The mission of our guidebook is to introduce readers to the diversity of National Monuments by providing information on what makes each of them worthy of protection and how to go about experiencing what they have to offer. National Monuments cover a broad range of sites of historic and geologic interest from as small as 0.07 of an acre up to 2.2-million acres in size.
While numerous guidebooks exist for the United States of America’s National Parks, this is the first ever volume dedicated to recreation in all 138 National Monuments. Altogether, they cover 18.4-million acres of public land across 33 states and territories, plus 759-million acres of ocean in the five expansive Marine National Monuments created since 2006. Only 40 National Monuments have an entry fee, while the others provide free opportunities to learn about history or enjoy the outdoors.
National Monuments feature internationally recognized icons like the Statue of Liberty, as well as overlooked places that even locals rarely visit. They protect fossil quarries, historic homes of important Americans, caves open for exploration, sites significant to the Civil Rights Movement, volcanic wonders, relics of indigenous cultures, old military forts, and whitewater rafting spots. A select few National Monuments have visitor centers and guided tours, while others are undeveloped wildlands encompassing everything from deserts to glaciers, including wetlands, sand dunes, and coastlines that provide habitat for countless species of wildlife.
Whatever you are interested in, there is a new adventure out there waiting!
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Kiowa National Grassland encompasses two discrete units in northeast New Mexico, the eastern one bordering Texas and Oklahoma’s Rita Blanca National Grassland. This patchwork of public and private lands is administered together with the larger Cibola National Forest and Black Kettle National Grassland. Elevations range from 4,500 up to 6,300 feet in the western unit where La Frontera del Llano Scenic Byway (NM 39) runs north to south. Shortgrass prairie is the dominant cover type, with sand sagebrush and pinyon-juniper woodland mostly found in the west. Ponderosa pines are dispersed on wetter hill faces and riparian areas support Fremont cottonwoods and willows.
Highlights
Mills Canyon, Santa Fe National Historic Trail
Must-Do Activity
Melvin Mills (an attorney, territorial legislator, and entrepreneur) established the Mills Orchard and Ranch along the Canadian River in 1881. Flash flooding devastated the orchard in 1904, leading to the ranch’s abandonment a decade later. In 2005, the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service collaborated to restore three ranch buildings, and for their efforts they won the Windows on the Past Award for historic preservation. There are also interpretive signs and a free campground at the bottom of Mills Canyon, located nine miles down unpaved Mills Canyon Road.
Best Trail
A three-mile stretch of the Santa Fe National Historic Trail’s Cimarron Route is marked by rock posts 17 miles north of Clayton, and it is open for walking and horseback riding. There are interpretive signs along the route and wagon ruts remain visible.
Watchable Wildlife
An introduced herd of Barbary sheep are thriving in the Mills Canyon area. The Canadian River supports largemouth bass and channel catfish. Nomadic Naturalists blog reported seeing swift foxes, spiny softshell turtles, black-chinned sparrows, and pinyon jays on their visit.
Photographic Opportunity
Mills Canyon was cut by the Canadian River through sedimentary rocks ranging in age from 200-million to 90-million years old.
Peak Season
Summer
Fees
None
Road Conditions
Past Mills Canyon Rim Campground, the unpaved Mills Canyon Road #600 is not recommended for trailers or passenger vehicles as it switchbacks down into Mills Canyon. A high-clearance vehicle is also recommended for the two-track paralleling the Santa Fe National Historic Trail’s Cimarron Route.
Camping
Both the Mills Canyon Rim Campground (6 campsites) and Mills Canyon Campground (12 sites) are free with vault toilets, but no water. Dispersed camping is allowed in the eastern unit around the Santa Fe National Historic Trail.
Scott exploring Mills CanyonTiff exploring the Canadian RiverHeading out of Mills Canyon
Explore More – As an attorney, Melvin Mills’ work often involved outlaws, American Indians, and politicians; who saved his life when he was nearly hanged by an angry mob?
