The journey begins in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, where ridges, bluffs and river valleys create one of the Midwest’s most distinctive landscapes. From there, we travel through West Virginia’s Monongahela Mountains, Colorado’s San Luis Valley, Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass, southwestern New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness and Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains — each offering its own mix of scenery, history, culture and quiet roads worth exploring.

These destinations remind us that great travel is often found beyond the obvious path: in mountain valleys, historic mining towns, national forests, alpine lakes, hot springs, ancient cliff dwellings, scenic byways and communities with a lasting sense of place.

In What’s Happening, we also visit Los Angeles’s new Lucas Museum of Narrative Art,founded by George Lucas and Mellody Hobson. Located in Exposition Park, the museum celebrates storytelling through painting, illustration, comics and cinema, offering travelers another kind of journey — one through the images and stories that connect us across generations.