It's that time of year when the days shorten, temperatures cool, and a rich palette of red and gold begins to unfurl across the landscape. While there’s plenty of places to experience the colors of fall, you can find some of our favorites below.
Glacier National Park, Montana
Glacier National Park offers some of the world’s most sublime scenery: ancient limestone cliffs, spectacular lakes, and pristine waterfalls. This breathtaking landscape is home to an abundance of wildlife including moose, wolves, and bears, but it is the larch tree that steals the spotlight in mid-October with its show-stopping yellow foliage.
Aspen, Colorado
Though many outdoor enthusiasts flock to Aspen for the ski season, visitors who make the trip in fall will be rewarded with a vision of vibrant yellow rippling across the mountainous landscape. Take a drive to Maroon Bells to see the colors dripping down the mountain like paint on a canvas, reflected on the surface of picturesque Maroon Lake.
The Ozarks, Arkansas
This former frontier land is known as the “Natural State” and with good reason: Arkansas abounds in mountains, valleys, woodlands, and hot springs. Occupying much of Northwest Arkansas, the remote Ozark Mountain range offers idyllic trails that are best hiked from late October to mid-November when fiery shades of scarlet and orange erupt across the scenery.
Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia and North Carolina
The serpentine Blue Ridge Parkway crests the Appalachian mountains for hundreds of miles through Virginia and North Carolina. The route meanders past rugged mountains and through pastoral landscapes, reaching the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at the Southern end. Take a drive in the fall to catch the slopes shining in oppulent shades of gold, copper and ruby-red.
Great Smoky Mountain National Park, Tennessee
Great Smoky Mountain National Park should place on any leaf peepers list due to its amazing diversity of trees. Amongst these, the sugar maple, scarlet oak, sweetgum, red maple, and the hickory put on the most impressive show between mid-October and early November. The hike to Mount LeConte and the observation tower on Clingman’s Dome offer unparalleled views of this spectacular display.
Kancamagus Highway, New Hampshire
Perhaps the most scenic route in New England during the fall season, this stretch of highway runs through the White Mountain National Forest. Take a drive through a tunnel of shades worthy of any artist’s palette. Campgrounds and picnic areas along the entire length of the highway also give travelers ample opportunity to relax and take in the scenery.
Stowe, Vermont
This charming mountain-ringed village is at its most picture perfect in fall when its woodland is transformed with resplendent hues of gold and red. Stowe is also famous as the home of the musical Von Trapp family, who were the inspiration behind the 1965 movie The Sound of Music, and the Trapp Family Lodge is now one of the most popular hotels in the area.
Acadia National Park, Maine
Located primarily on Mount Desert Island off the southeast Maine coast, Acadia National Park’s hillsides blush a brilliant red in October. A hike up Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the Atlantic Coast, will reward visitors with incredible views over swathes of unspoilt forest and rugged coastline. The elegant resort town of Bar Harbor is a good base from which to explore the park.
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