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The best places to visit in Montana range from Glacier's alpine trails and Yellowstone's gateways to Butte's copper history and dinosaur-rich badlands in the east
Montana is the fourth-largest state in the country by land area. Yet it remains one of the least visited states relative to its size. Fewer than 1.2 million people live there, and the drive between any two attractions tends to run long. That combination of vast public land and low population density is exactly what makes a search for the best places to visit in Montana worth taking seriously right now. This is not a state built around a single headline attraction.
It holds a piece of Glacier National Park's alpine backcountry and three of Yellowstone National Park's five entrances. It also holds the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River and one of the largest ski resorts in North America. All of that sits inside a landscape that shifts from glacier-carved peaks in the northwest to dinosaur-rich badlands in the east.
The state's nickname, Big Sky Country, undersells how much ground it actually covers. A traveler who enters near Glacier's west side and drives east toward the badlands near Glendive crosses several distinct regions along the way. These include the Rocky Mountain Front, the Yellowstone River valley, the university towns of the Gallatin and Missoula valleys, and the high plains that stretch toward North Dakota. Each region carries its own weather and its own economy. Each also gives a traveler a different reason to stop. Reasons range from fly fishing on blue-ribbon trout rivers to walking the grounds of one of the most studied battles in American history.
