Southern Wyoming is home to so much of what people love about this sparsely populated state: wide-open spaces, towering mountains, and small towns steeped in Wild West lore.

This is a place to lose yourself—but not completely. With long drives between communities and unreliable cell service, it’s always good to carry physical maps, water, blankets, and food. The weather here is notoriously fickle, even in the summer, and good road conditions are never guaranteed.

Along the eastern edge of the state, Cheyenne is the largest city in Wyoming (though it's still pretty small) and the state capital. Its most popular event by a mile is the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo, a celebration of all things Western that brings in people from around the world. Less than an hour away, Laramie is home to the University of Wyoming and has a fun, young vibe. Heading west, you’ll come across the small cities of Rock Springs and Green River, where museums detail their Old West, and sometimes outlaw, past.

I–80 is the main route through the region, but getting off the big road and into smaller communities is worth it. Many have cute downtowns and make good bases for skiing, hiking, and other recreational opportunities that take you deep into the backcountry. Medicine Bow has a well-known cowboy heritage portrayed in Owen Wister’s 1902 Western novel The Virginian (and there’s even a historical hotel there by the same name). Saratoga has a resort flavor, but with both public and private hot springs, doesn’t feel too exclusive for comfort. Encampment and Centennial are little, slow-paced spots with storied histories. Across this rural region, catch re-creations of mountain-men rendezvous, cowboy gatherings, and other events that honor frontier life.

Once covered by an ocean and now rich in fossils, southwest Wyoming’s Red Desert, or Little Colorado Desert, draws people in search of solitude. Kemmerer is one of the small outposts here, with a famed fossil gallery and the country’s first JCPenney store. The region has a long history, as well: here John Wesley Powell began his 1869 and 1871 expeditions down the Green River, and Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez constructed the trading post of Fort Bridger, now a state historic site. And all across the region, evidence remains of the Union Pacific Railroad, which spawned growth here in the 1860s as workers laid the iron rails spanning the continent.