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When people picture the American South, they often think of jazz, bourbon and barbecue smoke. But what keeps pulling travellers back – and what is still too often overlooked – is its wilderness.
Here, nature has been allowed to stretch itself out in all directions. It shows in the sheer variety: Gulf Coast islands that glow orange at sunset, cathedral-like swamps where the only sound is a heron’s wingbeat, forested ridges that crest and dip until your calves complain, and a river that insists on running free, despite every modern instinct to dam and harness it.
If you’re the kind of traveller who finds peace in motion – paddling, pedalling, walking, casting – then Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas are not just stopovers on a southern itinerary: they are the itinerary. These three states share cultural threads, but their landscapes diverge so sharply that moving between them feels like flipping a page in a book of different genres.
Alabama
Alabama’s outdoors is coastal and cavernous. Dauphin Island is a classic Gulf barrier island: white sand, seabird migration and long sunset sessions for photographers. The Mobile–Tensaw Delta is a wetland labyrinth – glide through its backwater channels by kayak and you may find alligators, bald eagles and channel bends that feel mapped only by local memory.
Dauphin Island
Federico Penta
Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge protects dune, beach and nesting habitat and is a quiet, family-friendly way to sample Gulf ecology; Gulf State Park’s Lake Shelby gives freshwater contrast with bike trails and paddle options. Inland, Cathedral Caverns is an underground spectacle with a cathedral-scale entrance and the unusually slim, towering stalagmite that makes the cavern unforgettable – it’s a reminder that Alabama’s wildness runs both above and below the surf.
Louisiana
Louisiana’s outdoors is watery and musical – the Atchafalaya Basin, the country’s largest wetland, is a place to canoe among cypress knees while learning the slow logic of river time. The Northlake Nature Center and Lake Pontchartrain provide accessible birding and shoreline paddles close to metropolitan New Orleans; at Lake Pontchartrain you can find fishing charters and broad estuarine landscapes worth a day trip.
Kayaking on Atchafalaya Swamp
James Norbury and Guy Davies
Kisatchie National Forest offers a different pace: longleaf pines, interpretative trails and viewpoints such as Longleaf Vista for a bird’s-eye view of the forest. Drive the Flyway Byway at migration season and the skies fill – the right way to understand Louisiana’s entwined nature and culture.
Arkansas
Arkansas is elemental: thermal springs, clear lakes and limestone bluffs. Hot Springs National Park combines a historic bathhouse town with nearby hiking and mountain-tower vistas; it’s a tidy primer in how human and geological histories overlap.
Lake Ouachita
Federico Pent
Lake Ouachita’s broad water is perfect for boat days and quiet fishing, while Petit Jean State Park rewards walkers with dramatic overlooks and layered sandstone scenery. Pinnacle Mountain is a short climb with big returns – compact but panoramic – and the Buffalo National River remains one of America’s best float and paddle rivers, edged by bluffs that read like pages of geological time.
For anyone after uncomplicated outdoors – good trails, reliable water and straightforward logistics – Arkansas delivers.
Book your tailor-made holiday with Trailfinders; plan routes and guides at travelsouthnaturally.com
