Where: Hot Springs, Arkansas
When: year-round
If you like: dining and drinks, the outdoors and sports
Why you should go: In Hot Springs National Park, 700,000 piping hot gallons of pristine mineral water pour out of the Ouachita Mountains every day, a bounty that has drawn visitors to the town for hundreds of years. “Hot Springs has long had the slogan ‘America’s First Resort,’” says Tom Hill, the park’s museum curator. But the spa destination is just as relevant today thanks to boutique hotels like the Reserve and the Waters, not to mention the historic Arlington Resort Hotel & Spa, which has hosted Babe Ruth, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Al Capone and, on December 31, celebrated a hundred years in its current building. Fresh off exterior and interior facelifts that wrapped in 2024, the Arlington is back welcoming guests to its rooms, spas, and soaring lobby bar on Central Avenue’s Bathhouse Row, where old buildings have found new uses—a gallery here, a brewery there. And just a few minutes from Central, Origami Sake opened in 2023 and is already winning awards courtesy of its two star ingredients, Hot Springs water and Arkansas rice.
G&G tip: Central Avenue’s Buckstaff Bathhouse opened in 1912, offering a hot bath, vapor cabinet, needle shower, and massage. Today it’s the last place you can experience the historic bathing regimen that made Hot Springs the nation’s first resort town. (For a more modern experience, try the Astral Spa at Oaklawn racetrack.)
