Breaks Interstate Park Trip Overview - 6 Days in the Mountains of Virginia and Kentucky

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This is the first post in a series for this trip. You can view links to the other posts at the bottom of this one.

Breaks Interstate Park, located in a rural section of the mid-Atlantic on the border of Virginia and Kentucky is smack dab in a beautiful, mountainous region with undulating mountains and hills spanning out across the two states, and a 1,000 foot deeply cut gorge called Breaks Canyon. The river that runs through the canyon is one of the deepest east of the Mississippi, one of several places colloquially called The Grand Canyon of the East.

At the bottom of the gorge is the Russell Fork River, which over the eons rushed through the mountains, carving away at the softer rocks and leaving behind a horseshoe-shaped bend with rocks called The Towers rising high above.

This is a haven for hikers and wildlife lovers, and that is a big part of what attracted us. What never ceases to amaze me is how many places exist in this vast country that we don’t even realize are within a half-day’s drive from our homes!

Elk have recently been reintroduced to the area, and a herd lives within the park. During select dates, visitors can take elk tours. Unfortunately, that timing didn’t coincide with our trip and we saw no elk on our own.

Planning our Breaks Interstate Park Trip (Virginia & Kentucky)

how we determined our destination: breaks interstate park

Last fall, we planned a type of trip that was new to us: renting a cabin in a state park. For that excursion we went to Watoga State Park in a gorgeous part of West Virginia (read about that trip here). Upon returning home, our on-hold-since-the-start-of-covid travel bug was in full gear so we started looking for other state parks with rental cabins that would allow us to bring our three Labrador Retrievers and were within a reasonable driving distance.

After almost missing it entirely (I confess, its name is not appealing as it sounds like a highway), we discovered that a short few hours drive from us is Breaks Interstate Park, so-named because it is in the town of Breaks, Virginia, and it spans both Virginia and Kentucky (hence: interstate). It is only one of two state parks in the United States that crosses state lines. The other spans Minnesota and Wisconsin and is called ‘Interstate Park’.

Only one cabin is dog friendly, so we booked it for a week in April, a risky move as weather in the spring risks rain and cool temperatures.

The closest recognizable cities are Lexington, Kentucky, which is 3 hours away, and Knoxville, Tennessee, which is about 3 hours 15 minutes away to give you a sense of how rural the area is.

where we stayed: cabin accommodations in breaks interstate park

Breaks Interstate Park has multiple accommodation options - tent and RV camping, yurts, a lodge with hotel-like rooms, stand-alone ‘cottages,’ and five cabins (view the options on their site here). The latter two options are similar in nature in that they provide the privacy of a rental house. The cottages are each two bedrooms and are located in a wooded area. The cabins are situated on Laurel Lake with back porches overlooking the water. They offer both 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom (one bedroom of which is in a loft) options. Out of all of these houses, only one, Cabin 1, is pet friendly, and that’s where we stayed in a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom cabin.

The cabin was modern and much less rustic than the 90-year old CCC-built cabins in Watoga State Park, West Virginia. The cabin entered in to a short hallway with one bedroom immediately to the left, a bathroom accessible from both that front bedroom and the main area. Ahead were stairs up to the bedroom loft (no bathroom upstairs) and to the right was a large multi-purpose space with the kitchen, dining table, and cozy family room with a gas fireplace. In the left rear of the house was the second bedroom with a bathroom accessible from inside that room. Off the back was a long porch that was half-screened, half open, overlooking Laurel Lake.

