Start from 20 curated places around Medicine Park, OK, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
The Old Plantation Restaurant
The village's longest-running dining room, set in a cobblestone building on the creek and known for hand-cut, flame-grilled steaks and pork chops with bread and honey butter. The sit-down dinner spot in a town otherwise built around cafes and burgers.
Riverside Cafe
A casual creekside cafe with a patio right over Medicine Creek, doing Southern comfort plates, fried appetizers, po'boys, and big breakfasts. The draw is as much the turtles and fish under the deck as the generous, unfussy food.
Trails & outdoors
Elk Mountain Trail
A roughly 2.4-mile out-and-back that climbs the granite face of Elk Mountain to a broad summit of boulder fields and slabs, with long views over the refuge lakes and prairie. The signature Wichita Mountains hike, moderately tough on rocky footing.
Charons Garden Trail
A rugged trail through the refuge's designated wilderness, threading boulder rooms, a creek with small waterfalls, and a notoriously tricky boulder field at the halfway point. The most technical hike in the Wichitas, for hikers comfortable with rock-hopping and route-finding.
Things to do
Medicine Park Aquarium and Natural Sciences Center
A small but well-stocked aquarium and natural-sciences center with over 90 fish, reptile, amphibian, bird, and mammal species plus a six-acre native botanical garden. Feeding shows for the otter and the fish and a touch tank make it an easy family stop in the village.
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
A 60,000-acre refuge of granite peaks, prairie, and lakes where free-ranging herds of bison and Texas longhorn share the land with elk and a busy prairie dog town. The defining outdoor draw of the area, with scenic drives, wildlife viewing, and trailheads all inside the gates.
Landmarks & sights
Bath Lake and Cobblestone Row
The heart of Medicine Park: a dammed swimming hole on Medicine Creek ringed by the round-cobblestone buildings that give the village its look, built when this was a mineral-spring resort town. The walkable strip of cobblestone shops, cafes, and footbridges along the creek is the reason people come.
Holy City of the Wichitas
A 66-acre site inside the Wichita Mountains built of native granite to resemble Jerusalem in Biblical times, home to the country's longest-running Easter passion play. The chapel, replica buildings, and the Christ of the Wichitas statue make it a quiet, free walk among the granite outcrops year-round.