While Arches and Canyonlands draw most visitors to Moab, the Corona Arch hike remains one of the region’s true hidden gems. Close to town, easy to reach, and accessible for most hikers, it’s quickly becoming a local favorite—especially since the arch itself is every bit as big and beautiful as the famous Delicate Arch inside Arches National Park.
Known by many as the “Niagara of the West”, the breathtaking Shoshone Falls in Southern Idaho is a landmark that all travelers who visit the American Southwest should have on their itinerary. With a drop of 212-feet (roughly 65-meters), Shoshone Falls is actually 45-feet taller than the infamous Niagara Falls on the border between New York State and Canada.
As anyone who has traveled the United States by car extensively will tell you, sometimes you just happen to come across a landscape during your travels that so completely blows your mind that it renders you speechless. For me, one of these is undoubtedly the kind of weird, extremely cool, and very unique landscape of Craters of the Moon National Monument in southern Idaho.
I put together a summer road‑trip itinerary through the American West that linked some of the region’s most memorable national parks and landscapes, and I’m sharing the full route to help others planning a similar trip.
As a beginning hiker, the tougher 14ers in Colorado like Capitol Peak, Long’s Peak, Little Bear Peak, or “The Deadly Bells” might be too much for you to tackle at the moment, but that doesn’t mean you can’t set your sights on the clouds. In fact, there are a number of challenging, yet completely doable, 14ers in Colorado that beginning hikers can attempt to tackle.
White Sands is one of the most stunning landscapes in the United States. Not only is it the largest collection of sand dunes in the United States, but the beautiful white, gypsum sand dunes are also some of the most unique sand dunes found anywhere in the world. While gypsum is one of the most common minerals on the planet, because it easily dissolves in water, it is very rarely found on the surface of the ground. These unique and amazing traits made White Sands worthy of becoming a National Monument back in 1933.
Consisting of 117 known caves, the biggest of which spans roughly 8 acres and is the largest accessible cave chamber in North America, Carlsbad Caverns is one of the most unique landscapes in the American National Parks system. In addition to being an amazing landscape, the national park is also home to some fantastic wildlife.
Imagine a place where cactuses grow to be as big as telephone poles, the sunsets look like they came right out of a postcard, and the roadrunner you grew up watching on cartoons really does scurry around the landscape. If that sounds intriguing to you, then you will absolutely love Saguaro National Park in Arizona.
In this third installment of my Epic National Parks Road Trips series, I will be talking to you about an itinerary that takes you thru some of the most remarkable desert mountains and caves in the Southern United States. As you make your way thru the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, you will see one of the largest cave systems in the world, one of the biggest cactus species in the world, and beautiful mountains and rivers that have shaped the American Southwest.
The next epic road trip in my five-part series is an amazing trip thru the American Southwest. The Southwest is one of the most unique and beautiful areas of the United States, and undoubtedly my favorite part of the country. With breathtaking canyons, beautiful forests, and stunning desert landscapes, the canyon region of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona is an absolute must-see for any outdoor enthusiast.
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