Listening to Native legends around a campfire, taking a Jeep ride through the high mountain desert, watching the colorful swirl of dancers at a powwow—exchanges with Native peoples provide a visceral understanding of traditions and history.
The United States is a particularly rich destination for exploring Indigenous culture. Here are some experiences to consider for your next family vacation.
Pictured above: Red Earth Festival in Oklahoma City
(Credit: Red Earth Festival)
Red Earth Art Center & Red Earth Festival in Oklahoma City
Year-round, the Red Earth Art Center showcases both traditional and contemporary Native American arts and crafts. Exhibits display cradleboards, totem poles, baskets, pottery, beadwork, and paintings.
In the summer, the organization hosts the Red Earth Festival. Part powwow and part juried art show, the event attracts more than 75 tribes, 130 artists, and scores of dancers and singers, who compete for prize money. The participants—bright with fiery colors, breastplates, quilled arm bands, and fringed leggings—swirl and sing to ancient rhythms.
(Credit: Tianna Yellow Hair)
Tatanka Rez Tourz at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
Guss Yellowhair and daughter Tianna Yellowhair established Tatanka Rez Tours to show visitors an in-depth look at the Pine Ridge Reservation and "share the history, culture, and demographics of the Oglala Lakota Oyate." The land unfolds as a sweep of Black Hills grasslands, broken by ridges and bordered by Badlands National Park. Tours, which are led by Guss and can be customized to your party's ages and interests, relate tribal history and escort visitors to reservation sites.
From the White River Visitor Center, see the badlands’ eroded rock formations and twisting peaks. At a monument for the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre, Guss recounts how U.S. soldiers slaughtered more than 350 people who were en route to peace negotiations in 1890. In homage to the victims, Guss chants an invocation, performs a tobacco offering, and ties a prayer flag to the fence surrounding the marker.
(Credit: Pixabay)
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park in Arizona and Utah
At Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, sandstone mesas, buttes, and spires create a dramatic interplay of red-rock formations and open spaces that conjure the classic West of old movies. The park, which straddles the Arizona and Utah border, sits on land considered sacred to the Navajo Nation.
Only Navajo guides can take outsiders beyond the Valley Drive. Native-led Jeep, van, or horseback rides stop at petroglyphs and Ancestral Puebloan ruins. On evening excursions with Navajo-owned tour companies, you can look up at a night sky aglow with stars. Sunrise and sunset tours show how the changing light flames across the rocks, turning them different shades of orange and purple.
(Credit: VisitNC)
Cherokee, North Carolina
A complex of attractions in Cherokee, an hour's drive west of Asheville, details the history and culture of the town’s namesake—the nation that lived in the territory that once included north Georgia and the Great Smoky Mountains. At the Oconaluftee Indian Village, present-day Cherokee in traditional 18th-century attire demonstrate how to carve masks, chip flint to create arrowheads, and fashion a dugout canoe using fire and an ax.
Through special effects, artifacts, stone carving demonstrations, and dance by the Warriors of AniKituhwa, the Museum of the Cherokee People presents important traditions, while at the outdoor Mountainside Theatre, scores of performers enact Unto These Hills (pictured above). Through battle reenactments, music, and dancing, this long-running drama stages big moments in Cherokee history, including the forced relocation of 16,000 members to Oklahoma. The performance has been staged each summer since 1950.
During the evening, listen to more tales and songs under the stars at the bonfires at Oconaluftee Islands Park.
(Credit: New Mexico Tourism)
Taos Pueblo in Taos, New Mexico
Set against northern New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo foothills, the Taos Pueblo exudes a simple dignity and strong spiritual presence. When the adobe village (built in the years between 1000 and 1450) catches the light, you can imagine the awe of the Spanish explorers when they came upon it in 1540.
A guided horseback ride through the reservation by Taos Indian Horse Ranch supplies a bounty of wide-open spaces. The horses walk or trot alongside ravines, through streams, and across the high mountain desert dotted with sagebrush.
Continuously inhabited by Tiwa-speaking Native Americans, the pueblo has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a National Historic Landmark. On the 20- to 30-minute optional tour, a guide explains the site's history and takes visitors to the San Geronimo Chapel, constructed in 1850. On feast days, the pueblo comes alive with drumming and dancing.
(Credit: Alaska State Tourism)
Totem Bight in Ketchikan, Alaska
It’s a special experience to walk among totem poles in the outdoors. Ketchikan features one of the world’s largest collections of these structures. Part of the Tlingit and Haida culture, the intricately carved poles rise among the spruce and cedar trees of Totem Bight State Historical Park.
The carvings visitors see today replicate and interpret original 19th-century versions that were deteriorating in abandoned villages. Bears, wolves, eagles, and ravens cut into the wood tell the stories of deceased clan members, treaties, lineage, and other historical details.
Not far away, Saxman Native Village features a second collection of poles. Targeted to cruise passengers, that site is more theatrical, adding participatory Native dancing, an on-site carver, and the option for a lumberjack show.
Totem Bight is both less expensive and less touristy. The Totem Heritage Center, a museum in town, displays its own treasured cache of totem poles indoors.
(Credit: National Park Service)
Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado
Among Mesa Verde National Park’s 5,000 archeological sites, 600 of which are cliff dwellings, the gem is Cliff Palace. The largest such structure in North America, it was built by Ancestral Puebloans some 800 years ago and features 150 rooms and more than 20 kivas (ceremonial spaces).
Because it was constructed beneath the overhang of a sandstone cliff at an elevation of 7,000 feet, the palace must be reached via a moderately strenuous hike plus a climb up a 10-foot ladder. Once on-site, it’s easy to imagine people gathering for news in the kivas and mothers warming their children at fires near the back walls.
Nonhikers can take in scenic views of Cliff Palace and see other dwellings at a distance by driving the Mesa Top Loop Road. Check out pertinent exhibits at the Mesa Verde Visitor and Research Center.
(Credit: Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass)
Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in Chandler, Arizona
For a blend of traditional resort relaxation with Native elements, head toward the Sierra Estrella Mountains and the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass near Phoenix. Owned by the Gila River Indian Community, the 500-room hotel incorporates cultural elements of the Pima and Maricopa peoples.
The Aji Spa’s wraps and scrubs feature native herbs and oil made from creosote. This is the only spa in the world for sessions called thoachta, which utilize light touch and Pima techniques.
At Kai, one of the state's most acclaimed restaurants, the menu has Native-inspired entrees such as grilled buffalo and wild boar. In winter, the resort's cultural concierge tells Pima and Maricopa stories around the fire, while in other seasons community members lead sessions in traditional jewelry and bread making. On trail rides, you might catch sight of wild horses roaming the reservation.
(Credit: Dave Newman/Flickr)
National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
Standing near the Capitol building on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is the striking National Museum of the American Indian. The collection encompasses thousands of items, so we recommend making sense of things by opting for a free audio guide.
Exhibitions aim to cover a wide array of Native voices past and present, with displays of paintings, artisanal works, historical artifacts, and photos that capture everyday moments across generations.
An earlier version of this story has been updated for 2026.