• Sarah Anderson and her husband have road-tripped through 33 states over the past decade.
• Anderson shared her favorite hidden-gem destinations for summer road trips in the US.
• These destinations offer alternatives to crowded national parks during the summer.

Sarah Anderson and her husband, Myles, have been road-tripping across the US for a decade. Each year, they've traveled roughly 7,000 miles, covering 33 states and countless campgrounds from east to west.

As summer approaches and national parks around the country are bound to get crowded, Anderson shared with Business Insider lesser-known natural destinations that will give you a unique and secluded experience.

Avoid crowded trails in Custer State Park in South Dakota.

Anderson said one of the most underrated trips they've ever taken was to South Dakota in the summer of 2022, where they spent the Fourth of July camping at Custer State Park.

"We were able to get a last-minute camping spot, and it wasn't crowded," she said. "You could spend a week there because it's so beautiful, and there's so much hiking."

It was a sunny 75 degrees Fahrenheit — perfect for hiking, Anderson said. During her hikes, Anderson appreciated the park's unique geographic features.

"Custer Park is known for having these rock spires. I've never seen anything like it," she said. "You get a really good reflection of the rock formations on Sylvan Lake."

The park is also full of grasslands and wildlife, from donkeys to bison, she added.

"You can drive from Custer to Badlands National Park, and you can also stop by Mount Rushmore," Anderson said. "So you can easily make a whole road trip there."

Explore diverse landscapes in eastern Idaho.

In July 2023, Anderson explored hidden gems in eastern Idaho.

"Grand Teton National Park is really popular, but on the other side of the Tetons, the Idaho Teton Valley isn't very popular," Anderson said. "They have amazing wildflower hikes, mountains, and waterfalls."

Anderson said she also explored sand dunes nearby.

"No one was there when we went except for a few people on ATVs," she said. "But for sunset, we had the sand dunes completely to ourselves."

Sedona is quiet in late summer.

"Sedona, Arizona, is obviously a really popular destination, but a lot of people don't visit during the summer because it's really hot," Anderson said. But when she went in late August 2024, temperatures had cooled down a bit, and there were still no crowds.

"It would be a good destination for people who don't mind getting up early to hike and or like hiking at sunset," she said. "We hiked at sunrise and sunset to beat the heat, and we had a lot of the trails to ourselves."

Anderson recommends staying at Ambiente Sedona, an adults-only hotel, and spending the hottest hours of the day at the pool.

In South Carolina, avoid crowds in Charleston with a canoe trip in the Edisto River.

"In South Carolina, everybody goes to Charleston, but we went to this place called Carolina Heritage Outfitters in the Edisto River area of South Carolina," Anderson said.

Carolina Heritage Outfitters is a tour company that offers treehouse camping by canoe. Anderson told BI that her tour guide said it's a popular activity among locals.

"You canoe downstream a very easy 10 miles to a treehouse, stay overnight, and then canoe 10 miles back to the tour company," Anderson said. "That was one of the coolest things that we've done. We travel all the time, and we've never done anything like that."

Check out Wyoming's lesser-known natural escapes.

Anderson said she's been to Wyoming many times.

"I think, in general, it's underrated as a state to visit for tourism. It is obviously popular because of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park," she said. "But you don't really hear about people going other than that."

South of the Tetons in Wyoming, the Wind River Range offers a similar experience and is far less crowded, Anderson said. For maximum privacy, Anderson recommends pitching a tent at the free campsites in the Green River Lakes area, as she did in July 2024.

"You do have to prepare because it is remote, there's no service, and we took a 20-mile dirt road to get there," she said. "But there's nobody else around. You can go swimming, and the landscapes are so beautiful."

Medicine Bow National Forest is another underrated destination in southern Wyoming.

"We went there in the summer of 2023, and they have amazing lakes and mountain peaks that made me surprised that it's not more popular," Anderson said.

Visit a California ski hub in the summer.

"Mammoth Lakes in California is really popular during the winter because it has great skiing," Anderson said. "Fewer people go during the summer, but it's one of the best hiking destinations we've been to."

Anderson went in 2022 and hiked through mountains, swam and kayaked in the lakes, and marveled at waterfalls.

"It's like a quintessential summer experience," she said.

• Amara Nwuneli won a $12,500 Earth Prize for turning a dump into a playground in Nigeria.
• Nwuneli plans to use the award money to build three more parks.
• She hopes the green spaces can help clean up trash and combat extreme heat and flooding.

A teenager in Nigeria just won an international award for using recycled materials to transform a trash-dumping ground into a park with a playground, and she's not stopping there.

On Wednesday, 17-year-old Amara Nwuneli was awarded $12,500 in the 2025 Earth Prize competition, which casts a worldwide net for teenagers working on projects for environmental sustainability. The program provides mentorship and support for teens like Nwuneli to further develop their ideas.

Nwuneli said she plans to use the prize money to build three more parks.

"I'm excited for the future," she told Business Insider.

She wants to create more green spaces and shade in Lagos, a city of 17 million people where less than 3% of the land area is green, according to a 2023 analysis.

As cities get hotter across the planet, green space is critical. Trees and vegetation provide shade, which cools the ground, but they also help reflect sunlight away and release moisture. Unlike pavement, green spaces don't absorb much heat, but they do absorb rainwater and help reduce flooding.

Parks and greenery are also good for human health. Studies suggest they can help cut pollution exposure, improve mood, and even reduce mortality.

Turning a dump into a playground

Nwuneli became concerned about the climate crisis after floods overwhelmed her home in 2020, displacing her family. She said her parents' spice business was affected too, since the rains washed away crops.

As a self-described "theater kid," she wanted to get the story out, so she started recording and sharing videos about the floods. She says her efforts raised 2 million Nigerian Naira (roughly $5,000 in 2020 dollars) to help rebuild two local schools.

That was the beginning of the youth NGO she founded, called Preserve Our Roots. They produced a documentary about the climate crisis in Africa in 2023, which you can watch on Youtube.

She said the reaction to her documentary made her want to help Nigerians connect more with the environment.

"People came to us and was like, but I don't see it in my community. I don't see nature," Nwuneli said.

So the group decided to bring the nature home — starting with a small park that wouldn't require a lengthy government approval process.

At a site in Ikota, Nigeria, Nwuneli worked with local artisans to procure reclaimed metal and wood, as well as tires that were laying around the area, to build a slide, swings, and climbing wall.

The area, which Nwuneli described as a slum, is flood-prone. Indeed, many of the surrounding houses are built on stilts, she said. So, with the help of donations and volunteers, Nwuneli's NGO planted flood-resistant trees around the playground — among 300 trees she says they planted across the wider area.

They first homed in on this dump site in November. On March 1, they opened the park for schoolchildren.

"I remember when the children were like, 'now something we can actually call beautiful.' It kind of broke my heart," Nwuneli said.

In her eyes, though, this is just a pilot park.

A Central Park for Lagos

With the Earth Prize funding, Nwuneli is planning three more parks. They won't be playgrounds like the one that opened in March, she says, but multi-functional community hubs with gardens, greenhouses, and waste collection sites.

She's aiming to convert a large landfill in Lagos, pending government approval. For the other two parks, she's targeting the neighboring Nigerian states of Ogun and Oyo, which are also experiencing floods and droughts that will likely get worse as global temperatures rise.

"I'm not satisfied. I feel like every community needs this," Nwuneli said.

Her ultimate dream, she added, is to have a Central Park in Lagos.

The Earth Prize chooses winners for seven world regions. Nwuneli is the winner for Africa. A public vote opens on Saturday to select a global winner.