A favorite destination for beachgoers, anglers and bird watchers, the 28-mile-long and 1-mile-wide Panhandle barrier island community, only a short drive from Tallahassee and tourist-crammed Panama City, is considered part of Florida’s so-called “Forgotten Coast,” those small, pristine and relatively undiscovered islands and towns like its cousins of Mexico Beach, Cape San Blas and Carrabelle that don’t get the party-hardy crowds of Miami, Daytona and Clearwater beaches.

National parks are becoming increasingly more welcoming to outdoor enthusiasts with mobility issues, with some like Great Smoky Mountains National Park offering adaptive equipment loans and a program of free, adaptive excursions. Last year, its inaugural year, the national park and its partners organized three hikes and one mountain bike outing for parkgoers who use adaptive gear. This year, the program will feature three hikes, two mountain bike rides, one kayak trip and one night of backcountry camping. The outings are scheduled for select dates in June, July, September and October.

Think of the Ladder as a 90-minute interactive movie with puzzles, taking guests through five decades, beginning in the 1950s, in which they will play an exaggerated game of corporate life and find out just how corruptible they really are. Start in the mail room, and work your way through secretarial and middle-management-themed areas, all the while mixing puzzles, games and choose-your-own-adventure-like choices — so many that it’s impossible to discover all its content in a single play-through. It’s ambitious, and it’s counting on guests to come for the puzzles, and stay for the story, almost aiming to be more akin to a real-life video game than a traditional escape room.

Among the many places to learn about the queen of Southern Gothic literature in Milledgeville, a town about 100 miles from Atlanta: the O’Connor family farmhouse museum at Andalusia; Georgia College and State University’s Andalusia Interpretive Center, which features more artifacts and a timeline of the author’s life; the special collections library in Heritage Hall at GCSU; and her grave at Memory Hill Cemetery.

Tiny natural dwellings on Rahway River Trail in Millburn, NJ, built to nurture kids’ imaginations and interest in nature 

Woodford County, located in the state’s scenic Bluegrass Region, has all this plus 4 wineries, an orchard and the Bluegrass Scenic Railroad and Museum — enough to keep a visitor occupied for an entire vacation.

Though best known for its international golf tournament, the “Garden City” of 202,000 has a profusion of private gardens and dazzling spring flowers, plenty of history and everything Southern in food from grits and gravy to pecan pie to soul food shacks to fine dining.

Locals share their favorite places to eat and things to do in a few of the cities within the path of totality: Dallas, Cleveland, Burlington and more.

Architect David Sheegog’s scaled-down version, Castle Peak and Thunder Railroad, which he has been working on for about a quarter of a century, is a love letter to Disneyland and Disney animation. But it doesn’t try to re-create the theme park, per se: An equal number of miniatures reference animated films as they do park attractions, some of which no longer exist; there are also references to Florida’s Walt Disney World. But like the actual park, it has enduring appeal and is never quite finished.

A renovated Wendy’s that now serves salmon and broccolini says a lot about the state of restaurants along America’s highways.