Minnesota
Snag a dozen great winter trips, including a texas Hill Country overnight, a Lake Superior snowshoe,
and a hike to Apostle islands ice caves.
What off season? Bundle up and reap the benefits of colder weather in these snowy playgrounds.
Your region's go-now guide: Perfect days in Indianapolis, Minneapolis, and Tulsa.
Your region's go-now guide
Our trail scouts' top local hikes
Empty White Mountain summits. Tourist-free Yellowstone geysers. Rarely hiked Yosemite ridges. Rangers, guidebook writers, outfitters, and ultra-hikers dish their favorite routes for the first time.
Jump-start your hiking season on these spring-ready trips from around the country.
America’s leading advocate of wilderness silence shows the way to Mt. Rainier National Park’s quietest corner. Plus: 9 more campsites with life-list listening.
Glide through back-to-back lakes on a classic North Country canoe trip.
Hike these long trails in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and head south to Texas to see Horned Lizards.
See Yosemite's river of ice, witness there-and-gone meteor showers in Hawaii, and mark your calendar for eight more fleeting natural wonders.
Notch the best northern lights show in the Lower 48.
Discover east Texas's longleaf pine forest; see the Boundary Waters on foot.
Free Print & Go PDFs give you turn-by-turn trail instructions and photos embedded on a usable topo map. Also: gear checklists, driving directions, and geo-references for finding the nearest campground, restaurant, gas station, and grocery store.
Your favorite Great Lakes hikes—from dayhikes to weekenders to multiday trips.
Find the best skiing, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and winter camping trips in the U.S.
Immerse yourself in Minnesota's liquid wilderness.
We've covered 245,591 miles of trails in our 37-year history. Here are our 20 all-time favorite trips, plus—shocking!—20 routes we never covered.
Traverse a seldom-hiked national park.
Ten point-to-point treks with the payoffs of a thru-hike, but hikeable in a week.
The best hikes near Minneapolis-St. Paul.
The best hikes in the Midwest, as recommended by the region's best hiking clubs.
Want to vanish into the quietest, wildest corners
of the Boundary Waters? Say these magic words:
Primitive Management Area.
Trek to shoreline campsites through woodlands rife with moose, birds, and wolves.
The perfect dozen: Embark on one of these 12 treks, and turn America's most iconic preserves into your own private paradise.
See moose, bag a high-desert peak, and sample a quiet long trail. (Click linked trips for GPS waypoints, photos, and more.)
Our army of reader-reader scouts mapped 59 local hikes from South Carolina to Northern California. See their favorites, then learn how to download tracklogs and waypoints.
Whether you're looking for Coastal, Canyon, Peak, Forest, or Urban hikes, we have those. Plus some paddling (Water) trips for good measure.
Hit the water, and see plenty of wildlife and scenic views, on these paddling trips in Alaska, Florida, and Minnesota.
Looking for animals? This Minnesota paddle is a sure bet.
Bigfoot? He's a softy compared to the other menacing monsters lurking in the woods near you.
Online or via your cellphone these trips are ready to be downloaded and explored.
Hike these paths before the masses find them.
Sharing is for kindergarten. Take one of these 30 hikes and you can have the wilderness all to yourself.
Lose yourself in a private paradise the crowds have overlooked.
Being bordered by the Great Lakes, the Dakota Badlands, and the rivers of the Mississippi Valley gives Midwesterners plenty of land and water for hiking and camping adventure–even if the local high point is still lower than a Colorado knoll.
Use our comprehensive city-specific pages to find hikes near your hometown or in a city you're planning to visit.
Nine ways to get your cascade fix from Tennessee to Montana.
Shhh! Find silent shores in this isolated Boundary Waters hideaway
With a thousand islands and countless passages, this little-visited treasure is a watery maze. Here's the way in–and out.
Stay dry on spring treks in Minnesota, New Mexico, and more.
Three ways to hike, bike, and paddle your way to freedom in the Twin Cities.
As temperatures rise, Minnesota's North Woods will likely go up in smoke.
Hit the wilderness in search of beasts big and small.
Whether you are after fishing holes or skinny-dipping, Backpacker tracked down the best campsites in the country
Head out with six hard-charging huskies, and winter will never feel more alive.
16 wild ways to find backcountry solitude and big-time scenery. All this, and you can bring the ice chest, too.
Big currents flowing down the Mississippi, recently-blazed trails, and howling coyotes make up only a few of the many attractions that draw crowds to this city's outskirts.
Backpack Lake Huron's shores, kayak the St. Lawrence Islands, and camp along Lake Superior
Find this high point in the largest national forest outside of Alaska.
Blazing foliage and broad Lake Superior views
From paddling Lake Superior to glacier-hopping in Alaska: 6 hair-raising, lung-busting adventures from America's top outfitters
Get lost in the land o' lakes with 3 quiet, crowd-free trails
In Minnesota's Boundary Waters, thousands of blue routes await those willing to dip a paddle.
Our comprehensive guide to the best backpacking you can find in Minnesota.
Can't wait for the snow to melt? Get warmed up at Minnesota's Jay Cooke State Park.
A whale of a Minnesota trail beside a Great Lake.
A watery paradise, a hiker's secret.
Like shimmering rainbows in the night, the northern lights electrify the sky with color.
Stomp and glide at Wild River State Park, where no snow monsters are allowed.
Great lake views in Minnesota's land of moose and wolves.
