This Might Be the Most Interesting State to Visit Right Now

Thousands, if not millions, of Americans will wander around European metropolises this summer, turn to each other and ask, “Why can’t we have this back home?”

At the same time, in a corner of the U.S. that historically has been not only overlooked but dreaded by those who had to move there for work, tourists and civic officials from around the world are asking the same thing.

It may come as a surprise, then, that the subject of such envy is the southern state of Arkansas.

I first fell under the charm of Northwest Arkansas nearly a decade ago while visiting Tulsa. I had a day to kill, so I drove a couple of hours east to check out Crystal Bridges and the Mildred B. Cooper Memorial Chapel in Bella Vista. Founded by Alice Walton, one of the heirs to the eye-watering Walmart fortune, Crystal Bridges was then the hot new museum attraction. E. Fay Jones, the architect of the Cooper Chapel and the most successful of Frank Lloyd Wright’s acolytes, was a man I’d long admired from a distance. The sojourn was one full of temptation, as this corner of the U.S. is one of its most effortlessly beautiful, and there turned out to be far more to see than I’d thought.

This spring I got to return, as part of a road trip that would take me from Bentonville, one of the fastest growing small cities in the country and the home of Walmart, to historic Hot Springs, and then up to Little Rock. It was a trip compiled to give me a little bit of everything–outdoor adventure, history, unique experiences, and a taste of what has made this state such a growing hotspot.

If you want a town that captures so much of modern American life right now, Bentonville is a great place to start. Part of the Northwest Arkansas metropolitan area, which also includes Fayetteville, Rogers, and Springdale, it’s surrounded by the Ozark Mountains and a chain of man-made lakes. Long synonymous with Walmart, which is headquartered here, it was once an undesirable destination for most folks to have to move to. In the last few years, though, the population has increased by 14 percent. It’s become a destination for digital nomads eager to capitalize on its outdoor lifestyle.

That’s because slicing and curving through ravines, gullies, and hollers alongside busy multi-lane roads and strip malls is a dizzying array of world-class mountain biking trails. As in the U.S. writ large, the car will not be curbed here. But that hasn’t stopped creative individuals like Gary Vernon, Director of Outdoor Recreation & Trail Innovation for the Runway Group, from building more than 200 miles of trails that curve, drop, climb, and shoot into the canopy of trees around here. On one of my bike rides cruising the trails, I saw expert riders soaring off jumps, families cruising in the woods together, and elderly couples set up in beach chairs on the smooth white stone banks of the crystal clear river that snakes alongside the main path.

The bike trail story—too long to recount here—is one of those “if you build it, they will come.” If you spend just a few minutes with him, Vernon is one of those people who will restore your faith in the battered American ideal that hard work and good people get rewarded in the long run. The YouTube video of his TED Talk embedded above is worth a watch. These bike trails are bringing thousands of tourists from around the world, and hundreds of politicians and public planners eager to replicate the success of the bike trails.

If you want to take your biking journey here to the next level, there is a new helicopter operator—Heli Oz—that specializes in taking enthusiasts to the various landing strips in the mountains and lakes surrounding Bentonville for epic backcountry biking.

It’s not just bike trails, though, that have made Bentonville so alluring. The town’s historic center is something out of an Americana movie set, a place where a heaping portion of ice cream can be had for a buck or two. That historic core is surrounded by some of the more innovative contemporary architecture I’ve seen of late, including the fully bikeable office building, The Ledger, and the award-winning Thaden School. There’s even a new hotel, a Motto by Hilton, right across from The Ledger, where I stayed during my visit.

While I’ve had some real disappointments over the years when stopping in Arkansas for dinner on road trips, I ate well this time around, albeit with portion sizes that left me feeling like I should be rolled home. The Preacher’s Son and Conifer are two higher-end New American restaurants right in town that will satisfy any coastal snob. I also enjoyed Wright’s Barbecue (named the best in Arkansas), Yeyo’s Yellow Truck (tacos and burritos), and Onyx Coffee (got some ground coffee to take home to family).

The main star of Bentonville, and the institution that put it on the cultural map, is the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Designed by Moshe Safdie, it’s always looked to me like a bunch of concrete armadillos. Inside is one of the more serious of the billionaire museums that have sprung up worldwide in the last couple of decades. Little here screams tax carveout or vanity project. It’s free, and you can traipse in right off a trail ride should you want. Unlike something like, say, the Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection in Paris, not only is Crystal Bridges free, but it has a relentless stream of educational activations and public lectures, and provides a cultural amenity in a region that wasn’t exactly drowning in them. Plus, it has an agenda—elevating and championing American art—that is clear and useful. So popular has it become that construction is already underway to increase its size by 50 percent.

Tucked behind Crystal Bridges, up a street currently closed for construction, is a house that, if I were ever able to pigeonhole a member of the Walton family, I’d beg them to also make available to the public.

