Travel

This Montana Mountain Town Is an Outdoorsy Paradise

Missoula-AKA Zootown-might be Big Sky Country's best-kept secret.

Photo courtesy of Montana Office of Tourism
Photo courtesy of Montana Office of Tourism
Photo courtesy of Montana Office of Tourism

Fasten your seatbelt and adjust your mirrors-this is Rerouting, your one-stop-shop for mapping out the ultimate summer road trip, no matter what gets your engine going. Cruise over to the rest of our coverage for pit stops at offbeat roadside attractions, sweeping desert panoramas, epic mountaintop vistas, oceanfront oyster bars, dynamic public art, and so much more.

“Anymore,” as locals here tend to start proclamatory sentences, “Missoula isn’t what it used to be.” Once a stopover town for visitors en route to Glacier National Park or Yellowstone, Montana’s second-largest city-often called Zootown, after the name’s pronunciation and its citizens’ high energy-has grown into much more than a base for epic hikes (though it’s still great for that, too).

Nestled in a valley of golden hills, you’ll find 19th-century architecture, hype-worthy craft breweries, ranch-fueled eateries, and everything from flapper-era theatres to dive bars perfect for boogying until the wee hours. In the summer, you can even parachute out of a low-flying plane straight down into the city (where else can you do that!?). Drive just outside of town, and you’re treated to pure, gaping wilderness, with well-kept trails scaling gargantuan mountains, fly fishing rivers with few visitors to compete with, and soothing hot springs set under the wide-open sky.

Montana’s unofficial slogan is “the last best place,” and that feels especially fitting in Missoula, a town that tends to fly under the radar. But perhaps not for long-like many progressive small cities in otherwise conservative states, Missoula keeps drawing in city folk from across the country who will undoubtedly change the cultural and literal landscape. So come quick, while it stays its lovable, zoo-y self. Here’s a rundown of what to see and do when you go.

Bayern Brewing
Bayern Brewing
Bayern Brewing

Guzzle local beer in an old warehouse

Defunct factories in this old sawmill town have been transformed into buzzing microbreweries, where it can feel like every local is sipping a craft IPA or stout there alongside you. Both Kettlehouse and Draught Works are favourites, but don’t sleep on Bayern-the oldest brewery in the state-which bucks fleeting trends in favour of classic German lagers made in-house by Bavaria-born owner and brewer Jürgen Knöller. But we must warn you: Missoula has a weird rule about breweries that orders them to close at 8 pm (!) and you can only order three drinks at each stop.

So if the clock strikes 8:01 pm and you’re still thirsty, head over to Charlie B’s, named one of the bars to drink at before you die and sporting wall-to-wall black and white portraits of its regulars. Union-which, as its name suggests, is a hangout for union labourers-is another great dive bar that transforms into a full-on dance party on the weekends.

Plonk Missoula
Plonk Missoula
Plonk Missoula

Feast your way through the exciting dining scene

Ask a local and they’ll tell you that the food in Missoula hasn’t always been so great-and you’ll still find average burritos and bland burgers aplenty. But that’s starting to change in a big way. Take Cambie (now with two locations). It isn’t just satisfied with being an excellent cafe with frothy espressos, quality breakfast (the pain du matin is so flaky and delicious), and tasty lunch-it’s also a tap house with charcuterie boards and upscale pub grub.

Plonk (which has a branch in Bozeman that’s also worth raving about) is an eclectic wine bar with ranch-to-table food and more than generous portions. Also getting a lot of hype right now is The Camino, where some of Mexico’s best eats (think Quesadillas stuffed with gooey queso Oaxaqueño, Shrimp Aguachile, and Cochinita Pibil) arrive stateside in snazzy digs. Ready for dessert? You can’t leave Missoula without grabbing a dipped cone from Big Dipper.

Visit Missoula!
Visit Missoula!
Visit Missoula!

Stretch your legs on a scenic hike

Yes, Missoula is just two and a half hours from Glacier National Park’s western entrance, and you should most definitely go there when you visit. Traversing Going-to-the-Sun road is as breathtaking as they say, and you might see a yeti (mountain goat) walking down a trail, as this writer did.

But you don’t really have to leave Missoula and its surrounding areas for hikes that stand up to those anywhere else in the state. In town, you’ve got the quintessential Missoula hike up Mount Sentinel to the University of Montana’s big white ‘M’ (as recently seen on the Netflix show Maid). Or, you can go to the Loyola Sacred Heart High School’s ‘L’ up Mount Jumbo before going on a self-guided tour of Missoula’s public art.

