The 19 Best States For Fall Road Trips

Where is the best place in the United States to experience fall? Maybe you love the golden hues of peak foliage against the rustic barns and covered bridges of rural New England. Or perhaps you want a more panoramic view of nature in flux from one of the mountains of Oregon or Washington state. You could be the type to get into the particularly frenzied college football fever way down South. An off-the-beaten-path option might be Tulsa, Oklahoma, a historic outpost of German emigration that, for 45 years, has hosted one of the top-rated Oktoberfest celebrations in the U.S.

If any of these top your autumn travel wish list, though, you are doing fall wrong, according to the folks at Coworking Café. The website—whose main draw is a searchable directory for coworking spaces but which maintains a side hustle of place-based content—has tallied several data points to compile a ranking of fall destination states, assigning each a numeric point value.

Coworking Café data scientists counted entertainment options (the numbers of fall festivals, apple orchards, corn mazes, wineries, hayrides, and restaurants), climate and nature benefits (average fall temperatures and numbers of days of peak foliage, hiking trails, scenic drives, and state and national parks) and accessibility factors (coworking spaces per capita, gas prices, regional prices of goods in general against national averages, number of free wi-fi spots, and quality of roads as rated by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics).

Coming in at No. 1 is New York. Why does it seem so inviting? The state leads the nation in apple orchards (with 282), corn mazes (64) and hayrides (100). The No. 2 pick is Virginia, which has the most fall festivals (74) and scenic drives (227). In third place is California, which tops all others in hiking trails (13,745), state parks (280) and, of course, wineries (4,054). Oregon and Texas tied in their total scores. A complete list of states with selected metrics is below.

Rank	State	No. of Peak Foliage Days	No. of National Parks	No. of Fall Festivals	No. of Wineries
1	New York	31	24	54	437
2	Virginia	34	22	74	374
3	California	17	9	52	4054
4	North Carolina	33	10	32	170
5	Michigan	34	5	27	243
6	Pennsylvania	17	19	63	386
7	Ohio	17	8	39	327
8	Massachusetts	34	16	23	66
9	Indiana	34	3	31	112
10	Maryland	33	18	53	106
11	Illinois	34	2	31	116
12	Tennessee	17	13	22	66
13	Minnesota	34	5	12	89
14	Georgia	16	11	54	114
15	New Jersey	33	9	29	68
16	Florida	10	11	28	76
17	Missouri	34	7	29	149
18	Oregon	17	5	16	604
18	Texas	10	14	42	487

Discover More Fun Travel Tips: