Our Epic 2-Week Road Trip Around New River Gorge

We spent two weeks based in Fayetteville, West Virginia, one of the “coolest small towns in America,” and packed in just about every kind of adventure the area has to offer. This wasn’t our first time here- we originally visited New River Gorge back in 2018 with a group of Boy Scouts, so returning felt a bit like flipping through an old photo album. This time, though, we got to experience it through a new lens: just the two of us (plus a special visit from Josh’s dad for a long weekend), with the freedom to explore deeper and see more.

From hiking in New River Gorge National Park to exploring offbeat museums like the Flatwoods Monster and West Virginia Bigfoot Museums, and even stepping inside the Cold War-era congressional bunkers under The Greenbrier, our days were full of unexpected finds, quirky roadside stops, and seriously good food in downtown Fayetteville. We’ve put together a full daily itinerary of everything we did, along with tips and links to help you plan a trip of your own.

Day 1: Monday Arrival

We arrived in West Virginia on a Monday after staying one night at Cabin Creek Campground on our way from Kentucky Dam. We had been to this part of West Virginia before back in 2018 with a group of Boy Scouts, so it was really fun to revisit and see what we remembered. On our drive to our campground we went by the Whipple Company Store, which we had toured on our previous trip, and were sad to see that it’s since closed down. Apparently just a month or so after our visit it was sold and never reopened again. The rest of the trip ended up being a nice combination of re-visiting places we remembered and exploring new sights.

We spent our two weeks at Bear Mountain Cabins and Campground, which was a really nice, but still affordable, private campground. Check out our full review here: New River Gorge Camping Guide: Bear Mountain Cabins & Campground Review

Day 2: Tuesday Setup Day

Tuesday was our usual groceries and set up day at camp- so nothing exciting to share here. But as always, this is the reminder that RV life is still life! It’s not just a vacation and we still have the usual responsibilities, just in new places.

Where to Stay in Fayetteville, WV

If camping’s not your thing, you’ve still got some great options for places to stay in Fayetteville. Whether you want a standard hotel or something with a bit more adventure, here are a few solid picks:

• Quality Inn New River – Basic but reliable, and super close to downtown Fayetteville
• Comfort Inn New River – Another convenient option with easy access to all the local spots.
• Adventures on the Gorge – For a more scenic stay, this resort offers cabins and lodges right near the gorge—plus access to tons of outdoor activities.

Day 3: Grave Encounters: Wednesday in Fayetteville

On Wednesday we did just a small adventure after work. This was our first day driving through actual downtown Fayetteville and lots of memories came rushing back! I remember really loving the vibe of Fayetteville and often talked about it as the kind of town that I’d like to live in someday- and this trip reconfirmed that. 

Our stop for the day was Huse Memorial Park, which part way through visiting I realized we had pretty much been to before. On our last trip we had been to Fayette Town Park right next door for mountain biking, and we remembered it being next to a cemetery- I just hadn’t realized it when I planned the outing!

The main grave I wanted to see here was Tunney Hunsaker, who was quite the interesting fella! Hunsaker is most well-known for being the first professional boxing opponent of Muhammad Ali. He lost the fight, but it at least put him in the record books! Hunsaker went on to become the police chief of Fayetteville and was the youngest police chief in West Virginia history to be elected into the Law Enforcement Hall of Fame. Remember his name, because we’ll see more about him later in the trip!

Day 4: Burnwood, Brews, and Bridge Views: A Thursday Recap

Thursday afternoon Josh’s dad arrived to spend a few days with us. He had been with us on the 2018 trip too, so we planned to revisit some spots and see new places too. For our afternoon outing we headed over to the main visitor center for New River Gorge National Park. When we were last here it wasn’t a National Park yet, so I was excited to get a new passport stamp and have both names in it! We checked out the exhibits, walked down to the bridge overlook, and then headed across the street to hike the Burnwood Trail. Which we eventually realized was one of the places we had camped last time! Once the guys realized it, I recognized the pavilion, but I still don’t remember camping so close to buildings! 

After our hike we headed downtown for dinner at Pies and Pints. Josh and I shared a pizza that was half steak & mushroom (and carmelized onions, gorgonzola, and horseradish crema) and half chicken gouda (and bacon, red onions, and chipotle crema). Both flavors were amazing! We also of course tried some local brews, too!

