Northern United States's Most Charming Beach Towns

The Ozarks span the highlands of Arkansas and Missouri with a corner reaching into Oklahoma. The region holds spring-fed rivers, sandstone bluffs, dense hardwood forest, and a string of small towns built around the landscape. Eureka Springs anchors the Arkansas side with Victorian streets cut into the hillsides. Branson runs the Missouri end as one of the largest live-music markets in the country. Mountain View carries the folk music tradition that gave the Ozarks its musical reputation. The nine towns below are the practical stops on an Ozarks trip.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas

The entire downtown of Eureka Springs is a National Historic District, with 167 contributing buildings packed into one of the most intact Victorian commercial cores in the South. The streets follow the limestone ridges rather than any grid, which is why every block looks different and why the town is sometimes called "the Stairstep Town." The 1886 Crescent Hotel sits at the highest point and runs nightly ghost tours, with the building's history as a 1937 cancer-cure quack hospital under "Dr." Norman Baker giving it the reputation. Thorncrown Chapel, the 1980 E. Fay Jones design in the woods just west of town, was selected by the American Institute of Architects in 2006 as the fourth-greatest American structure of the 20th century. Basin Spring Park downtown is where the town's mineral-spring history began, and Mud Street Cafe a block away handles the breakfast crowd.

Jasper, Arkansas

The Buffalo River, designated the country's first National River in 1972, runs through the Newton County hills outside Jasper and is one of the few remaining free-flowing rivers in the lower 48. The Boxley Valley elk herd, reintroduced by Arkansas Game and Fish in 1981 from Colorado stock, ranges through the upper Buffalo watershed and is most often seen at dawn and dusk along Arkansas Highway 21 just south of Jasper. The Ozark Cafe on Main Street has been the town's anchor diner since 1909 (with a wood-fired pizza menu added in recent decades). Scenic Highway 7, which runs north-south through town, was one of the first Arkansas roads to receive National Scenic Byway designation and peaks for fall colour through the last two weeks of October. The Ozark Highlands Trail, the 165-mile cross-Arkansas hiking route, runs just east of Jasper through the Buffalo National River corridor.

Branson, Missouri

Harold Bell Wright's 1907 novel The Shepherd of the Hills sold over four million copies and put the Taney County backwoods on the map decades before there was a Branson tourism industry. Branson today runs more than 50 live theatres along the Highway 76 entertainment strip and seats more annual visitors at country and variety shows than any market in the country apart from Las Vegas and Nashville. Silver Dollar City, the 1880s-themed park on the bluff above Marvel Cave, has been operating since 1960 and routinely lands at the top of national theme-park rankings. The Shepherd of the Hills Homestead at the original Old Matt's Cabin site runs a daily outdoor drama based on the novel through the warm-weather months. Table Rock Lake, the 43,100-acre Corps of Engineers reservoir just west of town, gives Branson its working summer waterfront.

Mountain View, Arkansas

Every Friday and Saturday night from April through October, musicians gather on the lawn around the Stone County Courthouse in Mountain View for free public pickin' sessions that have run since the late 1960s. The town calls itself the Folk Music Capital of the World, and the tradition is institutionalised at the Ozark Folk Center State Park north of town, which keeps a year-round schedule of demonstrations, concerts, and craft classes built around traditional Ozark crafts and music. Blanchard Springs Caverns, 15 minutes northwest, is among the largest publicly accessible developed-tour caves in Arkansas, operated by the U.S. Forest Service inside Ozark-St. Francis National Forest. The White River runs east of Mountain View and is one of the most productive trout streams in the country, supplied in part by the cold-water release below Bull Shoals Dam. PJ's Rainbow Café handles the Main Street breakfast.

