13 best us travel guides

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EVERGLADES: The Largest Wilderness in the Eastern United States

Unlike many western parks with their scenic mountains and canyons, Everglades National Park was set aside to preserve an ecosystem comprising a web of animals and plants found nowhere else. The largest wilderness in the eastern United States, Everglades shelters the endangered manatee, the Florida panther, the threatened crocodile, and others.

• The 38-mile main park road winds through subtropical hardwood hammocks, pinelands, groves of bald cypress, mangrove forest, and the great “River of Grass,” the sheet of fresh water that originally flowed from the southern shores of Lake Okeechobee through sawgrass across central Florida and out to Florida Bay.
• The park remains one of America’s great nature experiences. From crocodiles to butterflies, palms to orchids, the subtropical Everglades environment offers rewards unique in North America.
• Wading birds such as herons and egrets (and, yes, anhingas) feed in wetlands where alligators and turtles swim. Wildlife here is so accustomed to humans that it’s easy to take close-up photos.
• Consider a tram tour or bicycle ride through Shark Valley, in the northern section of the park.

INDIANA DUNES: An Outstanding Biological Diversity

When Indiana dunes received designation in 2019 as the country’s 61st national park, it marked the culmination of more than a century of conservation efforts. Scientists recognized the outstanding biological diversity of the southern shore of Lake Michigan as early as the 19th century and calls for protection quickly gained momentum. For decades, park advocates battled industrial development and urban expansion to establish first a state park, then a national lakeshore, and finally a 15,000- acre national park encompassing beaches, towering sand dunes, wetlands, prairie, and woodland.

• Many visitors come to the park in summer to enjoy swimming, sunbathing, and picnicking along 15 miles of beach.
• Indiana Dunes is famed among birders as one of the best observation locations in the region, with more than 350 species on the park list. In spring, northbound migrants reach the Lake Michigan shore and stop to rest and feed before continuing their journey. The result can be a spectacular concentration of birds such as warblers, thrushes, tanagers, and orioles. In winter, scanning Lake Michigan can turn up loons, grebes, ducks, gulls, and other waterbirds.
• Indiana Dunes ranks near the top of all national parks in biological diversity. Its richness of flora and fauna stems in part from the fluctuating shoreline of Lake Michigan over millennia, with mature forests in older areas and vegetation in varied stages of succession in dunes that were underwater relatively recently.

GRAND CANYON: An American Icon

Like the statue of liberty, the Grand Canyon is an American icon. (It’s almost as if the majesty of the American West has been poured into a limestone riverbed.) Theodore Roosevelt considered it his civic duty to urge every American to see it. And around five million people come to Grand Canyon National Park every year, from all over the globe. Indeed, the canyon is considered one of the seven wonders of the natural world.

• Ninety percent of park visitors stick to the South Rim
• Seen 10 miles across the chasm from the South Rim, the North Rim is 212 miles away.
• Look for the famous California condors inhabiting the region roosting on the north-facing cliffs or in the Douglas fir trees below the Bright Angel Lodge toward sunset or early in the morning especially from mid-April through July.

DEATH VALLEY: Where Ferocity Reigns

Hottest, driest, lowest, largest . . . Death Valley dazzles, even intimidates, with superlatives. The largest national park in the Lower 48 has indeed recorded the world’s highest temperature (134° F), nets less than two inches of rain a year, and contains the lowest spot in North America. But those extremes can add up to fascination. Death Valley National Park is nothing short of spellbinding. Death Valley is geology laid bare—a scarred, gashed, dissected place where striated canyons gouge forbidding mountains, and where a vast salt-pan floor shimmers under a fierce sun. Ferocity reigns here.

• Mining ruins are among the park’s fascinations, as is the possibility of seeing wildlife.
• If you enter Death Valley from the south, you’ll cut through the Black Mountains and make your way north on Badwater Road. This byway traces the sub-sea-level floor of Death Valley, flanked by towering mountain ranges to the east and west.
• At Badwater, you hit bottom, 282 feet below sea level. It’s named for a salty pool of water visible from a short boardwalk. Walk onto the salt pan floor of the valley and look into the mountains for the sign, impressively high, that reads “Sea Level.”
• Early spring and late fall may be the most pleasant times to visit Death Valley, but visitation numbers are just as high in the summer, when people come from all over the world to experience the novelty of world-class heat.