Day 5: Freaky Friday: Cryptids, Creepy Asylums & Killer Sandwiches

Josh took off work Friday so that we would have the full day for adventures with his dad. And we definitely packed a lot into this day! 

Stop #1: The West Virginia Bigfoot Museum

The West Virginia Bigfoot Museum is a small museum all about Bigfoot sightings in the state. The staff member gave us a quick overview of the museum, which mostly houses castings of Bigfoot footprints. We don’t actually believe in Bigfoot, so it was interesting to go in not knowing if the staff would actually be believers or not. The museum is two small exhibit rooms, a library, and a good sized gift shop.

Stop #2: The Flatwoods Monster Museum

What really made the Bigfoot Museum worth visiting was that it was just down the street from another cryptid museum! The Flatwoods Monster Museum also doubles as the town’s visitor center. In September of 1952, a group of kids saw something streak across the sky and crash into a nearby hill. Obviously, they grabbed some adults and went to check it out- because what else do you do when a UFO might’ve just landed in your backyard?

They hiked up the hill and claimed they saw this bizarre, towering creature- about 10 feet tall, with glowing red eyes, a spade-shaped head, and some kind of floating or hovering skirt. People described the thing as half-alien, half-robot, maybe even wearing armor. The media dubbed it the “Flatwoods Monster”, and it caused a national sensation.

Apparently it’s also become pretty popular because it was featured in Fallout 76- I even saw guestbook entries saying they found the museum because of the video game!

Stop #3: The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

After our cryptid break, we got to our biggest activity of the day- visiting the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. This was a bucket list place for me, I think anyone who’s into weird and spooky stuff has heard of it. We did the 90 minute history tour, which includes all 4 floors + the 1st floor of the medical center, and it was such a cool building to check out. Honestly, our guide didn’t have a lot of personality, which was a bummer, but there was still a lot of good information and we saw a lot of the complex.

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum has been featured on a bunch of paranormal TV shows, including:

• Paranormal Lockdown Season 1 Episode 1
• Destination Fear Season 2 Episode 12
• Portals to Hell Season 1 Episode 6
• Sam and Colby Season 2 Episode 10
• Escape or Die! Season 1 Episode 11

Check out our full review in our post: Is the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Worth Visiting? Our Full Experience in Weston, WV

Stop #4: Lunch at South Texas Barbecue Company

After our tour we headed to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We ended up choosing South Texas Barbecue Company and it was pretty good! It’s a counter service restaurant with a small seating area and we were all happy with our choices.

Stop #5:Antiquing/Museum of American Glass/Work Call

After lunch Josh had to take a work call in the truck, so we ended up all splitting up. Josh’s dad went off to check out antique shops and I walked over to the Museum of American Glass. I love a good solo museum visit, especially one like this that no one else would be into. I really took my time here and enjoyed it a lot! 

My full review and lots more pictures are featured in the post: My Solo Visit to Weston, WV’s Most Fascinating Little Museum

Stop #6: Falls Mill

After leaving Weston, we made a short stop at Falls Mill which is on the West Virginia Waterfall Trail. This is a short, but wide waterfall on the Little Kanawha River and we were able to walk down right to the fall itself.

Stop #7: Summersville Lake State Park

We had one final stop of the day at Summersville Lake State Park. During our 2018 visit we had a lake day here where we rented a pontoon boat. Today we hiked the Pirate’s Cove Trail because we thought that was the cove we had hung out at from our boat. But after a while of staring at it we realized it was a different cove- but it was still a nice hike!

Stop #8: Dinner at Secret Sandwich Society

Exhausted and starving, we did one final stop of the day at Secret Sandwich Society back in downtown Fayetteville. I got the Truman with turkey, peach jam, blue cheese, and crispy onions and it was so good! I had to take a picture of the menu for inspiration for my own sandwiches too.

Day 6: Saturday Ruins & Redemption (Except for My Hat)

Saturday was another full day of adventuring. We started off by driving to the Nuttalburg Trails of New River Gorge National Park. On the map this looked pretty close to our campground, but because of the backroads you take to get there (including a one lane gravel road), it’s a half hour drive from Fayetteville.

