Where: Northwest Arkansas
When: year-round
If you like: the outdoors and sports
Why you should go: In the Ozark Mountains, the conditions are almost perfect for mountain biking. The ancient formation offers steep, jagged hills without the grueling elevation change of, say, the Rockies; the ground is naturally gravelly, so rain rarely closes trails; and relatively mild weather permits biking year-round. Recognizing this potential, the Walton Family Foundation (of Walmart fame) has thrown its support behind the building over two hundred miles of state-of-the-art trails complete with ramps, gap jumps, ladder bridges, and boardwalks. “People refer to Bentonville as the Disneyland of mountain biking,” says Nickel Potter of Phat Tire Bike Shop, which boasts fourteen locations across the region.
A rental bike opens up a world of options. For beginners, Potter recommends hopping on the All-American trail, which starts right in downtown Bentonville and winds above Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. For the more experienced, he says, the Fire Line trail in Coler Mountain Bike Preserve showcases the best of the area’s mountain biking infrastructure—“like a ribbon of art through the woods.” Or, try the paved Razorback Greenway, which starts in Fayetteville and stretches forty miles to Bella Vista, knitting together Northwest Arkansas’s metropolitan areas plus all manner of trails threading through forests and over streams.
G&G tip: If your goal is to explore as much as possible, consider renting an electric mountain bike. “It’s a really similar bicycle experience,” Potter says, “except people get to cover more ground and have more fun. The hills just get easier.”
