Greenbrier River Trail
Crushed-stone grades, bridges, two tunnels, riverside campsites, and gentle elevation make a long Appalachian corridor approachable by bicycle or on foot.
United States: places and wildlife — page 63
Browse the published Explore collection for United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Hatfield-McCoy Trails
Distinct systems offer signed ATV, UTV, motorcycle, and selected 4x4 routes across steep southern West Virginia terrain, with difficulty ratings and town access.
West Virginia Botanic Garden
Designed beds, woodland trails, wetlands, seasonal flowers, and remnants of a historic reservoir create a botanical garden where ecology and civic infrastructure overlap.
Oglebay Good Zoo
Red pandas, snow leopards, cheetahs, lemurs, native species, a veterinary hospital, and seasonal experiences occupy a walkable Oglebay hillside.
West Virginia State Wildlife Center
A 1.25-mile interpretive trail passes black bear, elk, bison, mountain lion, wolf, otter, owls, and other regional wildlife managed by WVDNR.
Cheat Mountain Salamander
This small, dark woodland salamander has a brassy-flecked back, straight-edged tail, and one of the narrowest vertebrate ranges in the central Appalachians.
West Virginia Spring Salamander
Pale pink-orange skin, reduced eyes, and an elongated body distinguish this exceptionally localized salamander of underground Greenbrier karst waters.
Candy Darter
Orange-red bars, blue-green flanks, and a low perching posture identify a small fish threatened by habitat stress and hybridization with introduced variegate darters.
Guyandotte River Crayfish
Robust claws, a compact body, and life under large flat stones suit this endemic crustacean to swift upper Guyandotte tributaries.
West Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel
Large dark eyes, dense brown fur, and a furred membrane between limbs distinguish this uncommon squirrel of cool Appalachian mountaintops.
Virginia Big-eared Bat
This medium-sized brown bat roosts in a small number of Appalachian caves and forages over forest and field edges, detecting moths with sensitive echolocation.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Five millennia of art, major Fabergé holdings, African and South Asian galleries, modern work, and a sculpture garden make VMFA a rare all-day state museum.
Chrysler Museum of Art
An encyclopedic collection, exceptional glass holdings, photography, European and American painting, and a working glass studio occupy a gracious waterside campus.
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
Two immense hangars place the Space Shuttle Discovery, an SR-71, Concorde, Enola Gay, satellites, engines, and restoration work at full physical scale.
The Mariners’ Museum and Park
The USS Monitor’s turret, conservation laboratories, small craft, naval paintings, and a five-mile lakeside trail connect maritime technology to lived experience.
Virginia Museum of History & Culture
Statewide galleries connect Indigenous homelands, colonization, slavery, revolution, migration, industry, civil rights, politics, and contemporary community life.
Science Museum of Virginia
Interactive galleries on health, computation, energy, climate, engineering, and space occupy Richmond’s spectacular former Broad Street Station.
National Museum of the Marine Corps
Immersive galleries follow Marines from 1775 to the present through aircraft, weapons, uniforms, oral histories, battlefield environments, and home-front experience.
American Civil War Museum at Historic Tredegar
Artifacts, documents, and testimony place military conflict beside slavery, emancipation, politics, industry, civilian survival, and contested memory at Tredegar Iron Works.
Frontier Culture Museum
Reconstructed and relocated farms from West Africa, Europe, and North America use buildings, crops, livestock, and interpreters to examine migration and cultural exchange.
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Regional galleries, miniature houses, the Glen Burnie historic house, formal gardens, outdoor sculpture, and miles of trails connect collecting to Shenandoah landscapes.
Birthplace of Country Music Museum
Recordings, instruments, oral histories, radio, and interactive studios explain how the Bristol Sessions transformed regional music into a national industry.
Virginia Museum of Transportation
Norfolk & Western steam giants, diesel locomotives, cars, aviation objects, and a historic freight station explain transportation as an interdependent system.
The Poe Museum
Manuscripts, first editions, personal objects, portraits, and the Enchanted Garden connect Edgar Allan Poe’s Richmond years to his restless literary reputation.
