ARKANSAS TRAVEL GUIDE

Bella Vista has eight lakes. These lakes are not "public" in that only members of the community or their guests are permitted to use them. Lake Ann, Lake Windsor, and Lake Loch Lomond are the largest all-sports lakes in the town. Lake Avalon, Lake Norwood, and Lake Rayburn are primarily fishing lakes with "no wake" restrictions. Current POA boat permits are required as are Arkansas fishing licenses, when fishing Bella Vista lakes.

Eureka Springs is a unique Victorian resort village in Carroll County, Arkansas which has its own culture and lifestyle. The city has steep winding streets filled with Victorian-style cottages and manors. The old commercial section of the city has an alpine character, with an extensive streetscape of well-preserved Victorian buildings. The buildings are primarily constructed of local stone and lie along streets that curve around the hills and rise and fall with the topography in a five-mile long loop. Some buildings have street-level entrances on more than one floor. The local Catholic Church boasts a street-level entrance to its bell tower. Eureka Springs has been selected as one of America's Distinctive Destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Most of the stores and shops in the commercial district are locally owned and managed. They consist primarily of specialty shops featuring local crafts, antiques, the works of local artists, and standard Ozark tourist fare. The downtown area also features various coffee shops and sidewalk cafés. The town has more than 20 art galleries in the downtown area. The city maintains a trolley service providing transportation around town for the tourists who visit the town.

The city hosts the 7-story tall, 2 million pound, white concrete statue of Jesus known as the Christ of the Ozarks, erected privately in 1966 as part of a planned religious theme park. The statue sits across the valley from the downtown area and is visible from most parts of the lakes and rivers in the immediate area. The city is home to The Great Passion Play. The play is "America's #1 attended Outdoor Drama," according to the Outdoor Institute of Drama at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Celebrating its 40th season in 2008, the play will welcome its 7.5 millionth visitor.

Hot Springs is traditionally best known for the natural spring water that gives it its name, flowing out of the ground at a temperature of 147 degrees Fahrenheit (64 degrees C). Hot Springs National Park is the oldest federal reserve in the USA, and the tourist trade brought by the famous springs make it a very successful spa town.

The city takes its name from the natural thermal water that flows from 47 springs on the western slope of Hot Springs Mountain in the historic downtown district of the city. About a million gallons of 143-degree water flow from the springs each day. The rate of flow is not affected by fluctuations in the rainfall in the area. Studies by National Park Service scientists have determined through carbon dating that the water that reaches the surface in Hot Springs fell as rainfall in an as-yet undetermined watershed 4,000 years earlier. The water percolates very slowly down through the earth’s surface until it reaches superheated areas deep in the crust and then rushes rapidly to the surface to emerge from the 47 hot springs.

A small channel of hot spring water known as Hot Springs Creek runs under ground from an area near Park Avenue to Bath House Row.