When the founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, made it big, he turned to a local architect to build his home. Now, Walton was fortunate in that the local architect in question was E. Fay Jones, an acolyte of both Bruce Goff and Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright, in particular, saw Jones as a true inheritor of their vision. Jones was the original reason I came to Arkansas all those years ago. Two of his chapels in the surrounding area—Cooper Chapel and Thorncrown Chapel—are take-your-breath-away transcendent works of organic architecture.

But Jones also designed dozens of houses in the region in his version of organic architecture that—at least in images—I’ve long preferred to Wright’s. Bill Clinton once lived in a Jones-designed house and wrote years later about how much he loved it. And I think opening up the house Jones designed for Walton, which remains one of his signature works, would do so much to boost the legacy of somebody who should be a household name and do incredible things to promote the rich native history that this region has always had.

From Bentonville, I’d be chasing more of Jones while catapulting back into the past. The drive from Northwest Arkansas down to Hot Springs is one that measures up to “breathtaking.” This being America, a driver has a number of options, but you’d be a fool not to take the Arkansas Scenic 7 Byway for most of it. The road goes up and down and around the wooded mountains in this region. It’s a pleasure to cruise slowly or rip through–both types of drivers will enjoy themselves. And I lost count of the number of lakes and campgrounds I passed, including one that was just off the road on the banks of a crystal-clear creek rushing beneath sheer cliffs of granite. It was the kind of drive that you tell yourself you’ll definitely return to when you’re old and not in a rush.

Before heading into Hot Springs, I had one stop I wanted to make outside of town. Just south of the city is the 210-acre Garvan Woodland Gardens, which fills a peninsula on Lake Hamilton. Run by the University of Arkansas, its gardens elegantly coexist with the natural landscape–no baroque planning here–and it hosts both a pavilion designed by E. Fay Jones and a stupendous chapel in his style designed by his acolytes, Maurice Jennings and David McKee.

Hot Springs is one of those places mid-transformation, but what a transformation it has already been. A century ago, this was one of the preeminent getaways in the U.S., a resort town that served everybody from gangsters and ball players to invalids and presidents. They all originally came here to enjoy the restorative properties of its natural hot water. (And, no, it doesn’t smell; the water here isn’t heated from volcanic activity but geothermally.) Glimpses of its heights can be had by walking the preserved Bathhouse Row, where nearly all the historic bathhouses have been preserved. Some have been repurposed, like the fun and popular Superior Bathhouse Brewery, which uses the water to brew. Others are still operating as bathhouses. I tried the Quapaw Baths & Spa, and I must admit that perhaps there was something too historic about the whole experience. I feel like the whole town would be well served by one of these bathhouses getting an upgrade.

Penicillin, Deet, and Rockefeller killed Hot Springs, the story goes, as the first made the baths as treatment for syphilis unnecessary, the second moved baseball’s spring training to Florida, and the last crushed gambling. Walking along the main drag here, the vestiges of its heights are all still visible, if a little worn. But like much of Arkansas, Hot Springs is having a moment and capitalizing. It has its own impressive array of biking and hiking trails (I did a beautiful one at Northwood Trails), buzzing new restaurants (including the New American-style Don’s Southern Social and the Barstool-approved DeLuca’s Pizza), and gambling again with the recently updated Oaklawn casino and race track.

I’m not a gambler, nor an equestrian expert, but at Oaklawn I found it exhilarating watching the races at the track here, especially at the finish line when the horses zoom past in the blink of an eye and people go nuts. The setting is a league beyond picturesque, with the track perched on a flat expanse surrounded by the mountains. During race season (winter through late spring), Oaklawn puts on a free show every Saturday for newbies called “Dawn at Oaklawn,” where she takes a behind-the-scenes look at some aspect of racing. (The morning I hung around, she was focused on the jockey’s gear.)

After a morning of races, I wove my way through the horse-mad crowds to my car to drive to the final stop on this little Arkansas circuit–Little Rock.

Now, I must admit, I’ve stopped in Little Rock before over the years on road trips and never found myself charmed in the ways I had out in Northwest Arkansas. Its downtown still has many of the struggles of any number of midsize cities across the south, but I think I finally cracked the code for finding the heaps of charm throughout this historic town.

The first involves walking, namely following this handy guide put together by the Little Rock Convention & Visitors Bureau on the Quapaw Quarter Historic Homes. Up and down various blocks surrounding the governor’s mansion and the art museum is a delightful lineup of elaborate and colorful Victorian homes (including the one used for Designing Women).

On a past trip, the main cultural attraction that drew me was the Clinton Presidential Library, but this time around I found myself frustrated at how little time I had to wander through the sparkling new Museum of Fine Arts and the Old State House Museum (the latter of which I am eager to come back and finish.) I didn’t even get to the Central High Museum, made famous by the Little Rock Nine.

Then again, there is always next time.