These 10 Towns In West Virginia Were Ranked Among US Favorites In 2025
A landlocked state in the Mid-Atlantic, West Virginia enchants with a quiet intensity all its own, far removed from the constant rhythm of its nearby neighbor, Washington, D.C. With its rich rolling wine country woven into the Appalachian Mountains, the Mountain State features rivers that carve canyons, forests that climb ridges, and hills that roll uninterrupted. As 2025 nears its end, interest in the state's communities that refuse to fade from favor remains strong. Their legacies echo from Revolutionary War footsteps to Civil War battlefields. Some pulse with challenges like daring cliff diving and whitewater rafting, while others are home to irresistible historic and recreational state parks that draw crowds. From riverside adventures to legends of monsters, these communities reflect renewal and reverence, securing their spots on repeated lists of West Virginia's most sought-after destinations.
Summersville
Summersville is a gorgeous wine-country town in West Virginia where the eminent namesake lake joins the Gauley River after Army Corps engineers dammed Summersville Canyon in 1966, creating the largest lake in the state. Summersville Lake State Park welcomes boaters and swimmers along its 2,790-acre expanse. Multiple campgrounds ring the giant lake, some luxurious like Mountain Lake Campground and Cabins, which provides waterfront sites, modern bathhouses, and cabin rentals for those desiring beds over tents. The Summersville Dam itself towers 390 feet above the Gauley River, and guided tours explain how its turbines generate power while controlled releases each fall create world-class whitewater downstream.
Five miles south, Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park preserves the September 1861 clash where Union forces drove Confederate troops across the Gauley River. The park's hiking trails wind through the historic earthworks and forests where soldiers once fought. Within town, Nicholas County Veterans Memorial Park capitalizes on this natural abundance with its swings and paved walkways, offering pure relaxation. The verdant countryside is omnipresent even beyond waterfront spots. As such, more grounded adventures transpire throughout Summersville, with the Kirkwood Winery & Isaiah Morgan Distillery hosting wine tastings, distillery tours, and seasonal events in its tasting room and outdoor pavilion.
Bluefield
Bluefield compounds the prime junctures of both small-town warmth and metropolitan energy, retaining its place as a favorite year after year. This college town, home to Bluefield State University, keeps alive the vintage architecture of the Bluefield Downtown Commercial Historic District. Among its towering landmarks, the West Virginia Hotel ranks among the state’s earliest skyscrapers, opening its doors in 1925. The Classical Revival Municipal Building displays columns and a clock tower that once governed a coal boom town where fortunes turned on rail shipments and mine production.
East River Mountain Scenic Overlook opens wide toward the Appalachian highlands, their contours linking both sides of the border in the same quiet allure. In the northern neighbor town of Bramwell, Pinnacle Rock State Park protects a 3,100-foot sandstone outcrop that juts above the forest canopy, while Jimmy Lewis Lake provides fishing and picnicking below. Across the state border in Bastian, Virginia, Wolf Creek Indian Village brings to life a 16th-century settlement with bark-covered dwellings, tool craft, and interpreters who speak of the Woodland-era Monacan and Powhatan peoples.
Moundsville
Moundsville sits along the Ohio River, its terrain shifting abruptly from flat riverfront to steep ridges, the kind of uneven ground that keeps the cityscape from settling into predictable patterns. The West Virginia Penitentiary seizes the gaze with its gothic castellated towers and stone walls that once enclosed over a thousand inmates before closing in 1995, and guided tours now reveal cramped cells, the electric chair, and gallows that document a century of harsh justice. Just blocks away, Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex preserves the largest conical burial mound raised by the Adena culture nearly 2,000 years ago, its grass-covered slopes climbing 62 feet above the surrounding streets.
The Fostoria Glass Museum on Tomlinson Avenue fills cases with pressed and etched glassware produced locally from 1891 to 1986, each piece in the semblance of the factory town's industrial pride. East of downtown, Grand Vue Park climbs the hillside to an observation deck that fans out above Moundsville below and the Ohio River Valley flowing north and south through forested ridges. The river itself meanders past the waterfront where the Moundsville Blue Bowstring Bridge, painted blue and supported by steel arches, adjoins Ohio's Belmont County.
