Nostalgia is shaping up to be the big autumn travel theme: travellers are booking getaways that trade screen time for campfires, vintage trains and leaf-peeping, with Expedia reporting strong year-over-year search growth for September-to-November trips that fit the mold. Chase Travel's own survey found 51 percent of travellers rank scenery as a major draw, while G Adventures' 2025 Happiness List study showed people increasingly want awe and connection over box-ticking for social media.
The poster child is Elk Lake Lodge, an all-inclusive, family-run hideaway in New York's six-million-acre Adirondack Park. The main building dates to 1904, there's little to no cell service and no televisions at all. Guests fill their days hiking more than 40 miles of private trails linked to the Dix Range, paddling Elk Lake and Clear Pond, or watching birds from the porch rocking chairs. Foliage typically peaks in early October, and most visitors return the same week every year — many book years ahead.
Elsewhere in the Northeast, the Schooner Heritage runs multi-day sailing trips out of Rockland, Maine, aboard a 95-foot wooden vessel with no cell service. Days involve dinghy paddles to uninhabited islands, swims and hikes; nights bring live music, stargazing and an all-you-can-eat lobster bake on a wild beach.
In Vermont, tour operator DuVine runs a five-day bike trip from the Champlain Valley through Smuggler's Notch to Stowe, with stops for cheese, maple syrup and cider tastings, covered bridges, Green Mountain climbs and nights in small bed-and-breakfasts.
Prefer rails to pedals? The Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad, just outside the park's south entrance, runs hour-long rides on a historic narrow-gauge locomotive over old logging tracks, with a mid-journey stop to see the steam train and eat a boxed lunch — plus optional gold panning and, on select dates, live jazz.
Adults can relive treehouse summers at Bolt Farm Treehouse in Whitwell, Tennessee, a 55-acre property above the Sequatchie Valley where luxury treetop suites come with copper soaking tubs, fire pits, vinyl players, pizza ovens and cliffside hiking trails.
New Hampshire's White Mountains get the grown-up summer-camp treatment at Mountain View Grand Resort and Spa, a working farm resort whose two-night, adults-only Grand Makers Camp in October pairs creative workshops and campfires with llama treks and cider pressing.
City dwellers short on time can book Classic Harbor Line's Fall Foliage Brunch Cruise from Manhattan's Chelsea Piers: a two-and-a-half-hour sail up the Hudson aboard 1920s-style yachts, with a three-course brunch, mimosas and foliage views as far as the Palisades.
Why it matters: if constant connectivity has worn you down, fall offers a rare combination of beauty, tradition and built-in reasons to slow down. These trips work for couples, solo reset-seekers and friend groups alike — just book soon, since peak foliage windows are short and nostalgic lodges like Elk Lake fill up fast.
Story via Outside Travel.