Van Buren, Arkansas

Van Buren sits on the north bank of the Arkansas River directly across from Fort Smith and was named in 1836 for Martin Van Buren, then vice president and a year out from his own presidency. The six-block Historic District along Main Street holds the most intact 19th-century commercial frontages on the Arkansas side of the river. The King Opera House, built in 1891 and restored after a long closure, books a year-round schedule and has hosted touring lecturers and performers from the late-19th-century circuit, including William Jennings Bryan. The Arkansas-Missouri Railroad runs a passenger excursion service out of the Van Buren station up to Winslow on the same route the Frisco line used to haul Ozark passengers through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Kimberling City, Missouri

Kimberling City sits at the western edge of Table Rock Lake, the 43,100-acre Corps of Engineers reservoir created when the Army Corps dammed the White River in 1958. The town runs as the working marina hub on the western lake, with Table Rock Helicopters and several pontoon and ski-boat rental operations launching from the main harbour. Table Rock holds some of the deepest water on the White River chain (around 220 feet near the dam) and is rated for some of the best smallmouth bass fishing in the country. The Showboat Branson Belle, a paddlewheel dinner cruise, docks on the south side of the lake but pulls many of its passengers out of the Kimberling City lodging base. Lakeside Forest Wilderness Area, the 140-acre municipal preserve across the bay in Branson, has six miles of trails through Ozark hardwood.

Lakeview, Arkansas

Bull Shoals Lake, 45,150 surface acres across the Arkansas-Missouri line, is the third-largest lake in Arkansas and one of the clearest, with summer visibility regularly running 20 feet or more. Lakeview, on the southern shore at the mouth of the White River tailwater, is the closest community to Bull Shoals Dam, the 256-foot concrete gravity dam completed by the Corps in 1951. The cold-water release below the dam created the White River trout fishery, and the river immediately downstream produced the world-record brown trout of 40 pounds, 4 ounces in 1992. Bull Shoals-White River State Park covers the land between the lake and the river and runs the Gaston's White River Resort dock at the river's edge. Beacon Point on Main Street covers the home-style end of the dining scene.

Bella Vista, Arkansas

Bella Vista's Back 40 trail system, opened in 2017 as part of the Walton Family Foundation's regional mountain-bike investment, runs around 40 miles of stacked-loop singletrack through the Ozark hardwood and helped establish the area as the most concentrated mountain-bike destination in the Mid-South. The connected Slaughter Pen and Coler Mountain Bike Preserve systems push the total regional mileage past 130 miles of purpose-built singletrack. The Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel, the 1988 E. Fay Jones glass-and-stone design in the woods south of town, sits as the more accessible cousin to Thorncrown in Eureka Springs and runs the same kind of forest-cathedral effect. Lake Ann is one of seven lakes managed by the Bella Vista Property Owners Association. JJ's Grill on Highway 71 handles the casual dining and game-day end of the social scene.

Lowell, Arkansas

Lowell is the headquarters of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, one of the largest publicly held trucking and logistics companies in the country, founded in town in 1961 and still operating from the original Lowell campus. The Razorback Regional Greenway, a 36-mile paved bike and pedestrian path completed in 2015, runs the length of Northwest Arkansas from south Bentonville to south Fayetteville and passes directly through Lowell. Ward Nail Park, the city's 72-acre central park, hosts Mudtown Days each September with vendors, music, and the largest community festival in the city's calendar. The Grove Entertainment Complex on Pleasant Grove Road combines bowling, axe-throwing, a small arcade, and a sports bar under one roof. Fuku Sushi and 7 Brew Coffee both have their northwest Arkansas flagship locations in Lowell.

Picking An Ozarks Base

The Ozarks reward visitors who pick one town and stay put rather than try to circle the whole region in a single trip. Eureka Springs holds the most architectural interest and the deepest concentration of restaurants. Branson and Kimberling City both put the Table Rock-Lake of the Ozarks resort infrastructure within reach, with Branson carrying the entertainment economy and Kimberling City the quieter marina pace. Mountain View and Jasper are the choices for visitors most interested in the music tradition and the Buffalo River backcountry. The Northwest Arkansas trio of Bella Vista, Van Buren, and Lowell sit closest to the regional airport in Bentonville and pair well with day trips to Crystal Bridges Museum and the Walmart Museum in Bentonville.