The Best US Trails To See Wildflowers In Bloom (Other Than California), According To Past Hikers

Wildflowers are one of the undisputed joys of hitting the hiking trails in the great outdoors. America is one of the finest places on planet Earth to go a-searching for feral flora — the U.S. counts a whopping 32,000 varieties of wildflowers throughout its 50 states! Whether it's the high-altitude summer wildflowers of Montana or the beautiful rhododendrons and mountain laurels of Southern Tennessee, there's tons to get through for the budding botanist in these parts.

But where's best? Well, one state gets mentioned time and time again: California. It might be called the Golden State, but it could just as well be nicknamed the "State With All The Wildflowers," or something along those lines. Basically, there are some seriously awesome places to see California's wildflowers.

Because of the sheer number of guides recommending travelers head to California to bask in the fields of wildflowers, this guide will skip over the land of the Sierra Nevada to focus instead on lesser-known but equally impressive wildflower locations across the country. At each location, we'll even pick out a specific hike you can do to enjoy those flowers to the max! We'll discuss our methodology in more detail later, but to make this list, we scoured leading travel and nature publications for tips on the most flower-filled regions, states, or parks. Second, we cross-referenced those with trusty AllTrails — a global database of over 450,000 hiking paths — to home in on individual hiking routes that past walkers say give the best blooms of all. If you want to enjoy wildflower trails across America, these are the most can't-miss destinations.

The land of the Lone Star State offers the first botanical trail on this list. This vast cut-out of the American South was named second only to California by Visit the USA when it came to the best wildflower states in the country, and Texas even took the crown on Forbes' list of top wildflower locales. Compute that into AllTrails and bingo — one hike trumps the bunch: the Window Trail in Big Bend National Park.

It's a real squiggle of a route that begins in brush-covered gorges, hops over mountain creeks, and culminates with a narrow gap between the red-rock mountains where you'll get sweeping views of the surrounding deserts. Variety is the keyword here. Over 5.4 miles, you'll go from woods to whittled hoodoos. Keep your eyes peeled for the big pink petals of phlox mesoleuca flowers and the beautiful buds of yellow anthers as you walk!

Remember that the wildflower blooms of Big Bend come a touch earlier than they do in much of the rest of the U.S. Things start getting colorful here around February with the opening of the Big Bend bluebonnet, which lines the main roads entering and exiting the park. Various other varieties, from prickly pear cacti to goldenrods, then do their thing throughout summer and fall.

If you're looking for a beginner-friendly Rocky Mountain National Park hike with wildflowers bursting from its seams, look no further than the Emerald Lake Trail. It's one of the best wildflower hikes in the Centennial State, with one past visitor commenting on AllTrails, "Unbelievable views. Easy hike and stunning views almost constantly. Wildflowers were popping."

Pop they most certainly do. The 3.3-mile up-and-down route whisks you through groves of huge ponderosas and past glistening Nymph Lake, where lilies speckle the surface of the water throughout the warm season. You'll clamber steps to the finale that is Emerald Lake itself, on paths lined by yellow, pink, and blue flowers.

As gorgeous as the hike is, this certainly isn't the only part of the state where the wildflowers shine. The town of Crested Butte is Colorado's "Wildflower Capital." It hosts a booming, blooming wildflower festival each July, a 10-day event full of guided hikes, botany workshops, and art events.

No self-respecting list of the finest wildflower regions in the U.S. could miss out on the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. This land of sylvan valleys and gushing woodland waterfalls is one of the best places for bloom-peeping according to the National Audubon Society, a 120-year-old organization dedicated to the preservation of bird habitats across the Western Hemisphere.

The Great Smokies, as they're also known, are no secret. In fact, it's the most-visited national park in the whole of the U.S., garnering more visitors per year than more famous parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite. It should hardly come as a surprise, then, that one of the top-rated wildflower treks in the preserve features nearly 13,000 reviews from past walkers!

The Rainbow Falls Trail is a moderate-difficulty 5.1-miler that cuts into the Tennessee side of the Smokies, through pockets of moss-covered old-growth forest, over streams, and amid uneven stands of boulders. The path is famous for its rainbow-making waterfall, but it's also laden with flowers throughout the springtime.

Last but most certainly not least on this guide to the top hikes for wildflower viewing in the United States is the Skyline Loop of Washington state. What a corker this one is — its 5.6 miles of quintessential alpine terrain go from roaring waterfalls to whole plateaus dressed in beautiful lupines come the spring and summer.

It's got an enviable 4.9 out of 5 rating on AllTrails with nearly 30,000 reviews, and one past hiker who completed the path in July 2025 summed up their trip with glowing words: "WA bucket list hike for sure, the views live up to the hype and the wildflowers are stunning!" You'll weave your way through the southern portions of Mount Rainier National Park, cutting in from the town of Paradise to get unforgettable panoramas of 14,406-foot Rainier itself, along with views of utterly gorgeous wildflower meadows that sparkle with lilies.

Once that's done and dusted, be sure to linger around Washington for the wildflower season, since there are stacks more places to go. The Central Cascades hold river valleys packed with popcorn flowers and clematis, for example, while the Columbia River Gorge has flower-covered slopes that offer sightings of snowy Mount Hood in the distance.

With such an abundance of U.S. hiking routes that give exceptional wildflower viewing, it was always going to be tricky to whittle things down to just a few. That's why we took a two-pronged approach.

First, we relied on the editorial picks of leading travel and nature outlets. That meant sifting through articles by Lonely Planet, Visit the USA, Forbes, and even the National Audubon Society, cross-referencing spots as diverse as the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the awe-inspiring land of towering trees that is the Sequoia National Park. Because California is so well-represented on these lists and could easily take up a list on its own, we elected to look at the other 49 states to find our picks, prioritizing the places that gained many mentions and shout-outs across multiple outlets.

With our shortlist in mind, it was then over to the global hiking app of AllTrails to discover the specific walking routes where the wildflowers are known to be cracking. It helped massively that AllTrails already publishes focus pages on the top wildflower hikes in particular states, letting us see what paths past hikers loved the most when it came to seeing wildflowers in full bloom.