Last Updated on October 19, 2023 by Jill
This post may contain affiliate links. This means I will make a commission at no extra cost to you should you click through and make a purchase. Read the full disclosure here
As we continue to make our way south to our boat we continue finding neat places to check out. After our last stop at the Fish Boil, and some family time we made our way to this spot. A National Park in the Middle of a Town. Yep, this was a pretty neat stop that we have been looking at for a while. Up til now it just didn’t work out. We finally had some extra time so we made our way here. Where is here? Well, it’s the Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas. So, let’s dive into it.
The Campground
We got up early and headed into the Nat. Park Campground so we could hopefully get a site. This campground is first come first serve and doesn’t allow reservations. So the plan was to hopefully get a spot from someone who was leaving. It worked out perfectly and we got a beautiful spot backing up to Gulpha Creek. Next, you go into a little building and pay for your reservation at a pay station. Then, attach your receipt to your site and you are all set. This was one of our favorite National Park Campgrounds we have stayed at so far. It is very clean, has beautiful views, spacious spots, and hiking trails right at the park. It was fantastic we could just pick a trail and go.
The Hiking
They have two trails that start right at the campground and several other trails that branch of from those trails. The weather was perfect our entire visit. Shortly after getting set up we grabbed the dogs and headed out to check out the park. This is where we happened upon our first hike. After we went a while the terrain started to get a little more aggressive and we realized we should have better shoes on besides flip flops. It was getting hot as well, so we headed back to the camper. On our next hiking trip, we got going a little earlier, brought plenty of water for us. We did 3 of the hikes. Just shy of 5 miles. It was a beautiful hike. We did the Gulpha Gorge Trail, The Goat Rock Trail, and The North Mountain loop. I would definitely recommend those, they were strenuous and had some fantastic views. We didn’t have time to do all the hikes, but I imagine they all offer something unique and beautiful.
The Town
Bathhouse Row is in the middle of the town of Hot Springs. There are 9 buildings encompassing the row. One of them is not available to visit, but the other 8 are. The visitor center is located in the Fordyce building. This building has been restored to its original state and is very neat to walk through. You really can see how things were back in the 1900s during the craze of people coming to the Hot Springs for treatment and just to enjoy. A lot of people thought the waters had healing properties and people came from all over for it. There are still 2 active bathhouses today. The Quapaw ad Buskstaff. you have to make reservations, they did not take walk-ins. This may be due to COVID, so it could change down the road.
I tried to take a lot of pictures to share because it was such a neat place to see. Speaking of neat things to see. They actually have a brewery in the Superior Building. They claim to be the only brewery in the world to use thermal springs in its beer-making process. We stopped in to check it out. They had some good beers and several good ciders. They also had fantastic food. Great place to check out.
This was a little gem and I highly recommend making plans to visit here, we really enjoyed it.
Cheers,
Jill
