25 of the USA’s most underrated destinations
By Joe Yogerst
(CNN) — Disney World, Times Square and Yellowstone National Park can be packed to the rafters with tourists. But there are plenty of other places across the United States that continue to fly beneath the travel radar.
While there are literally hundreds of locations that fit that description, here are 25 destinations — from cities and national parks to regions and even entire states — that remain refreshingly underrated.
They’re listed geographically from the Northeast to the Pacific:
Pioneer Valley, Massachusetts
Far western Massachusetts boasts the Berkshires, while the state’s eastern end is anchored by Boston and Cape Cod. So what’s in the middle? Pioneer Valley, an area carved by the Connecticut River where several vintage mill cities have reinvented themselves in modern times.
The Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame is located in Springfield, where the sport was born in 1891 as a rainy-day indoor activity. The city’s Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum & Sculpture Garden celebrates the Springfield-born children’s author.
Quirky independent shops, farm-to-table restaurants and bakeries — plus a vibrant LGBTQ scene — make Northampton worth a visit, or hop across the Connecticut River and hike a portion of the New England Trail through the north woods.
Block Island, Rhode Island
Unlike the other big isles off southern New England, this offshore slice of the Ocean State has gone the extra mile to preserve its natural environment. In fact, the Nature Conservancy declared the petite isle one of a dozen “Last Great Places” in the western hemisphere.
Wildlife refuges and other nature areas protect 40% of Block Island, and residents are renowned for their fierce opposition to anything that might imperil their pristine Atlantic home.
Hitting the beaches, and biking and trekking 32 miles of coastal and inland trails are the main daytime activities. After dark, the island boasts a surprisingly good food scene and laid-back bars like Captain Nick’s and the Poor People’s Pub.
Buffalo, New York
Once a boomtown at the confluence of the Great Lakes and Erie Canal, Buffalo snoozed through much of the 20th century. As the Western New York metropolis awakens again, people have come to realize that all that downtime helped preserve the city’s classic architecture.
Among Buffalo’s stylish structures are the Art Deco City Hall, the Greek Revival Buffalo History Museum, the Victorian glass houses at the botanical gardens, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s streamlined Martin House.
A renaissance of the city’s once derelict waterfront includes the Canalside shopping and entertainment district, lakeside hiking and biking trails, a naval maritime museum, and Silo City with its iconic grain elevators. Meanwhile, Niagara Falls is just up the road.
Pennsylvania Wilds
From abundant wildlife and untamed mountain streams to the old growth trees of the Forest Cathedral and Pine Creek’s gaping Mid-Atlantic version of the grand canyon, there’s still plenty of wild in north-central Pennsylvania.
One of the least populated places east of the Mississippi River, the Wilds sprawl across a vast expanse of the rugged Allegheny Plateau. In addition to Allegheny National Forest, the region harbors more than two dozen state parks, two national wild and scenic rivers, and a world-class stargazing center at Cherry Springs, as well as human relics like the Kinzua Bridge (dubbed the “8th Wonder of the World” when it opened in 1882).
Maryland Panhandle
Spanning three counties in Western Maryland, the state’s narrow panhandle region lies between the Potomac River and the Mason-Dixon Line that divided North from South before the Civil War.
Reminders of that conflict infuse Antietam National Battlefield and other Civil War sites around the panhandle, as well as the Harpers Ferry area across the Potomac in West Virginia.
Nowadays the region revolves around outdoor recreation. The panhandle hosts portions of three great trails — the Appalachian Trail, the C&O Canal Towpath, and the Great Allegheny Passage hiking and biking route. The hilly terrain also hosts Maryland’s only winter sports getaway, Wisp Resort, which has downhill skiing and snowboarding.
If you’re more into machines, hop the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad in Cumberland or get behind the wheel of construction equipment at Heavy Metal Playground in Hagerstown.
West Virginia
While West Virginia may not be “almost heaven” for everyone, it certainly is for history buffs and outdoor enthusiasts.
Harpers Ferry witnessed John Brown’s infamous 1859 raid that helped ignite the Civil War. Three years later, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson led a successful Confederate attack on the strategic Union-held town. The riverside town is also a jumping off point for the Appalachian Trail and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath, also mentioned above.
Established in late 2020 as the nation’s newest national park, New River Gorge is renowned for whitewater sports, hiking and mountain biking, and Bridge Day BASE jumping from the humongous New River Gorge Bridge.
Durham, North Carolina
Few American cities have experienced a more dramatic turnaround over the past 25 years. From its days as a tobacco factory town, Durham has evolved into a science, art, sports and entertainment hub that revolves around a reenergized downtown and reimagined American Tobacco Campus.
