Big Bend National Park

Big Bend is America's most remote national park - hours from anywhere, sharing the Rio Grande with Mexico. The Chisos Mountains rise out of the desert like an island, offering both mountain and desert hiking. You'll hike to the South Rim for sunrise, descend into desert canyons, camp under skies so dark you see stars you didn't know existed. The remoteness is real - you're eight hours from the nearest city. This is Texas wilderness at its wildest, teaching boys that the Southwest isn't all Monument Valley and Instagram shots. It's hard, hot, isolated, and magnificent. Winter only - summer will kill you.