Get off the beaten path at these 8 incredible places in North America

17.05.2024 - 10:49 / lonelyplanet.com

It's time to spread out. Avoiding over-touristed destinations isn’t just about steering clear of crowds  –  it’s also about ensuring that we’re not contributing to the problem and instead helping to support the livelihoods of people in less-trafficked regions. 

Truly getting off the beaten path, though? It can feel harder than ever, with phrases like “hidden gem” and “local secret” increasingly overwrought. 

That’s why we asked our writers for their favorite under-the-radar haunts. They responded – some with regions and national parks that you’ve likely never heard of and many more with cities and states that you’ve probably never considered visiting. 

The result is Lonely Planet’s latest title, Offbeat North America. The book celebrates 100 of the continent’s most underrated destinations, including the wilds of Alaska’s remote Dalton Highway and Mayan ruins hidden on the tip of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. North America, as it turns out, still has plenty of secrets that remain untold.

The place I personally couldn’t wait to write about was Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan. While Banff National Park gets all the glory and over four million visitors per year thanks to its obvious good looks, Grasslands is home to one of the world’s rarest ecosystems: mixed-grass prairies. Sure, it might not have Banff’s glaciers or sublime blue lakes, but the waving grasses, roaming bison and chirping prairie dogs all lend to a sublime kind of beauty – one that only about 20,000 visitors per year will experience. 

If you’re looking for more crowd-free alternatives to some of North America’s most popular vacation spots, here are just eight of the book’s entries, each highlighting how vast and varied our continent truly is. 

Make this charming midwestern city your next city break 

Propose a “city break,” and you’ll inevitably be presented with the same tried-and-true options, with cosmopolitan heavyweights like New York, Montréal, Los Angeles and New Orleans being the top competitors. But we have an unlikely contender to add to the ring: Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

For over 100 years, its primary industry has been oil, the profits from which have played a major role in shaping Tulsa into a vibrant Midwest city worthy of your next long weekend. Take, for example, its extensive collection of lavishly built Art Deco buildings, dating back to the 1920s. Then there’s Tulsa’s well-funded art and cultural institutions. Museums like the Philbrook and Gilcrease stack up against those found in bigger cities, while new additions include the Greenwood Rising museum (which examines the 1921 race-based attack on the city’s “Black Wall Street”), the Woody Guthrie Center and the new-in-2022 Bob Dylan Center. It’s all rounded out by a