Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
An enormous expanse of diverse terrain that includes everything from vast prairie and
rugged mountain peaks to red desert and windblown dunes, southern Wyoming in many
ways defines the state, with celebrated events, important intellectual culture, and a wealth
of historic sites. This region is at the heart and soul of Wyoming's agricultural tradition,
both past and present. But interestingly, the lower half of the state is less traveled
to
and
more often traveled
through.
With I-80 in the far south and a series of smaller roads bisecting the landscape east-
west and north-south, it seems this section of Wyoming is thick with travelers on their way
someplace else, which has been true for more than a century. Most of the West's great travel
routes—the Oregon Trail, the Overland Trail, the Bozeman Trail, and eventually the North-
ern Pacific Railway—cut through this dramatically shifting landscape, exposing travelers,
if only briefly, to the diversity of terrain.
In the southeast corner around Cheyenne—the state's capital, known for its festive, even
rowdy, rodeo, called Frontier Days—the landscape shifts, greens, and begins to look more
like Colorado. Just north and west of Cheyenne, Laramie presents an interesting blend of
university counterculture and age-old Western tradition in a literary-meets-cowboy dance.
Beyond town, three impressive mountain ranges offer prime climbing opportunities, then
give way to the plains and prairies where sheep and cattle rather than trees dot the horizon.
Farther north on I-25, the frontier town of Casper is experiencing a renaissance as a fishing
and outdoor-loving town.