The Durham Bulls — the nation’s most famous minor league baseball team — play their often-sold-out games at a spiffy little downtown stadium. At the Duke Lemur Center, visitors can walk through giant forest habitats helping to preserve some of the planet’s rarest mammals.
Meanwhile, the city’s craft brewery and distillery scene is outta sight.
ACE Basin, South Carolina
One of the largest undeveloped wetlands on the east coast, the ACE Basin takes its name from the three rivers that flow through the region — the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto — as they make their way from upland South Carolina to the Atlantic.
Despite its location between Charleston and Hilton Head, the basin draws a fraction of the visitors to those super-popular destinations. What you get instead is uncrowded trails, waterways, beaches and byways through a landscape rich in native plants and animals.
Coastal Expeditions is one of several local outfitters with guided kayak tours of the ACE Basin, while Botany Bay Ecotours offers small boat tours around themes like wildlife, beachcombing and the area’s African-American heritage.
Visitors can explore the Botany Bay Heritage Preserve and Ernest F. Hollings ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge on their own. Camping is available at three state parks; hotels and vacation rentals in Beaufort and Edisto Beach.
Florida’s Forgotten Coast
Arrayed along the Gulf of Mexico between Port St. Joe and St. Marks, this unheralded slice of the Florida shore is about as authentic as it gets in the Sunshine State.
Talcum-powder-fine beaches on the St. Joseph Peninsula and St. George Island offer an uncrowded alternative to Florida’s more storied (and crowded) strands. Manatees and monarch butterflies are among the wildlife denizens of Wakulla Springs and St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge.
Fresh-off-the-boat shellfish and live music are the twin attractions of the Florida Seafood Festival in Apalachicola in November.
Western Tennessee
Bordering the Mississippi River, the western end of the Volunteer State presents an enticing blend of nature, history, music and food.
Beale Street in Memphis is best known for the blues, but the city was also the cradle of soul and rock ‘n’ roll and is one of the best places on the planet to catch live tunes today. The Stax Museum of American Soul Music, Elvis Presley’s Graceland and Sun Studio are all here, and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel is a can’t-miss historic site.
Tangy, spicy and sweet, Memphis pork barbecue is served in more than 100 barbecue joints. If that’s not your culinary jam, the city is also flush with awesome soul food and Delta-style fish restaurants.
Western Tennessee’s role in the Civil War is the focus of Shiloh National Military Park and Fort Donelson National Battlefield, clashes that helped elevate little-known general Ulysses S. Grant to national fame.
Meeman-Shelby Forest State Park conserves nearly 13,000 acres of rare hardwood bottomland along the Mississippi River, including eerie bald cypress swamp. In addition to boating, hiking and camping, the park is an Audubon “Important Bird Area.”
Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas
Tucked into a valley on the southeast edge of the Ouachita range, Hot Springs National Park has been popular since the 1830s when the first bathhouses appeared. But few visitors make it much farther into the highlands of west-central Arkansas.
Unlike the nearby Ozarks, which boast manmade ways to sample nature and culture, the Ouachitas are exceedingly untouristy. That makes these mountains ideal for those who like their hiking, camping and fishing with a large dose of solitude.
Magazine Mountain (the state’s highest point) is a regional hang-gliding mecca and the area also boasts gnarly mountain biking routes.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
At one time, “Brew City” may have been the nation’s beermaking capital but nowadays Milwaukee offers a lot more than amber liquid.
One of the nation’s finest collections outside a major urban area, the Milwaukee Art Museum showcases creation from around the globe but is especially strong on American folk art and decorative arts. The building is an architectural marvel topped by giant metallic wings that unfold each morning.
Heavily industrialized in the past, Milwaukee’s rivers have undergone a renaissance that includes waterfront hiking/biking paths like the Hank Aaron State Trail and the art-strewn Milwaukee Riverwalk with new urban icons like the “Bronze Fonz” from “Happy Days.” Several outfitters offer guided paddle trips along these inland waterways.
There’s still beer, of course. Best served with bratwurst at places like Lakefront Brewery (great guided tour), Milwaukee Brat House, and Brewers baseball games at American Family Field. If suds and sausage don’t appeal, dig into upscale dishes at Bacchus.
Lake Superior
The American half of the world’s largest freshwater lake (by surface area) stretches across northern Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, a vast expanse of water, trees, islands and wildlife that rivals anything out west.
