- -
Low-Key Summer Festivals with Great Live Music
BT Editor
- -
3-night Costa Rica beach getaway, save 45% - $999
El Mangroove, Autograph Collection - Gulf Of Papagayo, Costa Rica
- -
Get the Best Views of Philadelphia from these Rooftop Bars
Visit Philadelphia
- -
SoCal: Borrego Springs resort incl. weekends - $165
La Casa del Zorro - Borrego Springs, California
- -
5 Family-Friendly Attractions in Arizona
Visit Arizona / BT Editor
- -
$1670 off – Mexico 5-star all-inclusive wellness retreat
Palmaïa, The House of AïA - Playacar, Mexico
Find great places near you
Presents1分钟极速赛车官网开奖记录-168极速赛车开奖结果历史官网 Coolest Small Towns 2023
Save up to 50% on Hotels
Featured Collections
Editors Picks
极速赛车开奖历史查询1分钟|最新极速赛车开奖记录视频下载-Featured Articles
The Most Affordable Cities for Family Vacations This Summer
There's still plenty of time left this summer to plan a great vacation, and if you didn't think you could add it to your budget—think again. Forbes Advisor recently ranked the most affordable cities in the US to take a family vacation. While popular vacation destinations like New York City, Boston, Honolulu, and West Coast urban areas are some of the worst when it comes to affordable options, that doesn't mean you have to miss out on the fun. In fact, you might even enjoy getting off the beaten path and avoiding the most crowded spots. The most affordable cities list is dominated by East Coast and Midwestern locales, but the destinations still encompass a wide variety of travel styles and activities to give families different options when planning a budget-friendly getaway. To create the list, Forbes Advisor analyzed the 100 largest US cities, excluding any cities with an average temperature exceeding 95º F during the summer months (June, July and August)—when families tend to travel. They looked at metrics like the average round-trip airfare, hotel room rates, rental car prices, and meal costs. Below are the top cities that they found when it comes to affordable family vacations this summer. #5. Wichita, Kansas Airfare to Wichita can be on the pricier side but don’t let that deter you from a trip to Wichita. Once there, costs are lower than other cities for an average overall trip cost of $3,673. As a bonus, you’ll find plenty of low-cost activities to keep your expenses down further. Nearby Kansas City, Missouri also came in at #9. Head to the Old Cowtown Museum for a look at Wichita in its booming cattle town days, complete with reenactments. Outside of town, the Strataca underground salt museum includes tram rides that kids will love. Also nearby is the Cosmosphere, a space museum with exhibits intended for adults plus a whole section called CosmoKids for the other half of your family #4. Buffalo, New York Niagara Falls at night by Vinayak Sharma - Unsplash To combine affordable prices with comfortable summer temperatures, plan a trip to Buffalo, New York, where the average family trip cost is $3,669. Summer is primetime for local festivals, with something nearly every weekend from June through August, giving you a great opportunity to add low-cost entertainment to your trip plans in addition to the city’s permanent attractions, such as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum which reopens in June after a $230 million renovation. Only thirty minutes away, Niagara Falls is a can’t-miss add-on to your Buffalo vacation. Kids will love getting soaked on the hurricane deck at Cave of the Winds, an attraction that takes you practically to the base of the waterfalls. No passport is required for families staying on the American side of the falls. #3. Orlando, Florida Palm trees in Orlando, Florida by Drew Coffman - Unsplash Orlando is certainly a popular family vacation destination, thanks to Disney and Universal, but it may not be on your radar when it comes to cheap trips. However, a plethora of low-cost airlines and healthy competition keep flight prices reasonable. Overall, the average trip cost for our example family comes in at $3,634. Hotels, while on the higher side, often come with extra space, which might mean you can downsize to one room instead of two or make breakfast in your kitchenette instead of paying for a restaurant. While tickets to popular theme parks may be too much of a stretch, those aren't the only things to do in town. Gatorland has thrilling shows, a zipline plus off-road swamp rides. The beach and aqua park at Nona Adventure Park is the perfect summer day out. #2. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma The sun shines in downtown Oklahoma City by Karsten Winegeart - Unsplash Oklahoma City takes a prominent position on this list, in part thanks to its lower cost of hotels. Here, the average cost of a three-night trip totals $3,272. Families will find plenty to do at the Boathouse District, an outdoor recreation spot with activities for all ages. Similarly, the Myriad Gardens and Six Flags Frontier City will appeal to kids and adults alike. Nearby Tulsa also comes in at #7. Families that have time could combine both destinations with a single airfare purchase. In Tulsa, don’t miss the riverfront Gathering Place—a free park with one of the country’s largest playgrounds. #1. Toledo, Ohio A splash pad in downtown Toledo, Ohio by Cathy Holewinski - Unsplash Toledo, Ohio, comes out on top as the cheapest travel destination in Forbes Advisor's rankings. For a family of four, the average cost totaled $2,731 including economy airfare for four, three nights in two rooms at a mid-range hotel, a three-day rental car and three meals per day. Since Toledo is within a day’s drive of metro areas including Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Nashville, families may be able to save on airfare, too. Nearby towns Cleveland (#13) and Columbus (#16) also ranked high in affordability. The Toledo Zoo is an interactive experience with giraffe feeding platforms, a stingray touch tank and behind-the-scenes tours. The Imagination Station museum is equally hands-on and children and adults can hunt for corals, brachiopods, and trilobites at Fossil Park. Round out your trip with a day at Maumee Bay State Park Marina or Cedar Point amusement park, an hour away. —For more family vacation ideas, check out the full rankings at Forbes Advisor.