Just an hour north of downtown, the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area offers 33.9 miles of trails with views of the awe-inspiring Mission Mountains (part of the Rocky Mountain chain). Less than two hours south, you’ve got the Bitterroot Mountains, which look like they’ve been sliced by a gigantic axe to reveal canyon after canyon. In the winter, trade in your hiking boots for skis and snowboards and head for the hills of the Snowbowl, stashed just 20 minutes from downtown, or Blacktail Mountain, where you can sneak peeks at Glacier while you ride.

Courtesy of Montana Office of Tourism
Courtesy of Montana Office of Tourism
Courtesy of Montana Office of Tourism

Get out on the water

Missoula is heaven for fly fishing, with four rivers nearby that teem with trout; Rock Creek in Lolo National Forest arguably has the most. You can also fly fish right on the Clark Fork River that cuts through town-but if you visit between June and September, be sure to stick to fish and avoid reeling in a tipsy person on an inflatable tube. In summer, Clark Fork becomes a de facto lazy river. Need gear? There are plenty of places in Missoula that’ll get you sorted, including Grizzly Hackle Fly Shop. And if you’re tired from snagging so many fish, Lolo Hot Springs offers highly affordable ($7) soaks.

Montana Grizzlies
Montana Grizzlies
Montana Grizzlies

Check out edge-of-your-seat attractions

Wonderfully preserved, century-old venue The Wilma is the go-to place in Missoula for live music, while theatre kids should drop in for a show at the half-century-old Montana Repertory Theatre. If movies are more your jam, the 1930s-built Roxy Theater hosts film festivals and independent movies.

Otherwise, keep busy with a football game at Washington-Grizzly Stadium, Wednesday night trivia at the Stave & Hoop speakeasy, and live jazz with a Bloody Caesar (a take on the Bloody Mary from just over the Canadian border in Alberta) at The Old Post.

Blue Mountain Bed and Breakfast
Blue Mountain Bed and Breakfast
Blue Mountain Bed and Breakfast

Where to stay in Missoula

Missoula isn’t big, so you can stay pretty much anywhere and be within reasonable walking or Uber distance of where you need to go. An affordable family-friendly option is C’mon Inn, which has a pool, five hot tubs, and a spectacular name.

If you just want to get away from it all, Blue Mountain Bed and Breakfast is a lovely cabin with all wood everything just south of the city where there’s little else but golden hills and deer. For the height of luxury, The Ranch at Rock Creek is a five-star all-inclusive resort located an hour and a half south, where you can live out your most baller Montana cowboy fantasies.

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Joel Balsam is a Canadian freelance journalist and guidebook author who writes for Lonely Planet, National Geographic, TIME, BBC Travel, and more. His home base is Montreal, but he can often be found tasting his way through a packed market somewhere.

Travel

Ditch your Phone for ‘Dome Life’ in this Pastoral Paradise Outside Port Macquarie 

A responsible, sustainable travel choice for escaping big city life for a few days.

nature domes port macquarie
Photo: Nature Domes

The urge to get as far away as possible from the incessant noise and pressures of ‘big city life’ has witnessed increasingly more of us turn to off-grid adventures for our holidays: Booking.com polled travellers at the start of 2023 and 55% of us wanted to spend our holidays ‘off-grid’.  Achieving total disconnection from the unyielding demands of our digitised lives via some kind of off-grid nature time—soft or adventurous—is positioned not only as a holiday but, indeed, a necessity for our mental health. 

Tom’s Creek Nature Domes, an accommodation collection of geodesic domes dotted across a lush rural property in Greater Port Macquarie (a few hours’ drive from Sydney, NSW), offers a travel experience that is truly ‘off-grid’. In the figurative ‘wellness travel’ sense of the word, and literally, they run on their own independent power supply—bolstered by solar—and rely not on the town grid. 

Ten minutes before you arrive at the gates for a stay at Tom’s Creek Nature Domes, your phone goes into ‘SOS ONLY’. Apple Maps gives up, and you’re pushed out of your comfort zone, driving down unsealed roads in the dark, dodging dozens of dozing cows. Then, you must ditch your car altogether and hoist yourself into an open-air, all-terrain 4WD with gargantuan wheels. It’s great fun being driven through muddy gullies in this buggy; you feel like Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park.  As your buggy pulls in front of your personal Nature Dome, it’s not far off that “Welcome…to Jurassic Park” jaw-dropping moment—your futuristic-looking home is completely engulfed by thriving native bushland; beyond the outdoor campfire lie expansive hills and valleys of green farmland, dotted with sheep and trees. You’re almost waiting to see a roaming brachiosaurus glide past, munching on a towering gum tree…instead, a few inquisitive llamas trot past your Dome to check out their new visitor. 

