Wyoming

You know that end-of-the-movie scene where a lonesome cowboy rides off into the sunset? If you’re looking for where to find that guy, he’s probably in Wyoming. As ruggedly frontier and wildly unpeopled as it gets, Wyoming is the stuff the Wild West was made of. But the Cowboy State is home to more than wrangling lassos and jangling spurs. Not one but two awe-inspiring national parks are encompassed in the US’s least populated state: Grand Tetons, where mountains reflect in shimmering lakes, and the legendary Yellowstone, where moose lumber past shooting geysers. Ski bums base themselves in Jackson, a down-to-earth Wyoming version of Aspen, while rock climbers make camp in Lander. Of course, if you want to feed those pioneer visions, capital Cheyenne’s Frontier Days festival can’t be beat. But neither can a bareback gallop into the wide skies and open space of a Wyoming horizon.