Ever driven through a nine-foot-wide granite tunnel and come out the other side face-to-face with a 2,000-pound bison standing in the middle of the road? That's a fairly normal Tuesday at Custer State Park. Spread…
Forty-six vintage beach cottages sit along this stretch of Orange County coastline, built in the 1930s and '40s as a seaside artist colony — and only about two dozen of them are actually available to…
There's exactly one place on Earth where the general public can dig for diamonds and walk away owning whatever they find, no size limit, no value threshold, no fine print. That place is a 37.5-acre…
Six hundred stairs stand between the rim of Cloudland Canyon and the two waterfalls waiting at the bottom, and the climb back up is exactly as demanding as that number suggests. Perched on the western…
Just a quarter inch of rain is enough to shut down every trail in Chino Hills State Park for at least 48 hours, sometimes longer. That's not an exaggeration or overcaution, it's official park policy,…
On the darkest nights at Cherry Springs, the Milky Way glows bright enough to cast a visible shadow. That's not exaggeration for effect, it's a genuine, documented feature of one of the darkest places in…
Legend holds that modern rock climbing as a sport actually began here, among the sculpted sandstone formations scattered through this ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Today, Castle Rock State Park still draws climbers with…
In August 2020, wildfire tore through 97% of California's oldest state park, destroying nearly every building, campground, and piece of infrastructure inside it. Six years later, Big Basin Redwoods is still recovering, and visiting it…
Oklahoma isn't a state most people associate with trout fishing or mountain scenery, but Beavers Bend State Park delivers both. Cold-water releases from Broken Bow Dam keep the Mountain Fork River running at a steady…
Drive seven miles across a narrow causeway into the middle of the Great Salt Lake, and you'll find roughly 600 free-roaming American bison sharing the landscape with pronghorn, bighorn sheep, and millions of migratory birds.…