Nuttalburg was once a booming mining town and there are still remains of some of the buildings to explore. Not only was it a big town in the area, but it was also nationally famous because at one point Henry Ford leased the mines to provide coal for his steel mills as part of his vertical integration process. The most iconic structure of the sites is the conveyor, which runs down the mountain and you hike under multiple times . This hike was high on my list for things I wanted to see and it lived up to all my expectations. I just love ruins!

AllTrails+ is super helpful in New River Gorge National Park, where cell service can be spotty and trail signage isn’t always the best- being able to download maps for offline use is a game changer. You can even try it free to see if it works for you!

After our hike, we drove back to Fayetteville and grabbed lunch at Cathedral Cafe. Like the name suggests, this was a former cathedral transformed into a cute and quirky little cafe. Like everything we had eaten in Fayetteville so far, the food was great! I had the salmon bagel and the cookie butter latte. I would definitely go here regularly if I lived nearby!

Then we revisited another spot from our 2018 trip- Adventures on the Gorge. We had camped here and done our whitewater rafting trip through them. It’s also where I got my favorite hat, which is now incredibly faded from being worn so much. I was really hoping to be able to get a new one of the same hat. Josh and Mike were able to find t-shirts they had gotten there and worn out, but I was out of luck on my hat. The other thing I wanted to do there was take the guys to the disc golf course. When we camped here in 2018 the crew did the high speed zipline, which was a big fat no from me because I don’t like heights. So I had taken a solo walk around the property and came across the disc golf course. I remember it looking really cool, so I wanted to go back and actually play it. It was just as nice as I remembered and we had a good time playing.

We had time to keep exploring after disc golf, but were getting hot- so we compromised with the Fayette Station Road Audio Tour. This is a free audio driving tour from the National Park Service and we really enjoyed listening to the narration as we explored- it’s not something we usually do. The audio is synced with the road really well and the stops were timed almost perfectly.

Fayette Station road is a 100-year old road that used to be the only way to cross the gorge. It winds through with hairpin turns and some sections are now one-way traffic only. Many of the stops along the route have interpretive signs and great views.

Remember our cemetery visit earlier in the week? One stop on the tour is the Tunney Hunsaker Bridge. This was such a cool bridge that Josh and I really geeked out about. It’s a single lane truss bridge that was originally built in 1889 and was the first bridge across the New River in the Gorge. It’s since been rehabilitated, since the actual lanes are wooden decking. The latest redecking was earlier in 2025, so the boards were really fresh when we visited. Each board was replaced one at a time and it took around 3,360 boards to deck the entire 420-foot bridge.

Even though the bridge itself has been around since 1889, it’s only been named after Hunsaker since 1998. It was renamed then to honor Hunsaker, who had retired the year before from police service (Ali even came out to his retirement ceremony!). It’s always so fun when traveling to make connections between different places we visit and see repeats of people and events we’ve learned about. Learning new things is one of my favorite parts of travel.

Day 7: Secret Bunkers, Ghost Graves, and a Sunday Well Spent

Sunday was yet another big adventure day! First on the docket was another bucket list item of mine- touring the Congressional bunkers under the Greenbrier Resort. Originally I only planned on doing either the Asylum or the Bunkers because of drive times and cost, but Josh said we should just go for both. If you don’t know what bunkers I’m talking about, back in the late 1950’s during peak Cold War fears, folks in D.C. got nervous about what might happen if a nuclear bomb hit. They hatched a plan called Project Greek Island (also known as Project Casper or Project X) to hide the whole U.S. Congress underground. They picked the luxurious Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV. Between 1958 and 1962, they secretly dug a massive (like 112,000 sq ft) two-level bunker about 720 feet into a hillside under the resort’s new West Virginia wing (which was also being built at the same time to disguise the construction project). Inside there were chambers for both the House and Senate, dorms with bunks for 1,1000 people, a cafeteria, a communications center and TV studio, a pharmacy/doctor’s office, and everything else you need to live underground. Even though the bunker never needed to be used, it was constantly kept working and updated just in case. The bunker was revealed to the public in 1992 by a Washington Post reporter and it was soon decommissioned. One of the wildest parts of the story is that Congress didn’t even know about it (and some of them were not happy with the idea!).