Top National Parks for Hiking
National parks are a national treasure—and Americans know it. In fact, the National Park Service saw 312 million recreation visits in 2022 (that’s up 15 million visitors from the previous year!), and almost half of Americans (48%) say visiting the national parks is on their bucket list. National parks help preserve and protect many of our nation’s stunning natural landscapes, so we can behold the beauty for years to come—often through one of thousands of breathtaking hikes. With all this in mind, KURU Footwear wanted to dig into data and find the top 10 best national parks for hiking to help Americans discover their next adventure. To rank each park, KURU used Alltrails to find all of the available trails in each of the 63 National Parks, and analyzed them based on the following metrics: number of trails (total), total distance of trails (in miles), average trail rating, number of annual visitors, and acreage of the national park (public areas only). Pacific Coast Jewels Giant trees and a park visitor in Sequoia National Park by Vitto Sommella - Unsplash The Sierra Nevadas are well-represented in the top 10 best parks for hiking. In 8th place overall, Sequoia National Park has an excellent 4.48 average trail rating and 1,624 trail miles total. Nearby Kings Canyon National Park comes in at #9 with 1,583 miles of trails and equally well-loved trails with an average 4.47 rating. Fourth place overall goes to Olympic National Park in Washington, with over 3,000 miles to traverse across 194 trails. Nearby Mount Rainier National Park took 12th place overall. Wild Rocky Mountain Frontiers A bull elk in Yellowstone by Harrison Hargrave - Unsplash Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming ranks as the third best for hiking. With 267 trails totaling over 3,500 miles, visitors will encounter incredible views and wildlife. However, with moose, wolves, and bears also making this park their home, hikers need to exercise extra caution and awareness when on the trail. Next door, Grand Teton National Park came in at #11, making it an easy place to visit on the same trip. In 6th place, Glacier National Park in Montana also isn’t too from away from Yellowstone. For the ultimate hiking trip, combine trails from Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, and Glacier. In 7th place sits Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado with 235 trails covering 1,970 miles of pristine mountain wilderness. It’s trails are some of the most-loved by visitors with an average rating of 4.5. Conveniently, this park isn’t too park from Denver International Airport, making it a little more accessible than Yellowstone and Glacier, which are only near smaller airports which often come with higher ticket prices and limited flight routes. Eastern Stand-outs Sunrise rolling over clouds in Shenandoah National Park by Taylor Wright - Unsplash The 5th best park for hiking is Shenandoah National Park, tucked along the Blue Ridge Mountains and rolling hills and valleys of western Virginia. While it isn’t too far from Washington, DC and is close to many college towns, it doesn’t make the top 10 list for most visitors in 2022, so the trails here are likely to be less crowded than many of the other parks on the list. It boasts the 4th highest number of trails and the 5th most trail miles of all parks. While Acadia National Park in Maine didn’t break into the Top 10 Best Park for Hikings (falling just shy in the #14 overall spot), it did rank as the 5th most visited park of 2022 and it also has the 5th highest number of trails. If you’re close to or local to the Northeastern US and New England, this is the park you’ll want to visit. Classic American Parks The Grand Canyon by Omer Nezih Gerek - Unsplash It makes sense that some of the most well known parks in America also top the list for hiking trails. At number nine overall, Grand Canyon National Park has 133 trails, 1,562 total miles of trails, and an average trail rating of 4.32. It was also the second most-visited park in 2022. Great Smoky Mountains National Park has the highest number of trails, with 348, and took second place overall for best park for hiking. It also came in second for most miles of trails with 4,354. Overall, trails in this park average a 4.38 rating. Stretching across North Carolina and Tennessee, this park boasts the most number of visitors, and by a long shot; in 2022, it had over 12 million visitors (for comparison, the second busiest park was the Grand Canyon, at only 4.7 million). So if you're looking for seclusion, you may not quite find it here (but at least you know its a crowd pleaser!). The best of the best for hiking is Yosemite National Park; the park took the number 1 spot with 278 trails, 4,729 miles of trails (the most of any park), and a 4.56 average trail rating. Located in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California (along with several other ranked parks), Yosemite is known for its iconic and striking Half Dome, tall waterfalls, and giant Sequoia trees. —For more details on the rankings, visit KURU Footwear.
