Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

Hot Springs is unlike any other unit in the national park system. Instead of a remote backcountry icon, it wraps around a working downtown spa district where steaming water has drawn travelers for generations. Behind the Beaux-Arts facades of Bathhouse Row, rainwater that fell on the surrounding Ouachita Mountains seeps thousands of feet underground and resurfaces, hot, after a journey measured in thousands of years.

The park protects 47 thermal springs that emerge at roughly 143 degrees Fahrenheit. Much of that water is collected and distributed for public use, so visitors can fill a jug straight from a thermal fountain or arrange a soak in one of the two bathhouses still operating on the row. The Grand Promenade, a brick path tracing the hillside above the bathhouses, links the historic district to the wooded slopes of Hot Springs Mountain.

For RV travelers, the appeal is the rare blend of city and wilderness. You can walk from forested trailheads into a National Historic Landmark district in minutes, then point the rig toward the wider Ouachita country of west-central Arkansas. As the oldest park in the system, Hot Springs carries a depth of story that pairs naturally with a slow, road-trip pace.