With its trout-stocked ponds and streams, 12 miles of trails of varying difficulty, including the blue-blazed Nayantaquit Trail, a pondside picnic area, and some of the best bird-watching in the state, a visit to 4,400-acre Nehantic State Forest is sure to scratch that outdoors itch. Visitors flock here for four seasons of fun, particularly to boat, fish, hunt, mountain bike, picnic, and hike—especially to the picturesque views at the top of Nickerson Hill off the blue-blazed trail.

Nehantic is an experimental forest where DEEP uses controlled burns to manage the forest’s vibrant collection of habitats, mirroring the maintenance of its original inhabitants and namesake, the Nayanticks. European settlers cleared much of the forest for farming. As farms were abandoned, Mother Nature reclaimed the land, but you can still find stone walls, cellar holes, and wells throughout the second-growth stands of hardwoods and flourishing wooded understory.