Start from 22 curated places around Davis, WV, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Milo's Cafe & Restaurant
The anchor dining room of the Bright Morning Inn in downtown Davis, serving a breakfast that won Best Breakfast Sandwich in West Virginia and has sustained a loyal regional following since. The kitchen operates from the first floor of the renovated lumberjack boardinghouse, now expanded to serve dinner nightly — though breakfast remains the reason most visitors make the pilgrimage.
Hellbender Burritos
A beloved counter-service burrito shop in downtown Davis where the portions are legendary and the ingredients are fresh — reviewers reliably describe the burritos as among the largest they've ever encountered at reasonable prices. The small space gets crowded at peak times and there's an upstairs waiting area, making this the quintessential post-trail comfort meal for the Blackwater Falls and Canaan Valley crowd.
Trails & outdoors
Blackwater Falls Trail
The park's signature trail descending 200 steps to the base of the falls, where the Blackwater River's tannic water drops five stories over a sandstone ledge in a display that changes character dramatically with season and water level. The boardwalk at the base delivers the closest contact with the falls that most visitors will ever achieve, and the surrounding hemlock forest is worth the walk even outside peak season.
Lindy Point Overlook Trail
A short, easy 0.8-mile trail in Blackwater Falls State Park that delivers one of the most dramatically placed overlooks in West Virginia — a point 3,000 feet above sea level with a direct view down into Blackwater Canyon. The hike itself is flat and accessible to nearly everyone, making the payoff disproportionately large relative to the effort.
Things to do
Purple Fiddle Live Music
A small-capacity venue in an old general store in Thomas where touring musicians play to a room that treats the show seriously — the acoustics are clear, the crowd listens, and the booking policy has historically discovered artists years before they reached wider audiences. The Avett Brothers and Sierra Ferrell played here before either became a household name; the Purple Fiddle is the kind of place where that still happens regularly.
Canaan Valley Resort Skiing & Outdoor Center
The main ski resort in the Canaan Valley with 26 trails ranging from beginner to black diamond, receiving over 180 inches of annual snowfall at 3,200 feet of base elevation. The resort also operates 35 kilometers of cross-country and snowshoe trails, a terrain park, and a snow tubing hill — and pivots to hiking, mountain biking, and fishing in warmer months.
Landmarks & sights
Blackwater Falls State Park
West Virginia's most photographed natural site, where the Blackwater River plunges five stories over tannic-stained black water before winding through an eight-mile gorge of hemlock and red spruce. The falls are the centerpiece of a 3,100-acre park with over 20 miles of trails, a lodge, and one of the most concentrated collections of scenic overlooks in the state — the kind of place that warrants multiple visits across seasons.
Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge
The highest wetland ecosystem in the eastern US, a 16,000-acre highland plateau where bogs, marshes, and boreal forest create habitat for black bears, great blue herons, river otters, and over 580 plant species — some found nowhere else in the world. The refuge's interpretive trails and boardwalks offer access to a landscape that feels genuinely remote and ecologically singular.