Big Bend National Park, in southwest Texas, is in the middle of nowhere, but that's a good thing. Big Bend National Park has more than 150 miles of phenomenal hiking trails, which is great for people who like being out in the real wilderness. The terrain in Big Bend is your typical Texas desert: wild and isolated. If you're going hiking here, you're going to need to take food, water, a tent, camping supplies, a medical kit and enough oil for a few days in the desert. Plan on camping out at night or heading to one of the small towns 40 to 70 miles away for a night in a motel.

Big Bend is such an enormous park that it is split up into different areas; east side, west side, north end and mountain. All have amazing hiking trails. Choosing one just depends on which direction you enter the park. The park has a lot of self-guided trails, and booklets and maps for each trail can be bought at the park tourist centers for as little as 25 cents. The Lost Mine Trail sounds really fun, as does the Hot Springs Historic District and the Window Trail. You can easily hike all of these in one day.

Big Bend National Park also has backcountry hikes for those who are not faint of heart. These trails pretty much require an off-road vehicle to get there. Mariscal Canyon Rim Trail is a 6.6-mile roundtrip, backcountry trail and Pine Canyon Trail is just 4 miles long. You can also do overnight hikes if you want to camp out in the desert somewhere, but you really need to understand the desert at night before you do this.

Another cool thing about Big Bend National Park is that the bones of a pterosaur, a Jurassic-type flying creature, were found here. The pterosaur is the second-largest flying creature ever found. How totally cool would it be if you found another one!

The National Park service has an excellent web site on Big Bend. Go to http://www.nps.gov/bibe/ to check out all the hiking trails and how to get to each one.