Forget about hibernating indoors after summer takes its final bow — the fall season insists you come out and play. From festivals to Technicolor foliage, here are a few suggestions for where to go, what to do and how to leaf-peep beyond the car seat. And if your favorite destination didn’t make our list this year, be sure to tell us on our message board.
Every autumn, leaf zealots from New York join locals in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Celebrate the color change at the Fall Foliage Parade in early October in North Adams, Mass., and don’t miss the phenomenal five-state vista from the summit of nearby Mount Greylock. Add a workout to your tree trek by joining a bicycle tour of Berkshire foliage through the region’s rolling hills.
Tahquamenon Falls boasts the third-most-voluminous vertical waterfall east of the Mississippi, behind only New York's Niagara and Cohoes falls. Located in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, leaves from cedar, spruce and hemlock trees leach tannins into the Tahquamenon River, giving it a brown color and earning the spectacle the nickname "Root Beer Falls."
 |
The Northeast may be most famous for its foliage, but contending regions all over the U.S. offer equivalent fall splendor. Travel via horseback to tour the arboreal flare of aspen trees in Sun Valley, Idaho.
 |
Skyline Drive, a historic road that outlines the crest of the Blue Ridge mountains in Shenandoah National Park, is a curious irony: Many of the byway's iconic panoramas — most notable in autumn, when thousands of park visitors are seduced by the colors each year — owe their inspiring beauty to human creation. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps in the mid-1930s, the fledgling group was charged with "removing all evidence of human occupation" and actively manipulating the forestation in order to create more visually arresting vistas. According to the National Park Service, recent research posits that no area within close view of Skyline Drive can claim to be genuinely natural.
For another unique approach to touring autumn's kaleidoscope, try New Hampshire's unusual cog train. On this three-hour round trip, a locomotive-that-could — a longtime steam engine converted to biodiesel in 2008 — pushes a single passenger car up Mount Washington’s considerable slopes. As your breathless ride climbs above a fire of foliage below the tree line, rest assured that a toothed cogwheel from the engine's drive shaft compensates for the steep ascent by connecting to a third rail.
Fall may be running season, but Arizona’s arid autumn can be enjoyed at whatever pace you choose. Wander on a network of trails (ranging from easy to difficult) in Sedona’s Red Rock Country, then tour the forest oasis of nearby Oak Creek Canyon to see its flaming display of red foliage.
The Badger State entices with a number of destinations for vivid vegetation: Kettle Moraine State Forest, Lake Michigan’s shoreline and the Great River Road, just to name a few. Residents of the small town of Crandon, Wis., however, need only meander nearby to this humble highway junction.
Forming the border between Oregon and Washington, the 80-mile-long Columbia River Gorge cuts west through the Cascade Mountains as the Columbia River migrates to the Pacific Ocean. The natural divide yields an astonishing exhibit of autumnal hues, from trees such as vine maple and oak to Oregon ash and cottonwood (to name a few); it also showcases the greatest concentration of waterfalls in the Pacific Northwest.
 |
As one of New England’s premier states for fall eye candy, Maine’s foliage carpets both inland forests and lakes and its lighthouse-adorned coastline. Explore the season’s iridescence in the always-inspiring Acadia National Park, or take to the sea and embark on an unforgettable foliage cruise aboard one of Maine’s historic windjammers.
More than 100 handcrafted scarecrows — many posed in elaborate, large-scale stage sets — compete in various categories at the Scarecrow Festival in St. Charles, Ill. While Ben Franklin, Elvis, a singing Sasquatch or members of the St. Charles City Council may not fit the specs of a traditional scarecrow, these characters (all winners in the 2007 competition) make the hour’s drive from Chicago worthwhile.
Take an aquatic tour of the season’s blazing colors on one of many fall foliage cruises up New York’s Hudson River. With excursions that range from a day to a week, choose your distance on this 315-mile-long waterway and consider a pilgrimage to the Catskills, a famed mecca of leafage, along the way.
 |
Luminous-leafed aspens in Colorado return the favor of having a town named after them by erupting in sun-bright gold every fall. Here, bicyclists in Aspen, Colo., enjoy the yellow display with a famous view of Maroon Bells — a mountain consisting of two peaks. This location is considered to be the most photographed scene in the Centennial State.
 |
In Georgia’s early history, land that is now national forest barely survived overuse of its sensitive ecosystems and depletion of its natural resources. Flora and fauna once again thrive after a concentrated restoration effort that began with the forest service’s 1911 purchase of 31,000 acres of land. Here, trees in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest treat visitors to a multicolored performance.
In 1972, 13 balloons in a shopping mall parking lot launched the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, N.M. Today, the festival, generally recognized as the most photographed event anywhere, features 700 balloons. Pilots treat spectators to many themed group ascents throughout the nine-day fiesta, or enter competitions that test their flying accuracy. Winners of America’s Challenge, a long-distance gas balloon race, typically fly about three days and land on the East Coast.
This edifice of glowing gourds represents just a fraction of the total pumpkins lit every October at the Keene Pumpkin Festival in Keene, N.H. In 2003, Keene broke the world record for the most jack-o'-lanterns lit at one time (the town's eighth world record since 1992), with a staggering 28,952. Boston surpassed the record in 2006 with 30,128 and still holds the title. Can Keene reclaim the crown? Time will tell.
 |
The southern Appalachian region, once an ancient home to the prehistoric Paleo Indians, hosts some 100 species of deciduous native trees. From this diversity a show-stopping foliage spectacle emerges each fall. The vista seen here at Deep Creek in North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park neighbors three waterfalls that are accessible by a short hike.
The world’s largest corn maze (40-plus acres) is located in Dixon, Calif. Farmer brothers Matt and Mark Cooley begin each year’s fresh design on an Excel spreadsheet, then — with the aid of family, friends and even local sports teams — hand-cut the entire sprawling labyrinth. Visitors are advised to bring a jacket and flashlight into the maze; some hapless explorers resort to cell phones and peeks from elevated islands to find their way out.
You have several choices for how to best bask in the Housatonic River’s brilliant autumn scenery: Drive along the river’s shores and navigate the last remaining covered bridges in Connecticut open to traffic; enjoy some of the best trophy trout fishing in the Eastern U.S.; or indulge in a fall foliage canoe trip (being careful to avoid the class V sections that are popular with whitewater paddlers).
Beware! One trip on the "leaf lift" (which runs from September through mid-October at Stratton ski resort in Stratton, Vt.) may spoil you from ever again settling for a view of fall colors from behind your windshield. Foliage fans can soar above terra firma for an eagle-eye's perspective on the color show, as the gondola floats to the summit of Stratton Mountain, southern Vermont's highest peak.
Source: http://travel.msn.com//Guides/MSNTravelSlideShow.aspx?cp-documentid=652441>1=41000
