The 19 Best States For Fall Road Trips

There’s nothing quite like peeping peak foliage, dashing through a corn maze, and spending an afternoon at an apple orchard to celebrate autumn—and in some of these top states for fall road trips, you can do all three.

By Nick Keppler |
This scene near Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks shows why New York is the top state for fall road trips.
This scene near Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks shows why New York is the top state for fall road trips. / Diana Robinson Photography/Moment/Getty Images

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

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