I don’t have many pictures since we couldn’t bring our phones on the actual tour, but here’s the entrance to the bunkers and just some of the cute spaces of the resort.

We did a quick visit afterwards to White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery. None of the buildings were open, but we can’t pass up a hatchery. Then we grabbed lunch at The Asylum in Lewisburg. 

Our next stop was Soule Chapel Methodist Church Cemetery to see the grave of Zona Heaster Shue, aka the Greenbrier Ghost. Back in 1897, Zona was found dead in her home. Her husband, Erasmus “Trout” Shue, said she had just… died suddenly… no big deal, just one of those things. He was acting real strange, though, super controlling over her body during the funeral, even propping her head up with a pillow and scarf and refusing to let anyone get too close. Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, was not buying it. She knew something was off. Then, according to her, Zona came to her in a dream four nights in a row and told her that Trout had murdered her in a rage, specifically that he had broken her neck.

Mary Jane went to the local prosecutor, who surprisingly took her seriously enough to order the body exhumed. Turns out, when the doctor re-examined Zona’s body, her neck was indeed broken, and the evidence pointed to strangulation. It’s still the only time in U.S. history that a ghost is considered to have helped solve their own murder.

Then we decided to visit a whole other area of New River Gorge National Park. We started at the Sandstone Visitor Center and then drove over to see Sandstone Falls themselves. Sandstone Falls is the largest waterfall on the New River and there’s an overlook, as well as the boardwalk trail with observation decks.

We ended the evening back at Pies and Pints again.

Day 8: Monday Biscuits

Josh’s dad was heading home Monday, so he picked a place for our last breakfast together. Josh is a huge biscuits and gravy fan, so his dad wanted to try out Tudor Biscuit World. It was pretty meh, but we didn’t have high hopes for a fast food-type place like that. But at least we can finally say we’ve tried it!

We usually do a lot of activities on weekends, but even for us the last three days was a lot and I was feeling pretty burnt out. We spent the rest of the day just working, catching up on chores, and relaxing.

Day 9: Tuesday was Boring

Tuesday was a rainy day, leading us to continue our work/chores/relax pattern.

Day 10: Wednesday Disc Golfin’

By Wednesday Josh was ready to get out of the campground again, so we did a few things in Fayetteville. We checked out New River Antique Mall, got groceries from Walmart, and tried out the Fayette County Park disc golf course.

Days 11 & 12: Thursday/Friday Storms

Thursday was a late work day for Josh, so afterwards we just did some errands.

Friday was stormy, so it was another campsite day.

Day 13: Salt, Surprises, and One Final Descent into Coal Country

By Saturday morning we were back to good weather and ready to adventure on again. We had so much fun at the Cornbread Festival in Tennessee, that when I saw that there was a Salt Festival here I knew we had to go. This was hosted by J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works and included free tours of the salt works and their museum. There were also vendors, food, and live music. It was a really fun little festival. When we were in Croatia, we visited the salt flats of Nin, but didn’t have time to actually visit where they process the salt, so it was fun to see that process here.

We also had a couple quick stops along the drive that we didn’t expect. We saw a sign for a waterfall and it turned out to be Cathedral Falls, which according to the sign is the tallest waterfall in West Virginia!

We also pulled off at Kanawha Falls, which Josh’s dad had seen on his drive and told us about.

Next up was the West Virginia State Museum, which ended up being a really great museum! It was bigger than it initially looked, and had a lot of really cool immersive exhibits. It had artifacts and information on all different aspects of the history of West Virginia.

Our final activity of the trip was actually at a place we almost camped! We had a reservation originally at Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, but ended up changing to Bear Mountain instead. We still wanted to visit the actual coal mine, though. There’s a small “village” of original coal town buildings, a coal mining museum, and then the star attraction is the 1889 coal mine. Everyone rides on a track cart with a retired miner as a guide. Our guide was fantastic and had so many great stories and information about mining and changes in technology and equipment over time. This is definitely a can’t-miss activity!

We ended the night with our third and final trip to Pies and Pints- the perfect endcap for the trip!

Day 14: Saying Good-Bye on a Sunday

Sunday morning we got up and started getting ready right away for a long drive to Maryland. It definitely felt like a long drive, especially once we hit the beltway, but we finally made it!

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