Hot Springs is built around the thermal waters that give it its name — 47 springs flowing from the western slope of Hot Springs Mountain at a constant 62°C. The city grew up as a resort town in the 19th century, and Bathhouse Row, a line of ornate spa buildings along Central Avenue, is now a National Historic Landmark within Hot Springs National Park.
The town has a split personality. Central Avenue is touristy — wax museums, alligator farms, and the Gangster Museum of America, all leaning into the city's pre-war reputation as a wide-open gambling town — but the surrounding Ouachita Mountains are genuinely beautiful, with pine-covered ridges and good hiking trails up to the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort draws crowds for Thoroughbred racing season through the spring, and the lakes south of town — Lake Hamilton and quieter Lake Catherine — are where the city heads on summer weekends.
The hot springs themselves remain the main event: you can still take a traditional thermal bath at Buckstaff or, in a more modern communal setting, at Quapaw Baths. South of town, Garvan Woodland Gardens drapes 210 acres of azaleas and pine over a peninsula on Lake Hamilton — the third must-stop after the bathhouses and the national park trails.