If you’re visiting Glacier National Park in Montana, we recommend adding Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument to your trip. Famous for its riverside cliffs, the monument spans 149 miles of the Upper Missouri River and includes six wilderness study areas. This amazing landscape has remained largely unchanged in the more than 200 years since Meriwether Lewis and William Clark traveled through it on their epic journey. Within the monument you can float the river, fish, hike, hunt, drive for pleasure, find a little solitude, enjoy a sense of exploration in a remote setting, or simply marvel at the variety of natural beauty. Check out more national park neighbors to add to your next adventure: https://on.doi.gov/SideTrips. Photo by Bob Wick, @mypubliclands.

DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa and Nebraska lies on the wide plain formed by the flooding and shifting of the Missouri River. Each spring and fall since the end of the last ice age, spectacular flights of ducks and geese have marked the changing seasons along this traditional waterfowl flyway. Land clearing, drainage projects and flood control measures during the past 150 years have transformed the Missouri River floodplain from diverse wildlife habitat to farmland. DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge is part of a network of refuges devoted to preserving and restoring increasingly scarce habitat for migratory waterfowl and other wildlife. Photo by Andrew Loftis (http://ift.tt/18oFfjl).

Wildflowers carpet the hillside at Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area. The 23,000-acre area is truly an oasis in the desert with four perennial waterways that are the lifeline for this remarkable place. The Gila River canyon section, known as the Gila Box, is composed of patchy mesquite woodlands, mature cottonwoods, sandy beaches and grand buff-colored cliffs. Bonita Creek – popular for birdwatching, hiking and picnicking – is lined with large cottonwoods, sycamores and willows. Cliff dwellings, historic homesteads, Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and over 200 species of birds make this year-round watery Arizona spot worth the drive. Photo by Bob Wick, @mypubliclands.