Jimmy Carter was the 39th U.S. President (1977-1981) and the first to reach the age of 100 before he passed away on December 29, 2024. Following his presidency, he and his wife (Rosalynn) returned to their hometown of Plains and cemented their legacy as diplomats and humanitarians, mostly through their work with the Carter Center in Atlanta (he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002). Up until the end, Jimmy Carter taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church, which is open to the public. The National Historical Park encompasses Jimmy’s boyhood farm, high school, and the old Plains railroad depot. It also includes his residence since 1961, which continues to be closed but will eventually be turned into a museum by the National Park Service (NPS). In July 2025, the Carter Gardens and Burial Site of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter opened to the public.
Highlights
Plains High School, film, train depot, boyhood farm, burial site, Carter Gardens
Must-Do Activity
The best place to start a visit is the NPS visitor center and museum in the former Plains High School, which is full of artifacts and information on the Carters. Next, drive or walk to the main street, where the train depot that shut down in 1951 was turned into Jimmy’s presidential campaign headquarters. While downtown, check out the shops for souvenirs and try some boiled peanuts or soft-serve peanut-flavored ice cream. There are several other sites of interest around Plains, including the boyhood home, burial site, Carter Gardens, Maranatha Baptist Church, and peanut statue (see Photographic Opportunity).
Best Trail
A half-mile trail winds through the boyhood farm where Jimmy lived starting at age four. Farm animals and seasonal crops are raised here, including peanuts. You can take a self-guided tour through his boyhood home, which was restored to its appearance before electricity was installed in 1938.
Photographic Opportunity
While not part of the official National Historical Park, when you drive up Buena Vista Road to see Maranatha Baptist Church, you pass the 13-foot-tall Jimmy Carter peanut statue built during the 1976 presidential election to support the former peanut farmer.
Paved parking is available at the high school, train depot, and boyhood farm (located about three miles west of town).
Camping
About 30 miles away in each direction are campgrounds at Georgia Veterans State Park and Providence Canyon State Park (which is featured on a U-Haul super graphic).
Jimmy’s boyhood homeJimmy’s boyhood bedroomDowntown PlainsInside Plains High SchoolA 100th birthday card for JimmyScott earned a special 100th birthday Junior Ranger badgeMarantha Baptist ChurchVulturin’ about the park
Explore More – According to an urban legend, why was a hole cut in the back of the Jimmy Carter peanut statue by the U.S. Secret Service?
After we published our guidebook 50 States of Great: Road Trip Guide to America in 2023, we decided to start a new type of blog post where we create a travel itinerary for all 50 states, in addition to our usual public land entries. After starting with Kansas, Georgia, Idaho, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Hawai’i, Arizona, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Indiana, we decided to head back west to Montana. There are so many great trails in the state’s National Forests that we had a difficult time narrowing it down. We made an ambitious seven-day plan starting in southeast Montana on Interstate 90, with enough options to easily extend the trip into three weeks or more.
The best time to visit the National Monument is around June 25, the anniversary of Custer’s Last Stand when a reenactment of the battle is held on private land bordering the National Park Service site.
Makoshika State Park
It is illegal to remove dinosaur fossils from these badlands, but there are many on display at the visitor center, in addition to nearby museums (plus reservations can be made to dig on private land). The few campsites are in high demand to spend the night in these colorful canyons where caprocks rise high above juniper trees.
Optional stop at Pompeys Pillar National Monument
A sandstone monolith on the Yellowstone River has been a place for humans to record their passing for 11,000 years. The most famous inscription was left by Captain William Clark on July 25, 1806, the sole on-site evidence of the Corps of Discovery’s three-year journey.
This underappreciated gem in the National Park Service system features gorgeous scenery and abundant wildlife, including bighorn sheep and wild horses. The highlight is across the state line in Wyoming where Devil Canyon Overlook sits atop cliffs that drop over 1,000 feet straight down to the level of the narrow reservoir.
Gallatin Petrified Forest is only accessible by trail, either from a short two-mile one-way jaunt or by backpacking the 27-mile Gallatin Divide-Devils Backbone Trail. Earthquake Lake Geologic Area stretches along Highway 287 to commemorate the events that occurred around midnight on August 17, 1959, when a deadly magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit West Yellowstone.
