It’s hard to argue that Acadia, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Great Smokies, and Shenandoah don’t represent the cream of what the National Park Service offers in Eastern America. There are a lot of great experiences in these top East Coast national parks, but for the truly discriminating explorer, the friends groups for these parks have truly awesome best-kept-secret suggestions.

When your family sits down to choose a vacation destination, what possibilities arise to compete with a national park vacation?

An environmental assessment is being conducted at Rocky Mountain National Park to determine whether a short section of hiking and equestrian trail known as the East Shore Trail should be open to mountain bikes.

Even if you don’t have a bike, it’ll now be possible to pedal between the Alamo in downtown San Antonio and the four beautiful missions that stretch south of the city—thanks to a bike share program.