Best Affordable Fall Foliage Towns

With a charming historic downtown, Middlesboro is close to the Cumberland Gap, which was the gateway to the West for countless pioneers, including Daniel Boone. Two hours south of Lexington, KY, it’s far less crowded than the better-known Great Smoky Mountain National Park. If you want to see peak colors on the sugar maples, beech, birch, and basswood, plan to travel here from mid- to late October.

Fall Color Hotel: The Cumberland Manor Bed and Breakfast is a grand Victorian home dating from 1890 with five guest rooms. Doubles from $99.

Two hours northeast of Atlanta lies Clayton, an old mountain town with a well-preserved main street and an assortment of antiques shops, galleries, and restaurants. It’s a fine base to explore the colorful hardwood trees in adjacent Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in the lush southern Appalachians. You can visit here as late as the last week in October and still find the foliage at peak color.

Fall Color Hotel: The Beechwood Inn in Clayton is in the heart of the scenic Georgia Wine Country and offers special wine dinners. The Inn has seven rooms and one cottage. Doubles from $159.

This artsy town in southern Oregon—a few hours south of Portland—has galleries, ethnic restaurants, and day spas that utilize the Lithia Springs mineral waters. It’s a good combination with the amazing fall foliage, which peaks in mid-October. Hike or mountain bike in the surrounding hills to really appreciate the changing scenery.

Fall Color Hotel: Chanticleer Inn is a six-room bed-and-breakfast with a view of the Cascades. It has a garden, koi pond, and hammock. Doubles from $165.

The Coen brothers chose Brainerd as the setting for their film Fargo, and this town epitomizes much about the northern Midwest. The town fathers claim Paul Bunyan as their own, but for the average leaf peeper, it’s the surrounding lakes and forest that offer the best reason to come here in fall. The foliage tends to peak in late September and early October—the perfect time to take a slow ride around Gull and Round lakes or drive a longer loop on the Paul Bunyan Scenic Byway.

Fall Color Hotel: Whiteley Creek Homestead Bed and Breakfast offers two guest rooms and three cottages, all rustic, quirky, and charming, surrounded by organic gardens. Doubles from $95.

A small town with a handful of cafés and restaurants, Alpine is a true getaway from greater Phoenix, which lies five hours west. While you might not think of the Alps and Arizona as related, locals in Alpine tend to equate their town with Switzerland. Given that the surrounding White Mountains are covered with aspen, oak, pine, and fir, it’s not that far-fetched. Alpine is the perfect base for a drive along the Coronado Trail Scenic Byway.

Fall Color Hotel: Hannagan Meadow Lodge is set at 9,100 feet in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. There are seven lodge rooms and 10 cabins. Doubles from $65.

Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom—the wildest and least-populated corner of this rural state—may be off the beaten path for Vermont foliage watchers, but it’s no less beautiful than the southern and central part of the state. While there’s no town per se, you’ll find Lake Willoughby, which is flanked by the cliffs of Mount Pisgah and Mount Hor and resembles a Norwegian fjord. Hike the mountains or take a canoe onto the deep, glacially formed lake.

Fall Color Hotel: Willough Vale Inn and Cottages has 10 guest rooms and eight cottages on the shores of Lake Willoughby. Ask for the Robert Frost cottage. Doubles from $155.

The Berkshires may be more famous than the rolling hills of Central Massachusetts, but this sleepy area offers timeless towns like Petersham. Just 90 minutes from Boston, Petersham offers a classic New England town green, white clapboard houses, and century-old maple trees, while the surrounding dense forest explodes into reds, oranges, and yellows come late September.

Fall Color Hotel: The Inn at Clamber Hill in Petersham is a five-room bed-and-breakfast surrounded by forest. Doubles from $169.

A classic riverside tourist town on the St. Lawrence River in the heart of the Thousand Islands area, Alexandria Bay sits on the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, which follows the shoreline of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the St. Lawrence—some 454 miles of two-lane roads perfect for foliage watching. Alexandria Bay has a well-developed downtown of shops and inns; the foliage in the Thousand Islands area peaks in late September.

Fall Color Hotel: The Captain Visger House in Alexandria Bay is a restored Victorian B&B with four guest rooms. Doubles from $189, based on a two-night stay.

Many travelers come here to ski Elk Mountain, but fall foliage season is also prime time, offering some of the most spectacular pastoral landscapes in the East. It’s remarkably quiet here, given that greater New York City lies just three hours away. Union Dale is typical of this area of small towns, rolling hillsides, and family farms. Peak viewing time is usually the first week of October.

Fall Color Hotel: The Stone Bridge Inn and Restaurant is set on 200 acres and has 14 rooms. Doubles from $90.

High above the Connecticut River that separates New Hampshire from neighboring Vermont, Cornish redefines the term bucolic. There’s no town proper, or even a main street—just a handful of villages. And neighboring Mount Ascutney makes for great color viewing. Be sure to cross the Cornish-Windsor bridge into Vermont—the longest covered wooden bridge in the world.

Fall Color Hotel: Chase House Bed and Breakfast in Cornish is a 10–guest room inn that dates back to 1776. Doubles from $165.