3 Days in Shenandoah, Virginia (April 2026)

We spent three days hiking a national park in Shenandoah and checking out the surrounding towns.

---

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

It’s incredibly privileged to have the money to buy cute little treats and head out with people somewhere, so I’m forever grateful that I’m currently in a situation where I can afford such things. Sometimes I go hiking to offset the costs of doing fun stuff, other times I find myself a little over budget and have to eat out less when it comes to work lunches and whatnot. I don’t take any of this for granted!

Today’s blog post is surrounding a little side quest I went on with one of my friends. We like to hike together, and then one day I suggested that we go to Shenandoah together. I had only ever been in passing, but I knew the hotels in the area were fairly affordable and that it woul dbe a cheap trip.

And so I booked the Holiday Inn in Woodstock, Virginia, and we road tripped down from Baltimore. I would recommend staying there if you don’t mind a bit of a drive. It was about 45 minutes to the closest national park entrance, but it was about two hours to the bottom of the park to the hotel. However, the beds were really comfy and I enjoyed the free breakfast. It was quite roomy!

Let’s get into what we did in our brief time in Shenandoah.

---

Day 1: Shenandoah National Park is full of excellent hikes of varying levels and gorgeous views.

On our first day, we packed up our car and hit the road. It took about three and a half hours for us to get to Shenandoah midday on a Friday, which was unexpected—usually from Baltimore it’s closer to two and a half hours or two hours. There was some more traffic around DC though than usual for a Friday at noon.

Regardless, once we started hitting the Shenandoah Valley the views around us started getting really pretty. Shenandoah as a region is stunning and full of rolling hills, so we were looking at all of the homes perched on hills and how green everything was in the height of spring.

It was an excellent weekend to go hiking, and once we hit the National Park we paid our $30 entry fee (which is good for a week), then headed out onto Skyline Drive. We kept stopping at all of the overlooks and gawking at the views, which are typically of the valley from a mountain point of view.

I also was bird watching at a lot of these overlooks, as there were hawks, crows, and several other birds swooping around and living their best lives in the many trees surrounding us. Then we hit our first hike after stopping at the Meadow Lodge: Lewis Falls.

This trail was fairly empty on a Friday. The next day the trails were packed, as the weather was good that Saturday, but we largely had the trail to ourselves. Lewis Falls itself was worth the hike down, but I found with the heat + lack of tree coverage I was dying on the way back up.

After that hike we headed up to the overlook from the beginning. My friend did a smaller hike as I sat in the car, feet propped up on the dashboard, and read while enjoying the views. We then headed into Luray, picked up some Hardee’s for dinner, then drove to our hotel in Woodstock.

I passed out after a hot shower, then we had the next day to look out for!

Day 2: Dark Hollows Trail is a gorgeous waterfall, and Front Royal has a quaint downtown area full of life.

As I wrote before, the weather was gorgeous on this Saturday, so I woke up at 6 AM, sat in bed for a bit, then headed out to breakfast in the hotel at around 8 AM. My friend and I grabbed our plates and headed back into the room, ate our food, then got ready for the day.

We headed straight into the park from the other entrance, the one near Front Royal. I liked this entrance a lot more, as it was a bit more scenic and offered more valley views in the overlooks. It was about an hour to Meadow Lodge, which was where we parked and walked down to the Dark Hollows trail.

It’s like a five minute walk to the trail from there, which wasn’t bad considering the actual trail parking was full of cars. By noon the trail itself was a little too full for comfort, so if you want a solid view of the waterfalls, then you’re going to need to come to this section earlier than others on a weekend.

It’s a bit of a steep hike back up, but this was my favorite waterfall I saw of this trip. It was so pretty! My friend and I sat there for a bit and enjoyed the sound of the running water, then we headed back up.

We wanted to stop at a forest trail on the way back, but then we missed the turn and didn’t feel like coming back. We found a two hour parking spot in the town of Front Royal, then poked around in the shops.

I actually ended up buying some sake at a local wine shop, then a silk blouse at the thrift store attached to the Humane Society. It was a $1 clothing sale, which I thought was an insane steal considering silk blouses are usually $200. Anyways, we really enjoyed the Main Street of Front Royal and would both highly recommend it.

We stopped at Italian Touch in Woodstock on the way home, which was fine. My waitress lowkey scammed me because I ordered a spaghetti and meatballs, then she gave me a single side of meatballs. I asked where my pasta was, then she gave it to me without the salad or bread (the menu said it came with that). I was then charged more than the usual price because of “the side of meatballs.”

Our hotel was across the street, so I showered, read some more, then promptly fell asleep.

Day 3: Skyline Caverns is an excellent way to spend the morning if it’s raining, and Northern Virginia has some fantastic Korean food options.

Our final hours in Shenandoah were rainy, which made it even prettier when it wasn’t pouring down. It was so green! Our activity of choice was to go to the Skyline Caverns down by Front Royal, which were $28 after our coupons were applied.

The tour itself through the caverns was about an hour and very fascinating. You can only go into the upper layer of the caverns as a tourist, and there’s a collection of Anthodites growing down in the caverns that apparently is one of the oldest in the world.

After hitting up the gift shop we piled back into the car, with the rain having stopped, then drove an hour to eat at Hao by Haoru in northern Virginia. It’s Korean-Chinese food, so I ordered a tangsuyuk and jjajangmyeon combo, while my friend picked up the fried rice and jjajangmyeon combo.

It was very delicious, then it was time to head home. All in all, this was a solid trip—I’d go back to Shenandoah in a few years, that’s for sure. I want to build up my stamina for some of the longer hikes. Highly would recommend going though!

Follow me below on Instagram, Goodreads, and Letterboxd for more.