Carlisle is a pleasant mid-size town in south-central Pennsylvania, just west of Harrisburg. It is home to both the U.S. Army War College and Dickinson College, giving it an academic and military character unusual for a town of its size. The post that houses the Army War College was historically the site of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School — a government-run boarding school that operated from 1879 to 1918 and left a complicated and important legacy. The campus also contains the Hessian Powder Magazine, which held Hessian mercenaries during the Revolutionary War.
The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center on the edge of town has an excellent free outdoor trail through American military history, including a reconstructed World War I trench. The LeTort Spring Run nature trail offers a quieter counterpoint — a limestone spring creek beloved by fly fishers, threading through riparian woodland at the edge of the borough.
Gettysburg, the Cumberland Mountains, and the Amish country of Lancaster County are all within an easy drive, making Carlisle a reasonable base for exploring south-central Pennsylvania.