Original source
: http://travel.yahoo.com
Posted : April 2013
Author : The
Budget Travel Editor
Psst. Can you keep
a secret? If you're looking for a world-class vacation minus the crowds, Budget
Travel has got a hot tip. Well, actually we've got 10 of them. Over the past year
we've visited some of America's
most amazing parklands and unique small towns. Stretching across the U.S., our list
of beautiful hidden gems includes ocean spray, lapping lakeshores, forests,
mountains, and some of the nicest hosts you'll ever meet. What all these places
have in common is that you might have never heard of them without us spilling
the beans. Enjoy!
Valley of Fire State
Park
Nevada
One of the state's
best-loved parks is the Valley of Fire, 42,000 arid acres about an hour's drive
northeast from Las Vegas. The park
delivers its own kind of high-stakes drama, trading neon and nightclubs for
150-million-year-old sandstone formations and 3,000-year-old petroglyphs
(images carved in rock). You could even say it has star quality: The surreal,
burnt-sienna landscape stood in for Mars in the 1990 movie Total Recall. If you're embarking
on your own photo safari or DIY sci-fi flick in Nevada's largest state park,
don't miss Arch Rock, Elephant Rock, or the Beehives, all of which are
essentially solid-stone versions of exactly what they sound like. Most
important of all: Bring lots of water with you. Best to come in spring or fall
for a more comfortable trip.
Ludington State Park
Michigan
Snug between Lake
Michigan and Hamlin Lake, this nearly 5,300-acre park has seven miles of sandy,
dune-strewn beaches, a historic lighthouse you can climb, more than 20 miles of
hiking trails (plus paths for biking and cross-country skiing), and the
shallow, clear Big Sable River, which is perfect for drifting down in an inner
tube. No wonder Ludington has been a Great Lakes-area favorite since it was
established 76 years ago.
Hammondsport
N.Y.
Hammondsport may
well be the recycling capital of America. Not garbage recycling
(though they do that, too). We're talking about the vintage seaplanes restored
and flown by the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum, or the birdhouses made of scrap wood in front
of the Aroma Coffee Art Gallery. Even the cypress paneling in
the Bully Hill Vineyard's lower dining room came from old wine barrels. It's tempting to
say that there's something in the water, but Hammondsport's passion for the
past really comes via the wine. The Pleasant Valley Wine Company, opened in
1860, was the first in the Finger Lakes
region. In 1962, a Ukrainian viticulturist further transformed the local wine
industry at his Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars by successfully
planting European grapes in the colder New
York climate. Today, both those wineries - and several
more - are mainstays of the landscape.
Cache River
State Natural Area
Illinois
There are more
famous swamps than the one in Cache River State Natural Area, a nearly
15,000-acre Illinois state park 30 miles from
the Kentucky border.
The Everglades, say, or Okefenokee. But who
wants a crowd along? One of the northernmost examples of a true Southern swamp,
the delightfully under-the-radar Cache River park gets only about 200,000
annual visitors - that's about one visitor per acre per month. Other life forms
aren't nearly so scarce here: The park's wetlands, floodplains, forests, and
limestone barrens harbor more than 100 threatened or endangered species. It's
best explored by canoe, along six miles of paddling trails that bring you
face-to-face with massive tupelo and cypress trunks.
Weaverville
California
You expect certain
trappings in any Gold Rush town. A saloon, a main street, maybe a hitching
post. Also a 138-year-old working Chinese temple. No? You'll find one in
Weaverville, where the Joss House State Historic Park is a testament to the
town's unsung history of tolerance. Maybe it's the
mining connection, but Weaverville is a place where you often strike it rich in
unexpected places. The 1854 drugstore and bank are now home to the La Grange
Cafe, which features a wildly creative menu of boar, rabbit, and buffalo as
well as an impressive wine cellar in the old bank vault.
Blackwater Falls
State Park
West Virginia
Blackwater Falls' namesake cascade isn't just the most
picturesque spot in this 2,456-acre park, it's also one of the most
photographed places in the state. The area is equally eye-catching when it's
dressed in the bright greens of spring, the Crayola-box colors of autumn, or
silvery winter, when parts of the falls freeze into man-size icicles. The falls
themselves - more brown than black - get their distinctive hue from tannic acid
that leaches into the river from hemlock and red spruce needles upstream.
Damascus
Virginia
If you decide to
drive to Damascus,
you'll likely be in the minority. This is hiking and cycling heaven, where
seven major trails intersect, including the undulating Virginia Creeper and the
granddaddy of them all: the 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail. In a nifty bit of
irony, six of the seven trails converge in a parking lot, at Mojoes Trailside
Coffee House, where most mornings you'll find a clutch of locals and
through-hikers chatting about travel plans. Breakfast is the big meal in town,
and the more energy-boosting calories the better.
Katy Trail
State Park
Missouri
The largest
rails-to-trails conversion in America, the 240-mile Katy Trail spans Missouri's
midsection, from Clinton in the west to Machens in the east, along the former
track of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (MKT) Railroad (a.k.a. the Katy). The mostly
flat path is open to hikers and cyclists - and in some sections, horseback riders - and
traverses historic railroad bridges, tunnels, forests, valleys, and open
fields. In spots, it skirts the edge of the Missouri River.
Ohiopyle State
Park
Pennsylvania
If ever there were
an all-purpose park, southwestern Pennsylvania's
Ohiopyle State Park is it. Looking for
waterfalls? It has four. Trails? Hikers get 79 miles of them - plus 27 miles for
cyclists, 11 for folks on horseback, and nearly 40 for cross-country skiers.
And why not throw in a natural water slide or two? The lifeblood of
the 20,000-acre park, however, is the Youghiogheny River Gorge - a.k.a. the
Yough. The Middle Yough, which flows to Ohiopyle from Confluence, Pa., is the
gentler section, with Class I and II rapids for rafters and kayakers; the Lower
Yough, downstream, gets up to Class IV whitewater. Combined, they attract a
good chunk of the 1 million people who visit the park every year.
Beaufort
North Carolina
Captain Horatio
Sinbad is what you might call a friendly pirate. He's got six cannons on his
54-foot brigantine, the Meka II, but he's also got Wi-Fi. He's got a gold tooth
and a gold hoop in his left ear, but his mate lovingly wears the matching
earring on a chain around her neck (and brings him coffee on deck). He makes
his living as a pirate, sailing the East Coast to lead mock
invasions - "historical entertainments," as he calls them - then
dutifully returns to Beaufort, N.C., every chance he gets. "The water is
clean, the fishing is great, and the people are friendly," he says.
"This is home port for me." If you'd just
dropped into Beaufort, you might be surprised to find that a pirate has weighed
anchor there. Perched on an especially serene stretch of the North Carolina coast, the town has an air of
Southern gentility about it, with restored 17th- and 18th-century buildings
that flank the local historical society. Feeling a shiver in your timbers? A
cup of rich gumbo and a slice of salty, pillow-soft French bread at the
Beaufort Grocery restaurant and bakery will warm you up nicely.
~Admin~
No comments:
Post a Comment