Parkersburg
Parkersburg unfolds beside the Ohio River as part of a shared region with Vienna and Williamstown, yet its own pulse alone secures the attention. Brick lanes in the Julia-Ann Square Historic District frame homes whose bay windows and porch columns preserve a nineteenth-century grace, and travelers often pause there to photograph the ornate doorways and iron fences that lend every corner a timeless aura. The Chancellor House features a Second Empire façade, boasting its mansard roof and four-story tower. Meanwhile, the Van Winkle-Wix House, aptly nicknamed the Castle, commands notice with turrets and pointed rooflines that conjure a medieval vision reinterpreted in red brick. Elsewhere, children find wonder at Discovery World on Market, where river science and mechanical puzzles turn curiosity into delight.
A few blocks away, the Oil & Gas Museum lays out engines, drills, and ledgers from the early boom years, turning the story of West Virginia’s first wells into something visitors can see, touch, and imagine. Across the water, Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park extends quiet trails, a restored mansion, and ferry rides that slow time itself. Here, one can take in the full span of water and town alike, while the old Civil War embankments nearby remind us how history still lingers in the soil. In December, Parkersburg's annual Winterfest fills Bicentennial Park with music, parades, fireworks, and the great tree lighting that brightens the riverfront night. The Festival of Trees at the Blennerhassett Hotel follows suit with rows of decorated evergreens supporting local charities and the holiday spirit alike.
Charles Town
About 60 miles from Washington, D.C., Charles Town immortalizes history in living architecture along streets that Charles Washington, the youngest brother of President George Washington, established for his family. Main Street and the surrounding downtown blocks gather brick storefronts where Needful Things Emporium stacks local artisan work beside vintage finds. Nearby, Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races pulls visitors year-round for thoroughbred racing, table games, and headliner performances in its intimate theater. The Old Opera House on North George Street has staged musicals, drama, and farcical plays for more than a century, its curved balcony and orchestra pit intact behind federalist brick and white trim.
The Jefferson County Museum at East Washington Street preserves several Civil War uniforms and John Brown trial holdings. President George Washington's handwritten letters are among these exhibits that document many of the nation's earliest conflicts. Charles Washington built Happy Retreat in 1780 on land that would soon become the center of Charles Town, and the Jefferson County Courthouse still occupies one of the four corner lots he donated in 1786. Further southeast from the seat of Jefferson County, Moulton Park opens trails and picnic grounds near where the Shenandoah River bends through Big Eddy, its current slowing just enough for kayakers to pause before the water picks up speed again.
Weston
The West Fork River carves Weston into two portions, with downtown anchoring the north bank while neighborhoods claim the southern side. The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, also going by Weston State Hospital, looms over the riverfront with Gothic and Tudor Revival stonework that once held patients for over a century. Guided tours can lead you through wards, isolation cells, and the museum where patient artwork from therapy programs fills gallery walls. The Mountaineer Military Museum, located on Center Avenue, honors West Virginians who served from colonial times to the present conflicts, with uniforms, weapons, and photographs adorning the former 1882 Colored School building.
On Main Avenue, the Museum of American Glass holds over 20,000 pieces ranging from 1860s bottles and telegraph insulators to Steuben art glass and the Lady Jane stained glass dollhouse, tracing West Virginia's dominance in glass production. Just north of town, Jackson's Mill State 4-H Camp Historic District preserves the 1841 gristmill where Stonewall Jackson worked alongside his uncle, and the site has operated as the nation's first state 4-H camp since 1921. At Stonewall Jackson Dam Visitor Center, exhibits trace the creation of the 1970s reservoir, with broad overlooks where the water and wooded slopes meet under open sky.
Buckhannon
The foothills of the Allegheny Mountains gather around Buckhannon, a college town where the Buckhannon River divides downtown from West Virginia Wesleyan College's campus. The Colonial Arts Center, a renovated 1924 theater, now entertains audiences with community performances, regional artists, exhibitions, and concerts throughout the year. At Pringle Tree Park, a third-generation sycamore recalls the English deserters who sheltered inside the original hollow trunk in the 1760s, living off fish and game until they discovered the war had ended.
Main Street courses through the Downtown Buckhannon Historic District, where the Upshur County Historical Society and Museum revitalize one of the place's oldest landmarks. It recalls regional history from early Native settlements to Civil War skirmishes that once unfolded across the surrounding valleys. To the west, Stonecoal Lake Wildlife Management Area wraps approximately 3,000 acres of hardwood forest and brushland around a 550-acre reservoir where anglers pursue muskellunge and other fish amid quiet coves and forested hillsides.