Bookended by Duluth, Minnesota, and Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, the Lake Superior region embraces Pictured Rocks and Apostle Islands national lakeshores, Isle Royale National Park with its resident wolves, moose and other creatures, and the winter sports slopes of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park.
Anglers can cast for dozens of fish species that inhabit the lake, while divers have scores of historic shipwrecks to explore. For those who just want to glide through, half a dozen major cruise lines include Superior in their Great Lakes itineraries.
Badlands of North Dakota
South Dakota’s badlands are better known (with their national park and role in the Oscar-winning movie “Nomadland”). But the badlands of neighboring North Dakota were more consequential for American history.
That’s where young Teddy Roosevelt ranched and lived the cowboy lifestyle in the 1880s, a period that influenced his conservation ethos and tough-as-nails presidential aura.
America’s 26th president also inspired the region’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which safeguards his modest log cabin and a pristine slice of the northern mixed grass prairie and many of the species Roosevelt would have encountered, including bison, prairie dogs and wild horses.
Gateway to the park, Medora offers its own Wild West relics such as Chateau de Mores, the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Maah Daah Hey Trail and a summertime outdoor musical inspired by Roosevelt’s badlands days.
Idaho
With one of the nation’s lowest population densities — and most residents living in cities — Idaho boasts plenty of wide-open spaces, an amazing array of geography from huge lakes and raging rivers to snowy peaks and bone-dry deserts.
While the state does boast a thin slice of Yellowstone, its iconic park is Craters of the Moon National Monument & Preserve, a vast volcanic landscape where Apollo astronauts trained for Moon missions.
Various ranges of the northern Rockies cover much of central Idaho, a wilderness region where the outdoor fun runs the gamut from rafting the rapid-strewn Middle Fork of the Salmon River through the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness area to world-class skiing, snowboarding and other winter sports at Sun Valley.
Coeur d’Alene Lake and Lake Pend Oreille highlight an Idaho Panhandle region where summer watersports and beach activities are the main attractions.
Grand Junction, Colorado
Beyond the Rockies is a whole different Colorado, an arid region of red-rock canyons, fertile valleys fed by the upper Colorado River, and a city called Grand Junction that seems light years removed from high-rise Denver and those chic ski resorts.
The attraction isn’t so much the town itself (although it does have some hip eateries like Tacoparty and Cruise Control Kitchen + Cellar) but in the immediate surroundings.
Grand Valley harbors 30 wineries that specialize in varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. West of town, Colorado National Monument, with its spectacular canyons and awesome scenic drive, deserves full-blown national park status. The world’s largest flat-topped mountain, Grand Mesa sits more than 10,000 feet above sea level, an oasis of forest, flower-filled meadows, fish-filled lakes and winter sports.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
Like something created for a sci-fi movie rather than a quirk of nature, White Sands feels like visiting an alien planet. That’s how strange it is to explore the world’s largest gypsum dune field.
Visitors can hike across or sled down the bright-white dunes. If you didn’t pack your own toboggan, the visitor center gift shop sells/rents plastic discs. Overnight backpack camping is available along a sandy wilderness trail.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
One of the best places to get your kicks on Route 66 is along Central Avenue in Albuquerque, where much of the neon-studded architecture has been preserved and refashioned into modern hotels, restaurants and entertainment places.
Long before drop-top Corvettes breezed through town, Albuquerque was a bastion of Spanish colonial and Native America cultures, a heritage that endures at 18th-century San Felipe de Neri Church in Old Town and the National Hispanic Cultural Center. Meanwhile, New Mexico’s contribution to the Atomic Age is the focus of the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History.
Albuquerque’s green spaces range from ABQ BioPark along the Rio Grande River with its zoo, botanic garden and aquarium, to Sandia Peak in Cibola National Forest, reached via the longest aerial tram in the western hemisphere.
West Texas
In frontier days, Texas west of the Pecos River was the epitome of the Wild West, an image that was later bolstered by classic movies like “The Searchers,” “Giant” and “No Country For Old Men.”
The vast region is still sparsely populated, home to wide open spaces and a couple of the nation’s wildest national parks: Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains.
Terlingua ghost town hosts a huge annual chili cookoff, and Fort Davis preserves a historic US Cavalry post, while Marfa offers Hollywood history, offbeat art and the mysterious “Marfa Lights” of UFO lore.
Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
Straddling a huge portion of southern Utah, Capitol Reef owes its name to the vivid imagination of early settlers, who thought one of its giant white-rock formations resembled a capitol building dome and its jagged cliffs an underwater reef.
