both others and nature, act as a steward of the land, and simply set a good example.
Piles and stacks of huge boulders dominate a landscaped dotted with iconic Joshua trees. Blue skies create a vibrant contrast with the yellows and browns of the Southern Californian deserts. A park filled with life and seemingly made for adventurers, there’s a myriad of Joshua Tree National Park highlights.
In the far south of Arizona lies Saguaro National Park, America’s first national park created primarily to protect a plant species. And rightly so—even though this is a desert area, it’s plants that run the show. Pretty much all the best things to do in Saguaro National Park have something to do with saguaros, the largest cactus species in America.
From backpacking trips into the rugged Painted Desert to seeing the remains of Old Route 66, hiking in multi-colored badlands and among enormous collections of petrified wood, Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park may be small, but it has a lot to offer.
Wiping the sweat off your forehead, you try to catch your breath as you gaze across a landscape dominated by red rocks and sandstone hills. Towering rock pillars and enormous domes fill the view, interspersed by wide valleys and, here and there, a hardy desert bush. Your chest still heaving up and down after a short but steep climb to the overlook, you sit down and take a well-deserved sip from your water bottle.
One of my favorite ever camping experiences was in the Painted Desert in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park. It was neither a particularly difficult hike nor was it extremely remote, yet the amazing solitude and absolutely beautiful landscape took things to the next level.
Attracting people because of its accessibility, beautiful woodland hikes, cultural importance and historic sites, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is an especially for a superb destination in fall. Moreover, it’s entirely possible to see all major attractions in the park in just one day.