Some of the National Forest’s miles of hiking trails access the Crazy Mountains and Hellroaring Plateau. The two-mile Glacier Lake Trail steadily climbs 1,100 feet then drops into a bowl containing a stunning reservoir that straddles the Wyoming-Montana border.
Optional drive on Beartooth All-American Road
Custer National Forest is famous for its stretch of Highway 212 that climbs from the prairie around the town of Red Lodge up to 10,947 feet at Beartooth Pass across the Wyoming border in Shoshone National Forest. The road follows the southern border of the giant 943,626-acre Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, which contains the highest point in Montana.
Located mostly in Wyoming and partly in Montana and Idaho, you could easily spend an entire summer in the world’s first National Park and not see all the thermal features, lakes, waterfalls, wildlife, and hiking trails.
Day 3
Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park
Once a U.S. National Monument, the state now runs a campground here and offers guided tours through a limestone show cave where bats live in the summer.
The free Potosi Campground is situated near the trailhead for Upper Potosi Hot Springs where a 0.8-mile trail leads past the uphill side of a clear 100°F pool with room for about six adults.
Optional stop at Chico Hot Springs
If you leave Yellowstone National Park north through Gardiner on Highway 89, consider stopping at this developed hot springs (fee) that offers live music poolside on some nights (especially if the park’s Boiling River was closed). In business since 1897, even Teddy Roosevelt stopped to rest here.
Day 4
Bannack State Park
East of Lemhi Pass on the Idaho border (which is also the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail through there), Bannack State Park preserves more than 50 buildings from a gold rush town that was the territorial capital in 1864.
The site of a surprise attack by the U.S. Army on the morning of August 9, 1877, where Nez Perce warriors forced the troops to retreat, capturing a Howitzer cannon and allowing women and children to escape toward the newly created Yellowstone National Park. Part of the widespread Nez Perce National Historical Park, a small visitor center here overlooks the battlefield and a paved road accesses trails through it.
Blodgett Creek Trail leads 12.6 miles one-way to Blodgett Lake, but you do not have to go that far to appreciate its incredible beauty.
Optional stop at Elkhorn Hot Springs
In the Pioneer Mountains, about ten miles north of Highway 278 is the privately owned Elkhorn Hot Springs (fee), a great place to relax after hiking. There is free dispersed camping to the north in Beaverhead National Forest.
Day 5
Travelers’ Rest State Park
Follow in the footsteps of the Lewis and Clark expedition by driving the Lolo Trail (Highway 12), soaking at Lolo Hot Springs, or walking around Travelers’ Rest State Park (still a great place to camp).
Missoula
Do as the University of Montana students do and float tubes down the Clark Fork River through town. In the summer, look for webcam-famous Iris the Osprey in the parking lot near the football stadium. The Historical Museum at Fort Missoula preserves buildings dating back to 1877, including an Alien Detention Center used during World War II.
Outside Missoula, there are many trails in Rattlesnake National Recreation Area and Blue Mountain Recreation Area, plus the Aerial Fire Depot and Smokejumper Center, Ninemile Historic Remount Depot, and Savenac Historic Tree Nursery Area.
This working ranch commemorates the nineteenth-century lifestyle of cattle barons and cowboys. Free guided tours are offered inside the large ranch house, and a self-guided walking tour enters 15 buildings with displays on the history of barbwire, branding irons, and much more.
Day 6
National Bison Range
Established in 1908 under President Theodore Roosevelt and now run by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Start at the visitor center, then take the 19-mile Red Sleep Mountain Drive to see mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, and the namesake bison.
Jewel Basin Hiking Area is famous among backpackers, and further south so is Holland Lake, which has several campgrounds. The steep Holland-Gordon Trail passes Holland Falls as it climbs 2,100 feet in 5.8 miles to Upper Holland Lake and continues into “the Bob” (Bob Marshall Wilderness). Flathead National Forest contains more than 2,800 miles of hiking trails, including 38 miles of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail and a stretch of the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail.
