America's 5 Best Neo-Western Revival Getaways For 2026, According To Studies

If you dream of door-slapping saloons, riding the open range, and towns of shotgun houses where gunslingers meet at high noon, then here's some good news: The Wild West is riding again. A recent study conducted by the major European vacation rental group HomeToGo has identified a resurgence of interest in old-school American frontier towns. The company has even given it a name: The "Neo-Western revival."

This study identified a huge uptick in searches for travel accommodation in a whole string of towns across the West and Southwest corners of the United States. Each place saw massive spikes in demand for hotels to the tune of over 100% year over year. The common denominator? These are all places that have remote desert vibes, Western energy, and a taste of the old frontier.

Indeed, it seems pining for the age of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne et al is now at full gallop. A recent study by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research in Montana revealed huge boosts to local tourism in the wake of the hit TV series "Yellowstone," while Nat Geo cited "cowboy core" vacationing as one of the key trends of 2025. If you find yourself caught up with the herd, so to speak, this guide has you covered. Tapping into HomeToGo's latest travel study, it offers a deep dive into five of the leading Neo-Western revival towns in the United States. Yeehaw!

Yucca Valley sits perched at over 3,000 feet above sea level between the Little San Bernardino Mountains and the Southern California deserts. Now, if that sounds like just about the perfect locale for an upcoming Neo-Western revival destination, then that's because it very much is. Yep, this small town boomed in popularity among users on HomeToGo over the last year, seeing an increase in searches of nearly 200% in total.

It's easy to see why. This gateway to the Joshua Tree National Park is a hub for Indie film and museum culture in the high desert. Nostalgia for the old days of living on the frontier is easy to come by. You can literally walk the set of countless noir Westerns by hopping over to Pioneertown, a purpose-built cowboy town just 10 minutes' drive outside of Yucca Valley that still has its vintage saloon, stables, and timber-fronted 1800s-style buildings. Then there's the Hi-Desert Nature Museum, where you'll be immersed in all sorts of dioramas related to the Mojave Desert and its ecosystems.

Yucca Valley isn't only a prime pick for wannabe ranchers, either. It's also now firmly established as a destination of choice for movie buffs. If that's you, drop by in early November to catch the Yucca Valley Film Festival, which boasts the longest red carpet in the region, plus multiple Best Reviewed Film Festival awards from FilmFreeway.

Cañon City is a rugged river town just outside of Colorado Springs that's undergoing something of a popularity boom. It's not the first time that's happened here — this Front Range settlement has boomed before, first during the Colorado Gold Rush of 1860, then with the discovery of nearby oil wells. It even competed with Denver to be the state capital back in the day!

But the current boom is much more of the 21st-century variety, since it's based on an uptick in online accommodation searches of 213% over the course of the last year. Couple that with a median per-person, per-night cost of accommodation of under $52, and this one reigns as the second-finest Neo-Western getaway on the list. Just one glance will reveal why, since the town straddles the Arkansas River at the mouth of a red-rock canyon in true cowboy fashion.

The walking-friendly Cañon City downtown area spreads out parallel to Highway 50. The whole thing is on the National Historical Register, so dive right in to get your taste of old-school architecture and design. The official regional travel website, Canyoncitycolorado.com, even has a free, self-guided tour of the district that'll whisk you past a 100-year-old drugstore and a Masonic Lodge from 1881. And, just when you feel that pioneer spirit stirring, you can hop aboard the Royal Gorge Route Railroad to whiz through a steep-sided gorge where bighorn sheep cling to 1,000-foot-high walls of rock.

Population 5,000, Bisbee sits in a bowl in the Mule Mountains of southern Arizona. It burst into life with the coming of the copper boom in 1877, but pickaxes have since been traded for paintbrushes, and the town's now more famed as something of an arty outpost. Its historic core dates back to the early 20th century, displaying a hodgepodge of styles, from Mannerism to Romanesque Revival. And it looks as though that's very much caught the eye of travelers looking for a taste of nostalgia, since HomeToGo reports a massive 117% increase in searches for stays here.

The folks over at Wand'rly Magazine explain that Bisbee has managed to resist the commodification of its Old West roots. It's not like America's ultimate Wild West destination of Tombstone, they say, a town made famous by the travails of Wyatt Earp that sits just a  25-minute drive to the north. There are no tourist-centric gunslinger shows here, but a real, lived-in town that bustles with local life.

They say a certain John Wayne (heard of him?) once frequented Bisbee's historic Copper Queen Hotel, so you can rest assured that you'll be treading in the footsteps of Western royalty in these parts. You could even opt to stay in the dedicated John Wayne suite — it's a room completely dedicated to the actor, with posters of his famous cowboy flicks adorning the walls and décor that recalls the glory days of the Wild West.

According to HomeToGo's study into the hottest Neo-Western destinations of the moment, there was nearly a tripling in the number of searches for accommodation in the city of El Paso compared to just a year ago. Not all of that surge may be related to folks on the hunt for a taste of Old West living. El Paso isn't just a throwback town to the days of ranchers and cowboys, you see. It's also the self-proclaimed Sun City, where great weather, good food, and plenty of hiking combine.

If you do come for the history, then there are worse places to begin than the designated Magoffin Historic District. It's packed with hundreds of buildings that date back hundreds of years, and was added to the prestigious National Register of Historic Places back in 2016. The Texas Historical Commission has put together a free walking tour of the area that'll whisk you past vintage streetcar depots and Art Deco gas stations alike.

From there, why not hop across to Concordia Cemetery? It's been a resting place since 1856, and encompasses the graves of Texas Rangers, Civil War vets, and pioneers alike. You can also find the tomb of one John Wesley Hardin, an infamous Wild West outlaw who was shot and killed in an El Paso saloon!

A touch of royalty takes up the last spot on this list of the most alluring Neo-Western escapes in America for 2026. Cue Queen Creek. It's another Arizonan desert town with stacks of history, seeing a huge uptick in searches on the HomeToGo platform — it soared 142% year over year, according to the study. What's also nice is that the median cost of nightly accommodation per person was under $80 here, helping to make it an affordable option to boot.

Where this one differs from the other spots on this list is in the fact that the modern town of Queen Creek was only established in the late 1980s. It's not some vintage oldie, but rather a modern settlement sat atop centuries-old farming and ranching lands, with a hint of railroad history thrown in for good measure.

Not to worry — the Wild West vibes flow at the Horseshoe Park & Equestrian Centre, where rodeo cowboys come to buck around the ring. Meanwhile, there's a taste of the simple life on offer down in Schnepf Farms, a seasonal veggie patch with a bakery and camping spots that hearkens back to the time when pioneers came to till these lands. Oh, and the San Tan Mountains beckon on the horizon. Head to those to hike or hit the dusty horseback trails to lookout points over the vast Sonoran Desert.

This selection of five top Neo-Western revival towns for 2026 is based on the findings of a study by HomeToGo, a Berlin-based vacation rental group that offers over 20 million property hires across the planet. They collated data related to searches for destinations around the globe and identified an uptick in interest in frontier towns in the west and south of the United States. The five towns listed above all saw significant increases in search rates, but are also featured because they offer relatively affordable nightly hotel rates, making them an attractive prospect for would-be Old West nostalgia in the coming season.