10 Great Road Trips to Take in The Ozarks
In the Ozarks, the water decides where a road can go. The Army Corps of Engineers finished five dams in the White River basin between 1944 and 1966. Several of these drives cross the water behind them on dam tops, a 1949 suspension bridge, and a free state ferry. A sixth dam, planned for the Buffalo River, was never built.
Farther east, the routes lead to springs instead. Each one ends at water a driver can reach on foot. These ten drives through the Ozarks run west to east, opening at a 1924 dam in Oklahoma and closing at a spring on the Current River in Missouri.
Salina to Jay via Oklahoma 20
Spavinaw Dam fixes the line of this drive through the Cookson Hills, the Oklahoma extension of the Ozark Plateau. Tulsa dammed Spavinaw Creek in 1924 to supply its own drinking water with the lake behind it staying the city's primary source for the next 55 years. Upstream, the creek drains about 400 square miles of Ozark foothills. Oklahoma 20 still runs past the spillway between Salina in Mayes County and Jay in Delaware County, a trip of 30.2 miles and about 41 minutes.
The reason to make the drive waits below the spillway, at the Spavinaw Area at Grand Lake State Park. Clear, turquoise water moves through a shallow stream there, shallow enough that families use it as a swimming hole for small children. Dogwoods line the same stream in the spring while the park takes campsite reservations online.
Spavinaw Lake spreads across 1,548 acres with about 23 miles of shoreline, and it was the first man-made lake in northeastern Oklahoma. North of town, Oklahoma 20 turns east toward Chloeta and Jay. Bald eagles winter on Spavinaw and Eucha lakes.
Beaver Bridge to Beaver Dam via Arkansas 187
Two crossings 17 years apart define Arkansas 187 in Carroll County. The Beaver Bridge carries a single lane of traffic over the White River on suspension cables strung in 1949. Drivers take turns on the timber deck, one direction at a time while no other suspension bridge in Arkansas remains open to cars.
The National Register added the bridge in 1990, and it appeared in the 2005 film Elizabethtown. A 1943 flood destroyed the concrete bridge that stood there before with ferries handling the crossing for decades before that. Arkansas's transportation department lowered the weight limit to five tons in 2025. During that year's retrofit work, the department closed the bridge Monday through Thursday in daytime hours but kept it open Friday through Sunday.
Past Beaver, the road meets US 62 at Busch and shares it briefly, then climbs onto the top of Beaver Dam, which the Corps completed in 1966. Beaver and the dam are 7.9 miles apart, roughly 13 minutes behind the wheel, so the two crossings bracket a short drive.
Beaver Lake, above the dam, holds more than 28,000 surface acres while downstream, the White River runs cold enough for rainbow and brown trout, and the Dam Site River Campground occupies the bank.
Hollister to Branson via Highway 165
Across the crest of Table Rock Dam, Highway 165 runs between the reservoir upstream and Lake Taneycomo below. Two bodies of water at two different elevations flank the same pavement. The Corps finished the dam in 1959, sharing the same reservoir as the Beaver Bridge upstream.
The highway loops west of Branson from Hollister through Taney and Stone counties, covering 18.7 miles and roughly 37 minutes of driving.
The Corps runs the Dewey Short Visitor Center at the south end, where exhibits cover the watershed and the dam's construction. A paved lakeshore trail leaves from the grounds, and Table Rock Lake counts 779 shoreline miles.
Below the dam on the Taneycomo side, the Shepherd of the Hills Fish Hatchery is the largest facility for raising trout that Missouri's conservation department operates. The department says the cold water released through the dam ended Taneycomo's native warm-water fishery and made the lake suited to trout instead with about 80 percent of the hatchery's trout going into Lake Taneycomo.
Lebanon to Bennett Spring via Missouri 64
Trout season sets the calendar on Missouri 64 west of Lebanon. From March 1 to October 31, the state conservation department stocks the stream at Bennett Spring State Park with rainbow trout every day. The drive out of Lebanon in Laclede County covers 10.9 miles in about 13 minutes, with Highway 64A leading down into the park.
This drive finishes with a hot meal at the park's Dining Lodge which dates back to around the 1930s. The stone building serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily throughout trout season, staying open until an hour past the evening whistle. Kitchen staff will cook a freshly caught and cleaned trout with buffets running weekend mornings and Friday nights.
More than 100 million gallons leave Bennett Spring each day. Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews built the arched stone bridge across the outflow stream in the 1930s, that the park still uses today. The state is renovating the hatchery here, resulting in the complex being closed to the public for the 2026 season.
West of the park, Missouri 64 crosses the Niangua River on a bridge built in 1931, with the state's Bennett Spring Access just across it. The Missouri Department of Transportation plans a wider bridge beside it, with construction set for 2027 and the old span open throughout. After the regular season closes, the park's stream switches to catch-and-release fishing on Fridays through Mondays from mid-November into February.
Pyatt to Protem via Arkansas 125 and the Peel Ferry
No bridge carries Arkansas 125 over Bull Shoals Lake but the Peel Ferry does the job instead. This crossing is the only place on any of these ten drives where the driving stops but the road keeps going. Vehicles roll onto the boat, and the pavement resumes on the far shore as Missouri 125.
The state transportation department runs the boat as part of the state highway system, and it is the last free ferry Arkansas operates. Year-round service spares drivers 50 miles of road around the lake.
Arkansas 125 heads north from the US 62 junction in Pyatt through Marion County and the crossroads of Peel. The trip to Protem covers 35.8 miles and runs about 1 hour 8 minutes, the water crossing included.
North of Peel, Highway 125 Park occupies the shore beside the ferry landing with departure times posted at the landing. The Corps campground has 39 sites with electric hookups, plus a designated swimming area and marina.
