By Rich Beattie

Travel to Arkansas and you may well immerse yourself in the wilds of the gorgeous Ozark National Forest.

But just three hours south is a lesser-known gem of nature: Crater of Diamonds State Park—the only place in the world where visitors can search for diamonds…and keep what they find.

Keep driving and you’ll find that America is full of other unique natural treasures as well.  Whether your interest lies in experiencing odd geological formations, fascinating animal migrations, mysterious water attractions, or skyward spectacles, these are the places to add to your bucket list.

WILDLIFE

Feel the Flutter : Every fall, thousands of monarch butterflies funnel through the flyways of Texas as they make their way to the warmth of southern Mexico. It’s an epic journey of up to 3,000 miles—and a thrill to watch their burnt-orange wings flutter across the Lone Star sky. While you can also catch their springtime return, you’ll see more in the fall.

When: September through November, peaking around mid-October

Trot Out to an Island: This is no rodeo: The 150 to 200 horses that roam the beaches and dunes on Georgia’s Cumberland Island are truly feral. While you can also see wild horses roam the Maryland and Virginia islands of Assateague and Chincoteague, these equines aren’t being managed by humans—they live off the land and survive on their own.

When: Year-round

Visit a Bat Cave: Every summer evening in New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park, hundreds of thousands of bats pour out of caves in search of food, darkening the skies as they flap over spectators’ heads at up to 25 miles an hour. Early risers can also catch the bats (from 4 to 6 a.m.) as they cannonball back down into their rocky recesses.

When: Mid-April to late October; baby bats appear from late July to September, adding to the spectacle.

Crane Your Neck: Central Nebraska makes for a first-rate layover—at least, for migrating sandhill cranes. Every spring, approximately 500,000 of these majestic, four-foot-tall birds pack into a stretch of the Platte River for some R&R on their journey north. Joining them are “craniacs”—bird-watchers who delight in the birds’ quirky courtship dances and dramatic takeoffs, as their six-foot wingspans and loud trumpeting fill the air. 

When: Mid-February to mid-April

Get in Sync: A thousand points of light will seem like nothing when aptly named “synchronous fireflies” start blinking simultaneously in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains. It’s the only firefly species in the U.S. featuring this unison flashing—key to the insects’ mating ritual and a dazzling sight.

When: Varies, but usually lasts for two weeks between the third week of May and the third week of June.

EARTH

Stroll a Technicolor Desert: Who said deserts have to be shades of brown? In springtime, Southern California’s desert landscapes pop with vibrant colors, thanks to the bloom of brilliant wildflowers. Brittlebush, desert lavender, and ocotillo weave stunning carpets of yellow, purple, and red in normally parched places like Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Antelope Valley.

When: Peaks come as early as February and could continue into June at higher elevations

Walk on Salt: The sea of shimmering white in northern Oklahoma’s Great Salt Plains State Park was once just that: a sea. Today, its salt remains, and strolling across the moonlike landscape offers stillness and quiet. Plus, you can dig for hourglass-shaped selenite crystals, which exist nowhere else on earth.

When: Year-round; dig for crystals April 1 to October 15.

Surf on Sand: Dramatic sand dunes exist from Indiana to Oregon, but Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park features North America’s tallest—up to 750 feet. Supremely dramatic, they rise from the surrounding flatlands like a mirage and come backdropped by snowy peaks. They’re also a ton of fun: Rent a sandboard there and ride them, or simply climb up and tumble down.

When: Year-round

Find Diamonds in the Rough: Why shop for diamonds when for $10 you can search for them—and keep what you find? That’s the policy in Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park, the world’s only diamond-bearing site open to the public. This ancient volcanic crater has served up more than 75,000 diamonds over the past 100 years or so, and the payoff can be big: In 2015, a visitor stumbled upon an 8.5-carat diamond later valued at (wait for it) $500,000.

When: Year-round

Feel Like a Lilliputian: Love rocks? Like, really, really big rocks? In Missouri’s aptly named Elephant Rocks State Park, these giant boulders—formed from 1.5-billion-year-old granite—can tower up to 27 feet and weigh up to 680 tons. Don’t miss the ones that gave the park its name; they look like a train of pink circus elephants.

When: Year-round

WATER

Watch Water Disappear: As the Pacific Ocean crashes over the rocks surrounding Thor’s Well, a circular hole off the coast of central Oregon, massive amounts of water appear to simply disappear. Disappointingly, the hole is not actually a bottomless pit (scientists believe it’s only around 20 feet deep). Still, the site is plenty dramatic (and dangerous), especially at high tide.

When: Year-round

Light Up a Waterway: Leave the glow sticks at home. Florida’s Indian River Lagoon may play host to more glowing plankton than almost anywhere else on earth, and it lights up the water in dramatic fashion when you dip a paddle in. Experience the phenomenon in a clear-bottomed kayak.

When: May through November

Follow a Rainbow in Circles: Picture a rainbow lying flat and you’ll get a sense of what makes America’s largest hot spring, in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, unique. At Grand Prismatic Spring, vibrant circles of red, yellow, and green surround a blue center, thanks to different bacteria that thrive in the varying water temperatures. The result is almost otherworldly.

When: Year-round

Get Fired Up: A mysterious glow emanating from behind a waterfall may sound like the beginning of a horror movie, but the sight at Eternal Flame Falls in Orchard Park, N.Y., is perfectly safe. A short hike brings you to the waterfall, where (spoiler alert) a pocket of natural gas provides fuel for the spooky vision.

When: Year-round

Step Into a Tolkien Novel: The Hobbit comes to life at Fly Geyser—a multi-hued cluster of contorted rocks on the edge of Nevada’s Black Rock Desert that spews scalding water several feet into the air. This anomaly, a result of natural processes and man-made accidents, sits on private land, but nature walks (no devices allowed) are available through flyranch.burningman.org.

When: Year-round

SKY

Take a Nighttime Shower: Let your mind wander as you watch the annual Perseid meteor shower streak across the sky. Wherever you are, get out to the darkest possible location in (ideally) the pre-dawn hours and look up. In some years, depending on conditions, you may see more than 100 meteors every hour.

When: Active from mid-July to the end of August, usually peaking around mid-August

Dance with Night Lights: Eerie greens, teals, and purples arrive unannounced, forming bands and curtains before morphing and shifting across the night sky. It’s an unmistakable sight that could only be the famed aurora borealis—the northern lights—and the Alaskan Arctic is one of the world’s best places to watch the thrilling show.

When: Prime viewing time is mid-September to late April, peaking in March.

Paint the Clouds: If you see a cloud lit up like a rainbow…congrats! You’ve witnessed a rare fire rainbow. Highly dependent on atmospheric conditions and the viewer’s latitude, this phenomenon happens when clouds refract the sun’s rays at a specific angle. While not a common occurrence, fire rainbows aren’t location-specific: They’ve been spotted everywhere from California to South Carolina and Vermont.

When: Summer