12 Best United States Towns For A Weekend Trip
Somewhere over Maine right now the sun is coming up on Cadillac Mountain, the first place in the country to catch the sunrise for half the year. Three time zones west, the surfers are already out on Oahu's North Shore. Both are just a matter of showing up early, and both sit within ten minutes of a good breakfast. A weekend is enough time for a morning like that. The only real decision is which of these twelve you pick.
Gulf Shores, Alabama
Gulf Shores is the main town on Alabama's short piece of Gulf Coast, and most of what you came for is inside Gulf State Park. The park runs to about 6,150 acres, with roughly 28 miles of paved trail that pass freshwater lakes, pine flatwoods, and the occasional alligator sunning itself a polite distance from the boardwalk. The beach out front goes on for about two miles of soft white sand, open for swimming, surfing, and the kind of afternoon where you lose track of the hour. If you would rather not leave the park at all, The Lodge at Gulf State Park is a Hilton built right on the dunes, with beach-view rooms and a pool a few steps from the water.
Downtown, The Hangout is the closest thing the town has to a living room, a big waterfront restaurant where the seafood comes out in buckets and a band usually plays while kids chase each other through the fountain out front. Families with a second day to fill have the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo and The Track, a go-kart-and-mini-golf park that is exactly as loud and fun as it sounds.
Sedona, Arizona
The red rocks around Sedona turn the color of hot coals near sunset, which is when the crowds thin and the town looks its best. It is surrounded by Coconino National Forest and hundreds of miles of trail through the sandstone. Cathedral Rock is the classic first hike, a steep 1.5-mile scramble up smooth rock to a saddle between two spires, with the whole valley spread out below. At Slide Rock State Park just north of town, Oak Creek pours down an 80-foot chute of slick red stone that generations of Arizona kids have used as a natural water slide.
When the desert heat catches up with you, the Arabella Hotel Sedona has the red-rock views without the climb, plus a pool and a hot tub to sink into and Mexican food on site. It makes for a short weekend by design. Hike in the cool of the morning, wait out the sun at midday, and get back out for that last hour of red light before dark.
Bar Harbor, Maine
For part of the year, the first sunrise in the United States lands on top of Cadillac Mountain, and Bar Harbor is the town that gets you there before the alarm feels worth it. From early October to early March, daylight reaches its 1,530-foot summit, the highest point on the North Atlantic seaboard, ahead of anywhere else in the country. The rest of the year the view is just as good, minus the bragging rights.
Bar Harbor is the gateway to Acadia National Park, roughly 49,000 acres of granite coast, spruce forest, and glacier-carved ponds. A 27-mile loop road connects the highlights, and 158 miles of trail cover everything from an easy pond walk to the iron-rung climbs on the Precipice. Back in town, the harbor fills with lobster boats and the smell of butter, and at Stewman's Lobster Pond you can order the local specialty within sight of the water. The Abbe Museum downtown is devoted to the Wabanaki people, who have lived on this coast for thousands of years.
Moab, Utah
Moab has two national parks within a half-hour's drive, which is a lot to fit into one weekend and worth every minute. The famous one is Arches National Park, home to more than 2,000 sandstone arches. The three-mile round-trip climb to Delicate Arch is the one everybody makes, and for good reason. The 46-foot opening, the largest freestanding arch in the park, frames the snow-capped La Sal Mountains so cleanly it looks staged.
Just as close, Canyonlands National Park is a maze of mesas and canyons the Colorado River carved over millions of years. Photographers line up at Mesa Arch before dawn, when the rising sun lights the underside of the span like an ember. Main Street is where everyone refuels afterward, at breweries, taco joints, and outfitters stocked for the next morning out, and the Best Western Plus Canyonlands Inn has a pool and comfortable rooms right in the middle of it.
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea has no street numbers. Residents pick up their mail at the post office downtown, and the whole place feels pleasantly stuck a few decades back. The cottages help, dozens of them built by Hugh Comstock in the 1920s, with rolled eaves and crooked chimneys straight out of a children's book. Wander the lanes long enough and you stop trying to find addresses at all.
Just south, the coast at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve is a tangle of coves and headlands where sea lions bark from the rocks and divers drop into some of the clearest water in California. In town, Carmel Beach is a soft white crescent under a row of wind-bent cypress, free and open to anyone who walks down the hill. For a night, the Carmel Cottage Inn rents a handful of vintage cottages with fireplaces and full kitchens, set behind a quiet garden.
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
More people walk into Great Smoky Mountains National Park than any other national park in the country, and most of them pass through Gatlinburg to do it. The main entrance is a few minutes south of a downtown packed with pancake houses and taffy pullers. The park covers more than 522,000 acres of ridgelines that stay wrapped in blue haze, with over 800 miles of trail and roadside black bears that cause their own traffic jams.
In town, the Gatlinburg SkyBridge crosses 680 feet of open valley, the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America, with a few glass floor panels at the middle for anyone who wants to look straight down and reconsider. When the rain sets in, Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies is the reliable fallback, with sharks overhead and a slow walkway through a glass tunnel. For a place to crash, the Margaritaville Resort has a pool and a waterslide right downtown.