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Find Your Adventure

Get inspired with gorgeous, full color photos and curated lists of the best road trips for kids, foodies, outdoor enthusiasts, and more.

Get Ready to Hit the Road

Prepare for your epic road trip with helpful maps, tips for when and why to go, and clear directions to each route’s starting point.

Experience the Best of the USA

Uncover the top 5 adventures on each route, from hikes, beaches, and outdoor recreation to delicious pitstops and must-visit museums.

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Plan Your Adventure

Marvel at the largest trees in the world, bike down a volcano, or cross off multiple bucket list parks on an epic road trip.

Explore the Great Outdoors

Hike unforgettable trails or cruise the best scenic drives—and don’t miss out on key side trips and sights.

Make Memories

Visualize (and remember!) your adventure with the detachable wall map, collect each park’s stamp, and use the fun new park stickers to turn your book into a keepsake memento.

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Fully Redesigned

Packed with color coded icons and beautiful images to help you easily plan your next adventure.

Comprehensive

Itineraries, maps, travel tips, and other special features to acquaint you with the destination and provide honest recommendations to help maximize your time.

More Color Photos

The new Experience chapter provides the perfect mix of photos and the best of the best lists to fuel your wanderlust.

Travel Inspiration Overload

Visit fodors.com to continue your exploration.

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Complete your holiday planning with other guides from our series.

Connect with other travelers.

Visit the Fodor's forums to get real time advice & recommendations from other travelers like you.

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Get there with the new, 2021 National Geographic Road Atlas: Adventure Edition

Travel across North America using easy-to-read, accurate maps showing highways, secondary roads, scenic routes, mileage markers, recreation areas, and points of interest. Navigate urban areas with detailed downtown city maps and metropolitan area insets. Take the guesswork out of traveling and trip planning with a comprehensive place name index, mileage charts, and cross-referenced pages. This atlas has the quality and accuracy you expect from an organization that has been mapping the world since 1915.

Built to last

This atlas features a heavy duty black plastic spiral binding and a durable clear/frosted plastic protective cover. These enhancements greatly extend the lifespan of the atlas. No more covers falling off and pages pulling out from everyday use. This atlas is built to last.

America’s 100 top outdoor destinations

Make your next road trip extraordinary by visiting one of America’s top 100 destinations for hiking, backpacking, climbing, cycling, paddle sports, skiing, snowboarding, and birding as selected by National Geographic Editors.

America’s 24 favorite National Parks

Plan your next visit using the park profile section that includes maps, photos, tips on top sights, popular trails, campgrounds, and lodging for 24 of the most popular National Parks in America.

Great design leads to great road maps

The cartographers at National Geographic spent months developing the design specifications for the state road maps included in this atlas. They carefully chose the colors, line weights, typography, and feature compilation to create the most accurate and easy-to-read road maps in the market today.

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Get Inspired

Envision your perfect Japanese adventure with gorgeous full-color photos, flexible itineraries, and recommendations for the best things to see, do, and eat.

Experience Japan Like a Local

Longtime Tokyo local Jonathan DeHart gives his best advice for getting around, interacting with the locals, and creating a trip full of unique experiences.

Travel with Confidence

Know before you go with background information, maps, useful tips, and more.

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Acadia National Park

Named after the French settlers who were expelled from Atlantic Canada by the British, Acadia is the nation’s easternmost national park and one of the first places in the United States to see the sunrise each day.One of the nation’s most beloved parks, Acadia protects a patch of coastal Maine where the north woods tumble down to meet the wild Atlantic. The first national park east of the Mississippi River sprawls across half of Mount Desert Island and all of several smaller landfalls. For generations, it’s been the place where New Englanders escape into nature and learn to cherish the wild side of Down East.

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Welcome to the USA

The great American experience is about so many things: bluegrass and beaches, snow-covered peaks and redwood forests, restaurant-loving cities and big open skies.

Including:

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Welcome to Eastern USA

Flanked by megacities New York and Chicago, landscaped with dune-backed beaches, smoky mountains and gator swamps, and steeped in musical roots, the East rolls out a sweet trip.

The museums here are the nation’s greatest hits – the Smithsonian, housing everything but the kitchen sink; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a city-state of treasures; and the Art Institute of Chicago, hanging Impressionists by the roomful.

This guide includes: