15 People Who Went Looking for Fall Colors, From a Solo Road Trip in Colorado to an Old House in Ohio

Fall colors don’t always require a road trip or a scenic route to find. Sometimes they show up right outside your window, in your backyard or in a reading nook you restored yourself. Whether you are hiking through Caesars Head State Park or watching the leaves change from a cozy cabin, travel and stillness both have a way of making autumn feel like the most beautiful season of the year. These 15 stories and places prove that leaf peeping has no rules.

1. A Fall Surprise in a “Haunted” House

• I spent 5 years in a cramped and noisy apartment. This fall, I finally bought a worn-down 1950s house in Ohio. My family called me crazy. “It looks haunted!” they said. Everyone expected me to spend my savings on travel or something practical.
  The first night, I barely slept, wondering if I’d thrown away my savings. The next morning, I woke up to a strange sound. It was from the old pipes clanking somewhere in the walls. Nothing unusual for a house this age, the realtor had warned me about it.
  I got up, annoyed, and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I started walking through the rooms I hadn’t fully gone through yet. It took me most of the first week to even get through all the boxes and furniture the previous owners had left behind.
  One afternoon, moving a heavy wardrobe out of a side room, I noticed thin stripes of colored light slipping through the gaps between some old boards on the wall behind it. I pushed the wardrobe aside and found a small stained-glass window, boarded over from the inside, like someone had deliberately sealed it up years ago. From the yard, it just looked like a shuttered vent.
  It took me another day to pry all the boards loose. When I finally got the last one off, light came pouring through for what must have been the first time in decades: streams of red, orange, and gold spilling across the floor.
  Outside, the old maple tree in the yard was just starting to turn the same colors. Tucked into the window frame, protected all those years from light and weather, was a small, yellowed note, dated 1954 and initialed “W.H.” The note called the spot “The Reading Nook” and said it was meant to be the brightest corner of the house.
  I never found out exactly who that was. It could be the person who built the house or just someone who’d lived there once. Over the next few weeks, I cleaned up the old wooden bench underneath it, restored the glass, and filled the nook with books, soft cushions, and plants. Now it’s my favorite place to sit with my coffee and watch the fall colors change.

InvisibleSara / Bright Side

2. First Fall in our new home!

3. Fall is closing in — a few of my favourite locations around Metro Vancouver.

4. Blue Ridge is magical in the fall, shot this past weekend!

5. Autumn in HopeValley, England

6. It’s time we hit the road again.

Have you found your favorite fall colors this season on a road trip, a hiking trail, or somewhere closer to home? Share your most beautiful leaf peeping spot in the comments.

Light13

7. Last Autumn, Hiking in Caesars Head State Park, USA.

8. I had the wonderful opportunity to drive through New Hampshire this weekend.

9. Solo Travel in Fall Season

• I’d never done any solo travel before, so for my 40th birthday I planned a road trip to Colorado to go leaf peeping on Kebler Pass. I drove 11 hours, but a work delay pushed my trip back two days, and by the time I got there a windstorm had blown through.
  Most of the trees along the scenic route were bare. I sat in my car at the trailhead feeling ridiculous, eating gas station trail mix and trying not to cry. Then an older man in a dented blue pickup tapped on my window.
  He’d seen my New Mexico plates and asked if I’d come for the leaves. I nodded. “Wind hits this side,” he said. “Go up the dirt road three miles, then try hiking the trail on the north slope. The other side of the ridge is sheltered.”
  The road was rough, and the climb took me an hour. But at the top, the whole hillside was solid gold, the best fall colors I’d ever seen.

Daniela / Bright Side

10. Looking forward to fall. Here’s some pics I took last year here where I live.

11. Fall Colors in Algonquin

12. Keeping the Fall Tradition Alive

• Every October for 31 years, my parents have taken the same road trip along M-119 in northern Michigan, a stretch locals call the Tunnel of Trees. Mom called it the most scenic route in the Midwest and planned every stop, ending with a hike to the same bluff over Lake Michigan to see the fall colors.
  After she passed, Dad stopped going. Last fall, I found her old map in the glove box of his truck, covered in pencil notes: “best maples, mile 12,” “pie stop, Good Hart,” “Dave complains here.” I booked their usual motel in Harbor Springs and told him we were going leaf peeping whether he liked it or not.
  He grumbled for the first hour. We stopped for pie in Good Hart. On the second morning, we took the hiking trail to the bluff, slowly, with a lot of breaks. At the top, he pulled a pencil from his jacket, opened Mom’s map, and wrote a new note next to the trail: “Brought Jenny. She complained here.” I did, about the hill.

Jenny / Bright Side

13. My cozy cabin upstate. Ultimate fall vibes

14. My driveway and my pup this fall in Maine

15. Fall Foliage in My Backyard

Not everyone goes leaf peeping the same way. Some people plan a road trip months in advance, while others stumble onto a scenic route by accident or just look up from their coffee one morning and realize the backyard has been putting on a show the whole time. Wherever you catch the colors, they make you stop for a minute. Hiking a trail and watching the trees change from your own window are equally good ways to fall in love with the season.

What is your coziest way to enjoy fall colors — a scenic route drive, hiking through the woods, or simply soaking up the travel moments that autumn brings? Tell us below.

Simple05