Medicine Hat is the best base in southeastern Alberta for two of the province's most distinctive landscapes: the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park to the northwest, and Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park to the southeast. Both are within an hour to ninety minutes by road. Combine them with a long lunch back in town and you have a comfortable day in either direction.
- Dinosaur Provincial Park (90 min northwest) — UNESCO World Heritage badlands famous for one of the world's richest fossil beds. Guided fossil tours in summer; the visitor centre has remarkable late-Cretaceous skeletons.
- Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park (60 min southeast) — a forested upland that rises above the surrounding prairie, with lakes, pine forests, and the highest point in Canada between Labrador and the Rockies. Excellent stargazing under one of the country's largest dark-sky preserves.
- Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park (2.5 hr southwest) — hoodoos and Blackfoot petroglyphs on the Milk River. A longer day, but it is the most concentrated rock-art site on the northern Great Plains.