20 Awesome Destinations for a Perfect U.S. Trip

Bridges to Buttes Byway, Harrison to Valentine

If the name of this 197-mile byway doesn’t entice the kids, the big-fun Nebraska adventures will. Real and replica fossils and skeletons of 20-million-year-old mammals surface at Harrison’s Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. Roam the otherworldly rock formations at Toadstool Geologic Park, north of Crawford, then spot bison, deer, elk, and prairie dogs at Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge in Valentine.

Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Creative