Yellville to Dillards Ferry via Arkansas 14
Arkansas 14 shares a stretch of asphalt with Highway 125 between Pyatt and Peel, then turns south at Yellville toward the Buffalo National River. Congress established the national river in 1972, running 135 miles without a dam.
Dams shape most of the water on these drives, but this one carries none. The leg covers 17.7 miles, roughly 25 minutes, heading south across Marion County to the Searcy County line at the river.
Before the river, a county road leaves Arkansas 14 for the Rush Historic District, the remains of a community that mined zinc from 1885 to 1931. A few miles farther, Arkansas 268 branches off to Buffalo Point, the former Buffalo River State Park that CCC crews developed.
The Indian Rockhouse Trail there runs 3.5 miles round trip with about 400 feet of elevation change. It ends at a bluff shelter people used as far back as 7,000 BCE. Rangers ask hikers to allow at least three hours, so the Buffalo Point turnoff is a half day rather than a pull-off.
Past that turnoff, Arkansas 14 reaches the river itself between Mull and Harriet. The access at the bridge still goes by the name Dillards Ferry.
Flippin to Norfork Dam via Arkansas 178, 5, and 177
In 1944, Norfork Dam became the first of the five Corps dams in the region, while Bull Shoals Dam followed in 1951. One drive does what no other route on the list manages to do and thast crossing the tops of both. From Flippin, the hatchery grounds at Norfork Dam lie 38.7 miles away, a drive of about 55 minutes.
Arkansas 178 leaves Flippin northbound for Bull Shoals and crosses Bull Shoals Dam, 256 feet high and 2,256 feet long, into Baxter County. The Corps closes the road over the dam for maintenance a few days a year, most recently in late July 2026. Beyond it, the highway continues through Lakeview to Mountain Home, and Arkansas 5 carries the route south to Salesville.
Arkansas 177 turns toward Norfork Dam. Just before it, the Norfork National Fish Hatchery owes its existence to these dams. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the dams turned the White River from a warm-water river into a cold one. The hatchery raises trout to restock the tailwaters, and visitors can walk its 96 outdoor raceways. Dry Run Creek, beside the raceways, is reserved for anglers under 16 or with mobility impairments.
Behind the dam, Norfork Lake reaches north across the state line to near Tecumseh, Missouri.
Gainesville to Dora via Missouri 181
The spring under Hodgson Mill pours into Bryant Creek beside Missouri 181, below a red mill built around 1897. Missouri 181 runs northeast from Gainesville in Ozark County, past Caney Mountain Conservation Area to Sycamore and the mill, then north to Dora. The full run covers 22.3 miles and around 29 minutes.
Caney Mountain repays the stop. A gravel entrance road leaves Highway 181 for a 1,330-acre natural area of dolomite glades, which local usage calls balds, and oak woodlands more than 200 years old. High Rock Mountain looks out 400 feet above the Caney Creek valley, and the Long Bald Nature Trail covers half a mile.
The state made this ground a wildlife refuge in 1940, when it held one of the last wild turkey populations in Missouri.
The mill itself rises three and a half stories, with a limestone barrel vault over the base of the cliff where the spring comes out. Private owners hold it, and it has not ground grain commercially since the 1970s, so the view comes from the parking area where Missouri 181 crosses Bryant Creek.
Alva Hodgson built this mill and one other in the county, Dawt Mill, which stands on the North Fork River near Tecumseh. When Hodgson Mill was nominated for federal historic listing, only four water mills remained in a county that had once counted at least a dozen.
Mammoth Spring to Winona via US 63 and Missouri 19
Nine million gallons an hour come up beside US 63 at Mammoth Spring State Park, near the Missouri line. The water forms a ten acre lake before leaving as the Spring River, and the spring carries National Natural Landmark status. The route north to Winona covers 46.6 miles in just under an hour.
US 63 crosses into Missouri at Thayer, where Missouri 19 heads north through Oregon County and Alton. About a mile before the Eleven Point River, the trailhead for Greer Spring opens on the west side of the highway. Reaching the water here means leaving the car behind for a while.
A trail of 0.9 miles drops about 250 feet to the spring, the second largest in Missouri. Greer puts out an average of 222 million gallons a day, a volume that more than doubles the flow of the Eleven Point below it. The Forest Service bans swimming, wading, and floating in the spring branch.
Missouri 19 then bridges the Eleven Point at Greer Crossing, a Forest Service campground whose boat ramp ranks among the most popular put-ins on the river. North of the crossing, the highway goes on to Winona in Shannon County, where it meets US 60.
Winona to Big Spring via US 60 and Missouri 103
At the end of Missouri 103, four miles south of Van Buren, Big Spring releases 289 million gallons of water a day on average. US 60 carries the drive east from Winona through Shannon and Carter counties and over the Current River at Van Buren. Missouri 103 handles the rest, and the whole leg measures 26.7 miles, close to 31 minutes.
The National Park Service treats the title of the largest spring in America as a contest among three. The others are Idaho's Snake River Spring Complex and Florida's Silver Spring, and flows at all three shift with rainfall. Big Spring served as one of Missouri's first state parks from 1924 until 1969. That year, the state gave it to the federal park system along with Alley and Round Spring.
An accessible walkway leads to the water's edge. CCC crews put up the stone lodge and cabins above the Current River. The water travels underground from as far as 45 miles away and carries about 70 tons of dissolved limestone a day, which gives the spring its color.
Where The Road Meets The Water
The water keeps setting the terms across all ten routes. Four Corps dams carry roads over their crests, one highway waits on a free ferry, and another crosses the Beaver Bridge in single file. East of the reservoirs, the drives trade dams for springs reached on foot. Trout seasons, dam maintenance, and dogwood bloom all shift through the year, so the calendar matters as much as the map.