To fully capture the awe of inhabiting a geodesic dome for a few days, a little history of these futuristic-looking spherical structures helps. Consisting of interlocking triangular skeletal struts supported by (often transparent) light walls, geodesic domes were developed in the 20th century by American engineer and architect R. Buckminster Fuller, and were used for arenas. Smaller incarnations have evolved into a ‘future-proof’ form of modern housing: domes are able to withstand harsh elements due to the stability provided by the durable materials of their construction and their large surface area to volume ratio (which helps minimize wind impact and prevents the structure from collapsing). As housing, they’re also hugely energy efficient – their curved shape helps to conserve heat and reduce energy costs, making them less susceptible to temperature changes outside. The ample light let in by their panels further reduces the need for artificial power. 

Due to their low environmental impact, they’re an ideal sustainable travel choice. Of course, Tom’s Creek Nature Domes’ owner-operators, Cardia and Lee Forsyth, know all this, which is why they have set up their one-of-a-kind Nature Domes experience for the modern traveller. It’s also no surprise to learn that owner Lee is an electrical engineer—experienced in renewable energy—and that he designed the whole set-up. As well as the off-grid power supply, rainwater tanks are used, and the outdoor hot tub is heated by a wood fire—your campfire heats up your tub water via a large metal coil. Like most places in regional Australia, the nights get cold – but rather than blast a heater, the Domes provide you with hot water bottles, warm blankets, lush robes and heavy curtains to ward off the chill.

nature domes port macquarie
Photo: Nature Domes

You’ll need to be self-sufficient during your stay at the Domes, bringing your own food. Support local businesses and stock up in the town of Wauchope on your drive-in (and grab some pastries and coffee at Baked Culture while you’re at it). There’s a stovetop, fridge (stocked as per a mini bar), BBQs, lanterns and mozzie coils, and you can even order DIY S’More packs for fireside fun. The interiors of the Domes have a cosy, stylish fit-out, with a modern bathroom (and a proper flushing toilet—none of that drop bush toilet stuff). As there’s no mobile reception, pack a good book or make the most of treasures that lie waiting to be discovered at every turn: a bed chest full of board games, a cupboard crammed with retro DVDs, a stargazing telescope (the skies are ablaze come night time). Many of these activities are ideal for couples, but there’s plenty on offer for solo travellers, such as yoga mats, locally-made face masks and bath bombs for hot tub soaks. 

It’s these thoughtful human touches that reinforce the benefit of making a responsible travel choice by booking local and giving your money to a tourism operator in the Greater Port Macquarie Region, such as Tom’s Creek Nature Domes. The owners are still working on the property following the setbacks of COVID-19, and flooding in the region —a new series of Domes designed with families and groups in mind is under construction, along with an open-air, barn-style dining hall and garden stage. Once ready, the venue will be ideal for wedding celebrations, with wedding parties able to book out the property. They’ve already got one couple—who honeymooned at the Domes—ready and waiting. Just need to train up the llamas for ring-bearer duties! 

An abundance of favourite moments come to mind from my two-night stay at Tom’s Creek: sipping champagne and gourmet picnicking at the top of a hill on a giant swing under a tree, with a bird’s eye view of the entire property (the ‘Mountain Top picnic’ is a must-do activity add on during your stay), lying on a deckchair at night wrapped in a blanket gazing up at starry constellations and eating hot melted marshmallows, to revelling in the joys of travellers before me, scrawled on notes in a jar of wishes left by the telescope (you’re encouraged to write your own to add to the jar). But I’ll leave you with a gratitude journal entry I made while staying there. I will preface this by saying that I don’t actually keep a gratitude journal, but Tom’s Creek Nature Domes is just the kind of place that makes you want to start one. And so, waking up on my second morning at Tom’s —lacking any 4G bars to facilitate my bad habit of a morning Instagram scroll—I finally opened up a notebook and made my first journal entry:

‘I am grateful to wake up after a deep sleep and breathe in the biggest breaths of this clean air, purified by nature and scented with eucalyptus and rain. I am grateful for this steaming hot coffee brewed on a fire. I feel accomplished at having made myself. I am grateful for the skittish sheep that made me laugh as I enjoyed a long nature walk at dawn and the animated billy goats and friendly llamas overlooking my shoulder as I write this: agreeable company for any solo traveller. I’m grateful for total peace, absolute stillness.” 

Off-grid holiday status: unlocked.

Where: Tom’s Creek Nature Domes, Port Macquarie, 2001 Toms Creek Rd
Price: $450 per night, book at the Natura Domes website.

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