Optional stop at Mission Mountains Wilderness
Located within Flathead National Forest, a popular trail accesses multiple mountain lakes; it is only 1.5 miles one-way to Glacier Lake, but we recommend continuing to Turquoise Lake. It borders the Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness (permits required).
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park’s renowned Going-to-the-Sun Road was built to cross the park from east to west in the 1920s (reservations are required to drive it between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. in the summer). At its highest point at 6,646-foot Logan Pass, the road crosses the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail.
In the state’s northwest corner, incredible views await at Blue Mountain Trail, Skyline National Recreation Trail, Scenery Mountain Lookout Trail, Ross Creek Scenic Area of old-growth western redcedar trees, and Kootenai Falls (located in a county park on the side of Highway 2).
Meriwether Lewis named the Gates of the Mountains on July 19, 1805, and today a two-hour jet boat tour on the Missouri River provides history on the Corps of Discovery, American Indian pictographs, the Mann Gulch Fire, and the collapse of Hauser Dam. A trail through Refrigerator Canyon is less than ten feet wide at its narrowest point, where towering 200-foot limestone cliffs keep it cool and breezy throughout the summer.
Great Falls
North of Helena on Interstate 15 is the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center (fee), which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service on the banks of the Missouri River.
This 375,000-acre National Monument preserves a stretch of the Missouri River that still looks much the way it did when Lewis and Clark explored it. Start your journey by paying for permits at the Bureau of Land Management interpretive center in historic Fort Benton, where you can launch your canoe or kayak to access 149 miles of the river. There are developed boat camps with vault toilets along the route, or you can pick your own spot near one of the Corps of Discovery campsite markers.
It includes portions of the Boulder Mountains, Flint Creek Range, and Elkhorn Mountains, as well as part of the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness. Our favorite hike is Haystack Mountain National Recreation Trail off Interstate 15, where a climb of 2,000 feet ends at a mountaintop boulder field with panoramic views and the remnants of a fire lookout tower.
Backpacking is a major draw with trails in the Snowy Mountain Range and parts of the Scapegoat and Bob Marshall Wilderness areas, which provide crucial habitat for grizzly bears. It encompasses one of the most famous formations along the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, the 15-mile long Chinese Wall (a 1,000-foot-tall cliff composed of five-million-year-old limestone).
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th U.S. President (1953 to 1961). His presidential library is located in his hometown of Abilene, Kansas and his post-presidency home on a Pennsylvania farm is run by the National Park Service adjacent to Gettysburg National Military Park. The U.S. Congress created a Memorial Commission in 1999, but the groundbreaking did not occur until 18 years later. The dedication ceremony was scheduled for the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, but postponed to September 17 because of the pandemic.
Highlights
Sculptures, steel tapestry, audio tour, gift shop
Must-Do Activity
Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial is located one block off the National Mall in a plaza on Independence Avenue SW across from the National Air and Space Museum. It was designed by architect Frank Gehry and went through several iterations before settling on three bronze sculptures by Sergey Eylanbekov representing “Ike” as a boy, general, and president. The site is always open with a downloadable audio tour and a small gift shop open daily where you can pick up a “unigrid” pamphlet.
Best Trail
There is no trail here, but you can spend all day walking in D.C. through the National Mall and the nearby National Air and Space Museum, National Museum of the American Indian, and United States Botanic Garden.
Photographic Opportunity
The artist Tomas Osinski created a stainless-steel tapestry (447 feet long by 60 feet tall) out of 600 panels depicting a line drawing of the Pointe du Hoc promontory on France’s Normandy coastline, a site significant to the D-Day landings during World War II.
The memorial is located on Independence Ave SW across from the National Air and Space Museum, which has parking garages nearby, or you can take the Metro into the city.
Camping
Greenbelt Park Campground in Maryland is the closest run by the National Park Service, which also manages campgrounds at Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park and Shenandoah National Park, as well as several in Maryland’s Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Smallwood State Park and Cherry Hill Park in Maryland both offer RV sites and tent sites.
Raven About The Parks 