The New River Gorge spreads over 50 miles of the river, and exploring further is the obvious thing to do beyond Fayetteville town.
- Babcock State Park — about 30 minutes south, with the much-photographed Glade Creek Grist Mill, hiking trails along Glade Creek, and a small lake.
- Hawks Nest State Park — about 20 minutes northwest, with an overlook of the upper gorge and an aerial tram down to Hawks Nest Lake.
- Sandstone Falls — a 1,500-foot-wide waterfall on the New River, about 90 minutes south near Hinton. The largest waterfall in West Virginia.
- Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine — 30 minutes south, where retired miners give underground tours of a former coal mine. The best surviving way to understand the gorge's coal-industry past.
- Greenbrier Resort — about an hour east in White Sulphur Springs, the famous old resort with a Cold War-era bunker built secretly under it.