Gauley Bridge
The Kanawha River begins its journey at Gauley Bridge, where the New and Gauley rivers converge beneath the Gauley River Iron Bridge to form one of West Virginia's paramount waterways. This small town pulls adventurers year-round for one of the most adventurous white-water rafting experiences in the United States. The Upper Gauley section offers its chocolate lining each fall when Summersville Dam unleashes Class V rapids roaring. Pillow Rock, Lost Paddle, and Sweet's Falls drop rafters through fourteen-foot cascades and hydraulic chaos that test even experienced paddlers. Two miles southwest in Glen Ferris, the Kanawha Falls Public Fishing Area entices sightseers along the Midland Trail Scenic Byway, where a fifteen-foot sandstone ledge pushes the entire river width over a churning drop that sustains trophy muskellunge and bass populations below.
Cathedral Falls, just east of Gauley Bridge along Highway 60, sends sixty feet of water down rock walls into a natural amphitheater where picnic tables and a small parking area welcome visitors. Nearby campgrounds dot the riverbanks and forested hillsides, providing base camps for kayakers, hikers, and those drawn to the region's layered geology. The Hawks Nest-Gauley Bridge hydropower complex, built during the Great Depression, still generates 102 megawatts through a three-mile tunnel beneath Gauley Mountain. It powers industrial operations downstream while the dam above creates views from Hawks Nest State Park that sweep across the reservoir, gorge, and mountain ridges beyond.
Grafton
The legend of the Grafton Monster, an ever-intriguing mystery, lures tourists and folklore enthusiasts to this corner of West Virginia, raising its profile every passing year. The June 1964 sighting by reporter Robert Cockrell of a headless, seal-skinned creature along Riverside Drive ignited monster-hunting parties armed with bats and flashlights, though no concrete evidence ever surfaced. Daylight recreation complements these night tales south of town at Tygart Lake, where a 1,750-acre reservoir allows fishing for muskie, walleye, and catfish from boat or shore. Tygart Lake State Park welcomes boaters, swimmers, kayakers, and scuba divers across its ten-mile length, while Tygart Adventures operates a waterpark with slides and splash zones for families.
North of town, Valley Falls State Park balances the aquatic adventure with relaxation across miles of trails, with the Tygart Valley River cascading over four separate waterfalls that drop through Connoquenessing Sandstone ledges. In town proper, the river divides Grafton from West Grafton, and the B&O Railroad Station recalls when Grafton served as a vital rail hub from its 1856 founding. The International Mother’s Day Shrine at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church opens another window into the past, having celebrated the first Mother’s Day in 1908.
Harpers Ferry
Harpers Ferry sits where the Shenandoah Valley meets Virginia and Maryland at the confluence of two great rivers. At that very spot, the town contains one of the most visited historic sites in the state of West Virginia, John Brown's Fort, where the abolitionist barricaded himself during his failed 1859 raid on the federal armory. The Shenandoah River flows in from the left and the Potomac River from the right, merging at Harpers Ferry beneath cliffs and railroad bridges that frame the waterways.
In the neighboring town of Bolivar, Bolivar Heights Scenic Overlook provides views across the valley where Confederate artillery once shelled Union positions during multiple Civil War campaigns. Harpers Ferry National Historical Park arranges its historic quarters and museums to echo the town’s journey from arms foundry to war site and onward to a rail hub. The park is home to an abundance of attractions, such as Jefferson Rock, where Thomas Jefferson declared the view "worth a voyage across the Atlantic." The Meriwether Lewis Exhibit chronicles the Lewis and Clark expedition's weapons procurement from Harpers Ferry's arsenal in 1803.
West Virginia’s Vivid Valleys and Vistas
As 2025 unfolds, these delightful towns in West Virginia end the year on a high note, seizing the spotlight with their allure undiminished. Parkersburg compounds the prime junctures of both small-town warmth and metropolitan energy, while simultaneously crowning a hill at the confluence of the Ohio and Little Kanawha Rivers. Meanwhile, Grafton and Summersville emerge as two of West Virginia's charming riverside towns, making up for the Mountain State’s distance from Atlantic surf. Charles Town and Harpers Ferry immortalize chapters from the Independence era, surfacing memories of Founding Fathers and pivotal moments that still linger in courthouse squares and rocks. Together, these towns chart a course among West Virginia's most favored, their names etched deeply in the map of 2025 favorites.
