Open Road Travels

Open Road Travels Thoughfully planned. Personally yours. Hidden Gems • Road Trips • Outdoor Adventures

It’s National Park Nugget Time!You know the drill by now… Let’s get to it! 🦬
09/01/2026

It’s National Park Nugget Time!

You know the drill by now… Let’s get to it! 🦬

08/31/2026

Your next road trip is as close as your favorite playlist!

Here’s a few fantastic roads to travel that we paired with your favorite genre of music. 🚐💨

Tell us how we did 🙂‍↔️

SCENIC SUNDAY | ORT SPECIAL📍 North Alabama Waterfall TrailY’all told us you wanted more road trips close to home, and No...
08/30/2026

SCENIC SUNDAY | ORT SPECIAL
📍 North Alabama Waterfall Trail

Y’all told us you wanted more road trips close to home, and North Alabama handed us a pretty good one. ✨

The official North Alabama Waterfall Trail has 27 waterfalls scattered across the region, and they’re close enough that you can visit several in a day, a Sunday afternoon, or turn the whole thing into a few different weekend adventures.

Our advice? Don’t treat it like one giant checklist.

Break it up by area and make each section its own little road trip: The Shoals, Bankhead, Huntsville/Gurley, Lookout Mountain and the other stops in between. Add lunch somewhere local, take the scenic roads, and give yourself enough time to actually enjoy the falls instead of racing to the next pin.

And if we were picking where to start? 🙌 Bankhead National Forest. Every time.

Seven of the official trail stops are tucked into Bankhead, ranging from easy stops to hikes that take you deeper into the forest.

Our three picks:

• Kinlock Falls for an easy scenic stop along Hubbard Creek.
• Shangri-La Falls for the adventure. It’s a seasonal 3-mile round trip with a tougher climb in and out of the canyon.
• Sougahoagdee Falls for the longer wander, about 4 miles round trip through cliff-lined forest with streams and smaller waterfalls along the way.

And that still leaves Parker, White Creek, Turkey Foot and Mize Mill for another day.

That’s what we like about this trail. One list of 27 waterfalls can turn into several completely different North Alabama road trips.

A quick ORT Smart before you head out: several Bankhead falls don’t have official marked trails, and many are at their best during wetter seasons. Check current conditions, know the hike you’re choosing, and don’t rely on a waterfall pin alone to get you there.
And MOST importantly, if you pack anything in make sure it ALL comes back with you. Don’t litter y’all.

We’ll take the waterfall, forest roads and somewhere local to eat kind of Saturday any day.

Which section of the trail should we turn into a full ORT day trip next?

Happy National Dog Day to the travel buddies who never ask where we’re going, just whether they get to come.They don’t c...
08/26/2026

Happy National Dog Day to the travel buddies who never ask where we’re going, just whether they get to come.

They don’t care about the itinerary, the scenic route, or how many stops we added along the way. Give them a window cracked open, a patch of grass at the next stop, and their people in the car, and they’re pretty much set.

Some of our favorite road trip memories have four paws in them.

And when your best travel buddy is coming too, we can help make sure the trip works for them too, from pet-friendly stays and trails to the little details that are easy to miss until you’re already on the road.

Here’s to the dogs who make the passenger seat better!

WEIRD DESTINATION WEDNESDAY📍Locust Ridge + The Smoky Mountains, TNWe think just about everyone knows Appalachia has alwa...
08/26/2026

WEIRD DESTINATION WEDNESDAY
📍Locust Ridge + The Smoky Mountains, TN

We think just about everyone knows Appalachia has always had a little weird tucked into the mountains…. Ghost stories. Signs. Superstitions. Premonitions. Old remedies. Curious way people who just seemed to know things somehow?

If you grew up in the South or anywhere near these gorgeous and mysterious mountains, chances are you’ve heard a few stories that nobody could ever quite explain. And you sure didn’t ask questions about it either.

As y’all know, Dolly Parton grew up right in the middle of that world and she never lost sight of the Appalachian influence these mountains gave her growing up.

Before the world knew her, Dolly was one of 12 kids growing up on Locust Ridge outside Sevierville. She later talked about the ghost stories she heard as a child, mountain people believed to have unusual gifts, and even premonitions within her own family.

She once said, “You can’t live in the mountains and not hear all the old ghost stories you do as children.”

Some of those stories stayed very close to home. Dolly wrote about her mother having premonitions the family learned to take seriously, and she remembered an older mountain woman from her childhood who later helped inspire These Old Bones.

Now whether you call that folklore, faith, coincidence, a sixth sense, or just old Appalachia being old Appalachia… those stories were part of the world that shaped her.

ORT’s Take:
The Smokies gave Dolly more than a place to come from. They gave her stories, humor, faith, music, people, and a little bit of mountain mystery she carried with her for the rest of her life.

And Dolly never stopped loving where she came from.

“The Smokies will never lose their charm and their magic.”
And we happen to agree. 💗✨

Pull Over or Pass?


Dolly Parton

08/25/2026

Thanks for loving us all, Dolly!

Mrs. Dolly served as Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s 75th-anniversary ambassador, wrote songs inspired by these mountains, and helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to preserve their trails. But what she gave this place went far beyond money. She gave East Tennessee a voice. She made its stories, people, and culture feel worth celebrating—and never acted like success had carried her too far from home.

Dolly was proof that someone could be larger than life and still make everyone else feel important.

The world knew her as an icon. The Smokies knew her as their own.

Today the National Park Service turns 110 years old, which feels like a pretty good reason to fill your feed with some o...
08/25/2026

Today the National Park Service turns 110 years old, which feels like a pretty good reason to fill your feed with some of our favorite park pictures.

Yellowstone became the first national park in 1872, but there wasn’t an actual Park Service yet. More parks and monuments followed until August 25, 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act and officially put one agency in charge of protecting them.

Honestly, it was one of the better paperwork days in American history. And of course big shout to Teddy Roosevelt himself for being the absolute legend he was by getting the wheels turning for the NPS to begin with.

The whole idea was to let people enjoy these places while keeping them “unimpaired” for everyone coming after us.

In regular-person language: go see the good stuff, but don’t ruin it. That job doesn’t belong only to the people wearing ranger hats. It belongs to every one of us.

Pack out your trash. Stay on the trail. Respect closures. Leave things where you found them. Give wildlife plenty of room. And please stop trying to make the bison part of the family picture. He has declined the invitation.

Our actions matter, but our voices matter too.

Pay attention to what is happening with our public lands. Speak up when they need protecting. Support the people doing the work. These places and wildlife that call them home can’t speak for themselves, but we can.

National parks have given us some of our favorite memories, and they’re a big reason Open Road Travels exists. If one has been sitting on your “we really need to go there someday” list, we can turn someday into an actual route, a realistic plan, and an adventure that respects the place along the way.

Happy 110th, NPS.

Here’s to keeping the good stuff good.

Looking for more Open Road Travels? Pick your platform! We’ve got three. 🙂‍↔️• Facebook is for real conversations, commu...
08/24/2026

Looking for more Open Road Travels?
Pick your platform! We’ve got three. 🙂‍↔️

• Facebook is for real conversations, community and practical travel advice.
• Instagram is for planning tips, destination information and posts worth saving.
• TikTok is where you’ll find our silly side, plenty of scenery and all our ongoing series.

Follow us where you spend your scroll time—or come along for the ride on all three for the full ORT experience. 🚐✨

Where do you scroll the most?

TikTok + Instagram

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