Based on the information we received when booking, we understood we needed to bring our own linens (sheets, towels, potholder, and dish towels), as that service had been paused upon the start of Covid; however, there was linen service active with plenty of extra pillows and blankets. Like a hotel, the bathrooms had the basics like shampoo, conditioner, soap, make-up removers, and blow dryers. The kitchen was stocked with the basics you’d expect at most rentals - standard dishware, pots and pans, utensils. It also had coffee filters and two each packets of caffeinated and decaf coffee. Given that we assumed we’d have less already there rather than more, we definitely brought things we didn’t need but things we brought that were not there and we were glad we had: a sponge for the dishes, a corkscrew, and ziploc bags for leftovers. The cabin had a roll of paper towels and a couple of rolls of toilet paper per bathroom. For just the two of us, this was all more than sufficient. For larger groups, people may need more paper products.

where we ate: dining options in breaks interstate park

Breaks Interstate Park has one restaurant - Rhododendron Restaurant - that is in the building in/near the lodge. It is only open during the main season, from early April to late October. In the early season, it’s only open Friday through Sunday; in peak season, it’s open Thursday through Sunday. Given the timing of our trip, the restaurant was only open the last day or so, and we didn’t dine there. We brought a cooler with all the food we needed. There are not many other options nearby. There is a Subway about 12 miles away in Elkhorn City, which also has a small grocery store, which we had researched before we went just in case but didn’t need to visit. It’s called Velocity Market. There are a few other options in Grundy, about a 30 minute drive. Grundy also has a grocery store called Food City.

Your best bet is treating the trip like a camping trip and bringing all the food items you need! I will also mention that while the cabin didn’t have any outdoor grilling options, there are a couple of picnic shelters near the cabins that are intended for cabin guests only; those have an outside grill available.

what were the highlights of our trip to breaks interstate park in virginia and kentucky

As I’ve made clear already, Breaks Interstate Park is in a rural area and the main highlight is the park itself. The park has 18 trails (we hiked all but two technically), 3 of which are multi-use for bikers and hikers. There are also other park activities like a zip line, rental canoe/kayak/paddle boats on Laurel Lake, nearby fishing, rock climbing, and a waterpark for kids. Many of those activities are seasonal only and were not open when we were there, which suited us just fine! One of the main highlights is how few people were there when we were. In the course of all our days of hiking, we only twice passed anyone else on the trails. For the bulk of the time, we were the only ones staying in any of the five cabins, though by the end of our trip as we got to the weekend, the cabins became full.

The highlights of our trip were:

Hiking! Every day we created our custom hiking plan by cobbling together our own loop trails, comprised of multiple individual trails. We had varied experience - from sweeping vistas to enormous rocky paths with awesome geological features to the top of a ridge and undulating forest paths. We used our bird song app and plant identifier app a bunch to enhance our knowledge of what we were experiencing.
Sunsets - The sunsets were utterly epic!
Scenic drives - the drive to Breaks was gorgeous and then on a particularly hot afternoon, we decided to drive the scenic route 611 through the Cumberland Mountains.
Relaxing - We tend to be active travelers so being at a spot with limited options within a drivable distance meant that we hiked each day but also took time to sit in front of the fireplace and overlooking the lake to just relax, read, and write.
Burkes Garden - a town nestled in a collapsed former mountain top, we had randomly discovered this spot a couple of years ago and wanted to visit. When we realized our drive to Breaks Interstate Park came within a short drive, we decided to make a detour to this isolated community on our drive home.

Would we return to Breaks Interstate Park in Virginia and Kentucky?

Yes, in that I would gladly re-hike any of the trails, we enjoyed them that much! Because we hiked the entire park and there is not a lot else to do in the vicinity, we would obviously prioritize visiting other new places first. This would be a great place for a group of family/friends to rent their own cabins to spend time together. The aspect most likely to lure me back would be the chance to see the elk since we missed that opportunity this time.

Trip Do-Over: What would we do differently?

Other than potentially lining up the trip timing to go on the elk tour, there is nothing else we’d do differently! I will say that weather is important for an outdoor trip such as this so we lucked out with truly perfect weather: no rain, temps initially in the 60s and then into the low/mid 80s within a few days - yes, unseasonably warm for mid-April.

Our Driving Route near Breaks Interstate Park

This map includes the scenic drive we took from Breaks Interstate Park through Blowing Rock and to Clintwood as well as the further afield Burkes Garden, which happened to be en route on our trip home.

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