Idaho

Nicknamed the Gem State, Idaho is one of those places that are just oozing with adventure. It offers beautiful wilderness for raw adventures alongside high-end resorts. It has beautiful pristine rivers, lakes, and some great peaks. The scenery Idaho offers is just unbelievable. Pictures alone would make you want to pack up and book a flight as soon as you can.

Geography and Landscape

Idaho features some of the largest unspoiled natural areas in the country. The Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area, for instance, is about 2.3 million acres. It holds several mountain ranges, spectacular wildlife, and rivers that are perfect for whitewater rafting. That is 2.3 million acres of wilderness waiting to be explored, enjoyed, and played. And that is just one slice of what Idaho offers.

The landscape is rugged and breathtaking, blessed with natural resources and wildlife. The state boasts of rapids, snow-capped mountain ranges, steep canyons, and vast lakes. In fact, Idaho has a lot of rivers and lakes, almost 40 of them. With this much water, it is no wonder why humans have lived and explored the area as early as 14,500 years ago.

Idaho has some of the most unique landscapes, too. Craters of the Moon, for instance, looks exactly what it sounds like. The site allows you to walk over dried lava, an ocean of it, with cinder cones and sagebrush still all over it.

Proof that Idaho has just about anything you are looking for, it has beaches and it has dunes. It is not exactly a beach, but McCall’s Payette Lake is pretty much that. The brilliant blue glacial lake can be explored through a variety of watersports and in the water, even through ski or snowmobile. As per sand dunes, Idaho has the Bruneau Dunes State Park which happens to have the tallest freestanding sand dunes on the entire continent.

As if all of the above is not enough, Idaho also boasts of magnificent rocks. Idaho also has internationally renowned rock formations that attract rock climbers from all over the world.

Overall, Idaho just really tops the charts in terms of states you have to visit before you die. It has just about everything every outdoor enthusiast can possibly think of. It has icy mountains for skiing, it has beautiful lakes, it has the dunes, the wilderness, the giant rocks, the mountains, and some beautiful waterfalls.

Suffice to say, it is one of our favorite states to visit regularly due to the array of adventures and landscapes it has well kept. Idaho is truly the Gem State of the United States.