Haleiwa, Hawaii
In winter, the waves on Oahu's North Shore come in the size of houses, and Haleiwa is the town where the surfers refuel between sets. The village is the way in to breaks like Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach, where the best big-wave riders in the world show up for the cold-season swell. Even from the sand, watching them is a full afternoon.
The famous stop is Matsumoto Shave Ice, open since 1951, where the line for a paper cone of syrup over ice still runs down the block most afternoons. Lunch is a plate of garlic shrimp from a truck parked by the road. At the edge of town, the arched Anahulu Stream Bridge from 1921 is the spot where kids climb the rail and jump into the river below, and green sea turtles turn up on the beach at Laniakea often enough that people call it Turtle Beach.
Cape May, New Jersey
People have summered in Cape May since the 1760s, which is part of why it bills itself as the oldest seaside resort in the country. Rows of Victorian houses in sherbet colors run right up toward the beach, most of them still standing from the building boom that followed the Civil War, and the town has about two and a half miles of sand for swimming and fishing.
Out at Cape May Point, the 1859 lighthouse still works, and the 199 steps to the top pay off with a view over the Atlantic, the Delaware Bay, and a World War II gun battery half-buried in the dunes. The Emlen Physick Estate, an 1879 mansion designed by architect Frank Furness, is open for tours of its 18 rooms, and the state park at the point is one of the best places on the East Coast to watch the fall hawk migration. For a splurge, the Grand Hotel of Cape May puts you right on the beach with a couple of pools and a steakhouse downstairs.
Two Harbors, Minnesota
The North Shore of Lake Superior starts to feel wild around Two Harbors, where the water goes cold and clear and the shoreline turns to dark rock. A few miles up Highway 61, Gooseberry Falls State Park has three waterfalls within a short walk of one another on the Gooseberry River, linked by the 3.1-mile Fifth Falls Loop.
Farther along, Split Rock Lighthouse stands on a 130-foot cliff over the lake, finished in 1910 after a single November storm wrecked nearly 30 ships offshore. It is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the country, and once a year, on the anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking, the beacon is lit again. In town, the Black Woods Bar and Grill is the place for chicken pot pie and a hot turkey sandwich, and the Grand Superior Lodge, a few miles south, has lakeside cabins and a sauna to thaw out in.
Naples, Florida
The sand at Naples is the fine, sugar kind, and the old wooden pier that runs out into the Gulf is the town's front porch at sunset. A few minutes inland, the Naples Botanical Garden covers 170 acres of rainforest plantings and water gardens, and a boardwalk on the Gordon River Greenway runs past herons, gopher tortoises, and the occasional bobcat.
Lowdermilk Park is the beach the locals default to, with volleyball nets, a playground, and easy parking. Downtown, the Fifth Avenue restaurants are upscale without being stuffy, and the golf is famously good if that is your idea of a weekend. The Ritz-Carlton is right on the water for anyone who wants the full resort treatment, though a rented chair and an umbrella get you most of the same sunset.
Wellsboro, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania has its own canyon, and Wellsboro is the town at the head of it. Pine Creek Gorge runs about 47 miles and drops close to 1,450 feet, deep enough that locals have called it the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania for generations. Leonard Harrison State Park, on the east rim, has a short overlook trail to the best view, and Colton Point State Park is directly across on the west rim. Down on the canyon floor, the Pine Creek Rail Trail follows the creek for more than 60 miles, flat and crushed gravel, ideal for an easy bike day past old rail bridges.
Back in town, the gas lamps along Main Street still burn after dark. The Wellsboro Diner, a railcar-style spot from the 1930s, is the place for pie, and the Penn Wells Hotel has stood on Main Street since 1869, with a heated indoor pool for the end of a long day outside.
Boone, North Carolina
At about 3,300 feet up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Boone stays cool while everyone else down South is wilting in the heat, which is half its appeal in summer. The town takes its name from Daniel Boone, who camped in these mountains, and with Appalachian State University in the middle of it, there are coffee shops, cheap eats, and a home football crowd every fall.
The Cascades Trail, a one-mile loop off the Blue Ridge Parkway, ends at a 100-foot waterfall, and the Tweetsie Railroad runs a restored steam locomotive on a three-mile loop for families who never outgrew trains. The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, downtown, is worth an hour for its rotating exhibitions, and The Cardinal is the spot for a burger and a cocktail once the hiking is done. For a bed, the Hampton Inn and Suites just outside town is a reliable, no-frills base, hot breakfast included.
Making the Most of Two Days
What ties these towns together is a kind of ratio, enough big scenery to feel like you actually went somewhere, packed close enough to a walkable main street that you are not spending the whole trip getting there. A morning on Delicate Arch or Cadillac Mountain, an afternoon on the beach or the rail trail, then dinner somewhere the regulars already know your server. Two days rarely feels like enough for the places that deserve a full week, but these come closer than most, and you will probably drive home already planning the next visit.
