Labor Day just cleared out the parking lots at Yosemite, and the park’s calendar moved on just as fast. One of the park’s most useful shuttles, the line that saves hikers from hunting for parking in the high country, is already counting down its final days for the year. Roads, campsites, and waterfalls all shift…
You pull into a Kill Devil Hills beach access the Tuesday after Labor Day. A dog and its owner walk past without the owner throwing a nervous glance down the beach first. Hallelujah! These are the things that change in North Carolina’s beach towns the week after Labor Day. 1. Lifeguards Off the Sand Cape…
Highway 1 through Big Sur has been closed since August 11, when a wildfire forced Caltrans to shut the road down. There’s still no firm reopening date as of this writing. These are the mistakes tourists make when driving on California’s Highway 1. Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Traffic laws are subject…
More than 2,600 official markers stand along Virginia’s roads, part of the oldest state historical marker program in the country. The average glance at one lasts about as long as a stoplight. That’s roughly enough time to read two or three sentences and miss everything the sign didn’t have room for. These are the Virginia…
New York’s roughly 600 commercial apple growers work about 55,000 acres of orchards. Almost every one has their own rules for visitors. A rule that’s second nature at one orchard can get a visitor turned around at the next one over. These are the fruit picking rules at some New York farms that some visitors…
California’s coastline runs about 840 miles, and on Labor Day weekend, drivers along nearly every mile of it end up circling for the same parking spot. Locals figured out the workaround years ago: They skip the sand. These are the day trips Californians take over Labor Day weekend that have nothing to do with the…
Virginia has handed the governor’s Century Farm certificate to more than 1,600 families across the state. A lot of those farms sit along a road you’ve probably driven. These are the Virginia roadside stands tourists drive straight past without ever knowing what they missed. Critzer Family Farm Critzer Family Farm sits on Route 151 in…
Think New York’s small towns are already jammed with leaf-peeping tour buses in September? Newcomers would say so. But the Hudson Valley doesn’t hit peak color until the third week of October, and Long Island waits until mid-November, so a Labor Day weekend day trip beats the rush by weeks. These are the New York…
September 2015 sent more than 1 million people through Great Smoky Mountains National Park in a single month, one of the highest Septembers the park has ever recorded. Tennessee visitors picturing empty trails once school starts back are picturing the wrong month. These are the Great Smoky Mountains mistakes Tennessee visitors keep making once the…
Coronado’s beachfront hotel rates start easing the same week Labor Day weekend ends, and they keep sliding into fall. That’s one island in one county. Multiply that pattern up the length of California’s coastline, and locals get back a version of their towns that summer’s tourists never see. These are the California beach towns where…