Colonial Williamsburg
Original and reconstructed buildings, trades, archaeology, performance, and two art museums animate Virginia’s eighteenth-century capital without making its conflicts tidy.
Monticello
Thomas Jefferson’s house, plantation landscape, workspaces, gardens, and archaeology place celebrated design beside the lives of hundreds of enslaved people.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon
The mansion, outbuildings, farm, tomb, museum, Potomac landscape, and memorial to the enslaved reveal an estate that was political symbol and working plantation.
James Madison’s Montpelier
Madison’s restored house, archaeology, descendant interpretation, enslaved community sites, forests, and cemetery place constitutional history inside a working plantation.
Jamestown Settlement
Galleries, a Paspahegh town, 1610–14 fort, and full-size ships interpret Powhatan peoples, English colonists, and West Central Africans in seventeenth-century Virginia.
Historic Jamestowne
The original 1607 fort site, church tower, active excavations, artifacts, and island landscape expose survival, violence, diplomacy, hunger, and colonial expansion.
Yorktown Battlefield
Earthworks, fields, roads, artillery positions, Moore House, and Surrender Field preserve the landscape of the 1781 Franco-American siege and British capitulation.
Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial
The Custis-Lee mansion, enslaved quarters, gardens, and cemetery setting trace family privilege, emancipation, Civil War occupation, and national commemoration.
Manassas National Battlefield Park
Henry Hill, Stone Bridge, Brawner Farm, unfinished railroad, woods, and monuments preserve terrain from the First and Second Battles of Manassas.
Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
The reconstructed McLean House, courthouse village, roads, fields, and military camps interpret the April 1865 surrender and the uncertain transition from war.
Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
Walker’s Jackson Ward home connects the Independent Order of St. Luke, banking, publishing, civil rights, disability, family, and neighborhood leadership.
Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest
Jefferson’s private retreat, ornamental grounds, slave quarter sites, archaeology, and ongoing restoration expose architecture as experiment and plantation system.
Booker T. Washington National Monument
A reconstructed farm, archaeology, animals, trails, and exhibits interpret Washington’s first nine years in slavery and the landscape he later remembered.
Fort Monroe National Monument
The moated fortress, Casemate Museum, Point Comfort shoreline, Freedom’s Fortress story, and living community connect Indigenous ground, slavery, war, refuge, and defense.
Shenandoah National Park
Skyline Drive, waterfalls, quartzite peaks, oak forests, wildlife, and more than 500 trail miles protect a long mountain corridor above the Virginia Piedmont.
Great Falls Park
Rocky overlooks, canal ruins, rapids, flood marks, and riverside trails reveal the Potomac dropping violently through a narrow gorge near Washington.
Grayson Highlands State Park
Open balds below Mount Rogers, wind-shaped spruce, rock outcrops, Appalachian Trail access, and managed pony herds create Virginia’s most alpine-feeling landscape.
Natural Bridge State Park
A 215-foot natural arch, creek gorge, karst features, forest, and Monacan interpretation turn a famous roadside icon into a geological and cultural landscape.
First Landing State Park
Dunes, live oaks, Spanish moss, tidal shore, freshwater swamps, and 20 trail miles preserve a surprising coastal mosaic inside Virginia Beach.
False Cape State Park
Six undeveloped Atlantic miles, dunes, marsh, maritime forest, and the remains of Wash Woods are reached only by foot, bicycle, boat, or seasonal transport.
Natural Tunnel State Park
Stock Creek carved an 850-foot limestone tunnel later threaded by an active railroad, creating a dramatic meeting of geology, engineering, and Appalachian transport.
Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge
Beach, dunes, salt marsh, maritime forest, freshwater pools, lighthouse, and managed pony herds make Assateague a major Atlantic Flyway refuge.
Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
Forested wetlands, canals, blackwater, Lake Drummond, wildlife, and maroon-community archaeology protect an ecosystem inseparable from histories of enslavement and resistance.
Douthat State Park
A 50-acre lake, stone and log Civilian Conservation Corps buildings, waterfalls, ridges, and more than 40 trail miles form one of Virginia’s classic park landscapes.