Visitor services cluster around the old Mormon farming community of Fruita inside the park and along the main road through Torrey village just outside the west gate. Despite its run-of-the-mill name, Scenic Drive offers amazing views of the Golden Throne and other rocky landmarks as it snakes down the western side of the escarpment.
Day hikes range from easy jaunts like the Grand Wash to strenuous routes like Cassidy Arch and the Chimney Rock Loop. Given the rugged topography and arid climate, the park’s vast backcountry is best tackled by veteran hikers.
Willamette Valley, Oregon
Big city Portland needs no introduction. But the rest of the Willamette Valley remains relatively undiscovered.
The valley’s burgeoning wine scene flaunts more than 550 tasting rooms spread across 11 American Viticulture Areas (AVAs). The Oregon Wine Board has mapped out five wine routes ranging from downtown Newberg’s urban tasting rooms to the South Willamette Wine Trail around Eugene and Springfield.
Eugene’s other claim to fame is big-time sports, especially University of Oregon Ducks football at Autzen Stadium and world-class track and field at legendary Hayward Field. The city is also a hub for outdoor adventure sports like hiking or biking the 26-mile McKenzie River National Recreation Trail or rafting the (slow-flowing) Willamette or (swift) McKenzie rivers.
Among the valley’s other highlights are the Art Deco-style state capitol in Salem, the massive wooden “Spruce Goose” aircraft at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, and the might branches of old growth forest giants in Silver Falls State Park where you can go tree camping.
Highway One (North), California
Highway One along the Big Sur coast is one of the all-time epic road trips. A lot less known but just as awesome is the drive along the California route to the north of San Francisco.
It starts with a passage across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County, where the highway veers toward the coast and Point Reyes National Seashore. Hip eateries like Cowgirl Creamery in the village of Point Reyes Station make a great lunch stop before breezing through Bodega Bay, where Alfred Hitchcock filmed “The Birds.”
Fort Ross is where the Russians established a colony in the 1830s during their brief attempt to claim California, while the town of Jenner offers both a spectacular beach and a detour up the Russian River to notable wineries and craft breweries.
Farther up the shore are photogenic lighthouses, wild beaches and artsy communities like Mendocino and Fort Bragg that blend galleries, gourmet dining, and lodging in seafront inns and Victorian mansions.
Channel Islands National Park, California
A throwback to old California, the five-island park preserves paleolithic digs, frontier-era ranches and relics of Spanish exploration.
But its forte is raw nature. Whales, dolphins, sea lions and sea otters frolic in the waters around the park, while the islands provide a terrestrial habitat for super-rare flora and fauna species like the Torrey Pine and Island Fox.
Only around 30,000 people set foot on the islands each year. For those who make the crossing by Island Packers ferries from Ventura Harbor or private boat from Santa Barbara, there are myriad activities, including scuba diving, kayaking, hiking and backpacking – often in total solitude.
Kohala Peninsula, Hawaii
Hawaiian heritage and outdoor adventure are the twin attractions of the thumb-shaped Kohala Peninsula that extends from the top end of the Island of Hawaii.
The peninsula is all that remains of a massive shield volcano formed around a million years ago when the Hawaiian Islands were still young. The undulating landscape lends itself to scenic horseback riding with outfits like Na’alapa Stables, which carries on the tradition of the paniolo cowboys who have herded cattle in the grassy highlands since the late 1800s.
Kamehameha I, the first king of the united Hawaiian Islands, was born in Kohala and used the peninsula as a launchpad for conquering the rest of the archipelago. Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site preserves the remains of a stone temple he dedicated to a Hawaiian war god to ensure his success in battle.
Covering much of the peninsula’s lush windward side, a steep coastal trail in Kohala Forest Preserve leads to a remote beach and surfing spot in Pololū Valley.
At the bottom end of the peninsula, the town of Waimea is home to historic Parker Ranch, the Paniolo Heritage Center cowboy museum, and Merriman’s, a bastion of regional cuisine that many consider the best restaurant on the Island of Hawaii.
Matanuska Valley, Alaska
Just an hour’s drive from Anchorage, this long river valley offers the sort of outdoor encounters that usually require a lot more time and effort to reach.
MICA Guides in Chickaloon features a full range of frozen adventures – including ice climbing and overnight camping on a glacier – while Alaska Helicopter Tours at Knik River Lodge offers fly-in glacier hiking, glacier lake paddleboarding and cross-glacier dogsledding.
Get up close and personal with furry Arctic beasts at the valley’s Musk Ox Farm and learn about the lives of frontier-era gold miners and their families at Independence ghost town.
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