48 Hours in Hot Springs Arkansas Must See Do and Eat

Hey everybody, I'm Josh.

And I'm Rachael.

Come along with us over the next 48 hours as we see, do, and eat as much as we can in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Let's go.

Here we go. All right, welcome to Hot Springs, Arkansas. We did just get here today. We flew into Little Rock, which is about 55 miles to the east from here. But I'm gonna give you some facts about it before we go dig in. Hot Springs is in the Ouachita National Forest. The park covers over 5,500 acres of land and is home to several natural hot springs, which are the park's main attraction. There are no opportunities to soak in the natural springs outdoors. Soaking in the springs is only permitted in 2 of the bathhouses, the Buckstaff and the Quapaw. The Buckstaff Bathhouse opened originally in 1912 and is the only facility in the Row that has never fully closed since it first started offering baths. The Quapaw Bathhouse offers modern-day spa services with amenities like thermal pools, private baths, and a steam cave, and we'll be going there tomorrow. There is no entrance fee to the park. Everybody is welcome to walk through and enjoy the park as often as they please. And yes, you can drink the water from the fountains. The water's high temperature kills most harmful bacteria and is monitored to US standards for safe drinking water. And the park does contain 26 miles worth of walking paths, and hiking trails, including Hot Springs and North Mountain Trails and the West Mountain Trails, both of which are considered short and interconnected. And there also is this giant tower up on the mountain that can look down upon it. We did see it from our pool area, but, but I don't know that we'll make it there this trip. Just know that it's there.

This place isn't haunted. I don't know what is. Let's just say that.

Yeah, let's see the broom. All right, this is room 650. Looks decent at the beginning. Um, let's just start with the bathroom. The bathroom is very small, and we cruise, but you can see it's quite tiny. The shower is back in that hole, but we can do it. It is historic. That's what we're gonna have to remind ourselves. There is a nice-sized closet. So nice walk-in closet. And then over here is king-size bed. I believe that both of those doors go to other rooms. But you can see, I mean, the space is not bad. This definitely seems like it's an adjoining room.

This is too.

Okay. I'm not gonna unlock it.

Good deal.

Okay. It will definitely do, and it is historic. Hopefully it's not haunted. They do have a fridge if you need one and a coffee maker.

I do love how old it is. It's creepy in a sense, but I still love it. So the Arlington Hotel is the oldest in Hot Springs and the largest in Arkansas with almost 500 rooms and suites. There have been 3 iterations of the Arlington dating back as far as 1875, with the latest being 1924. We are here in 2025 and they are remodeling. This was also the lodging of choice for many US presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Even Babe Ruth and Al Capone have suites named after them here at the Arlington.

All right, and now that you've learned a little bit about Hot Springs and seen where we're staying, we did fly into Little Rock and we had to get here from Little Rock, so we're going to take you back in time about an hour or 2 ago.

We needed a car for our weekend getaway, so we're skipping the rental counter and picking up our car that we're renting on Turo. This is saving us so much time as we're able to pick up the car right at the airport.

Turo is the world's largest car-sharing marketplace. You can choose from an extraordinary selection of over 1,600 makes and models shared by local hosts who list their cars for rent. Booking a car at the airport with Turo is super easy. Just type the name of the airport in the search bar. All cars in the results can be picked up at or near the airport. Use filters to find the perfect car for your trip. And the best part? You get to choose the exact car you'll get.

So after using the filters, we chose this Dodge Challenger, and this is a dream of mine. A few years ago, I wanted to purchase one and kind of got talked out of it. So we were able to pick up a sports car, which— who doesn't love a sports car? And it was so easy. And again, we get to choose this. I'm so excited.

When you get off the plane, there'll be instructions on the Turo app. which will tell you where the car is parked. Depending on the airport, you'll pick up your car at designated airport parking lots, garages, or even curbside.

No long lines, no rental counters, just a faster, smoother pickup and drop-off. Plus, as we mentioned, you can choose from budget-friendly cars, EVs, SUVs, or even luxury rides with add-ons like car seats or ski racks. For anyone traveling this holiday season, Turo is available at over 140 airports across the US and Canada. So skip the rental counter next time you fly and rent on Turo.

Okay, and I know that I was a little harsh about the room, but there's a reason why we're staying here other than the historical significance. It's because we're right on Bathhouse Row and we're going to be able to walk to everything for the most part this trip.

So we are here at Superior Bathhouse. It's a brewery, the only brewery in a national park. We had to come. Come on, you guys know us by now. The Superior was built in 1916 and operated as a bathhouse until 1983. It is the world's only beer brewed with thermal spring water, and there's 18 of them on tap. And guess what? We're gonna try them all because we've already parked the car for the night. You can see our hotel is right behind us, and it's all within walking distance.

Yeah, we're going no further than half a mile from our hotel. So yeah, no driving tonight.

I'm excited to try these out. All right, here it is. The cool part for me, the reason I asked Josh that we could probably go for this, is because there's only 4 of these that are IPAs. So we figure 4 out of 18 isn't bad odds. We'll, we'll give them a try. This is the one I've been wanting to try. It is the Spicy Ride. It's a jalapeño ale. It's not that spicy, but it is tasty. I like that. But I also tried this second one, the Killer, the Irish red I think it is. It was really good.

I agree.

Yeah, of the first So of the couple you've tried, is there one you like better than any of them yet?

I've had 2. So I like the Irish Red, but I'll try the next 16. Just in case you care, we were counting these backwards, so we were enjoying the wrong ones.

We haven't even been drinking today.

No, but we got the order wrong, and it's— the world is right. It wasn't the IPAs we were loving.

That's true. It was the Saison and the Hefeweizen.

Yeah.

Imagine that.

Just come and try 18 of them and you'll enjoy them too. All right, so our intention was to come grab a drink and then go to the Mob Museum.

We didn't know they were gonna have 18 drinks for you to try.

Yeah, and we're trying to work our way through it. Like, look at— we're doing a good job. We are tasting all of them, at least.

We are.

But it does seem like the Mob Museum's gonna have to be tomorrow. And we'll just work on this before dinner.

I was like, we have like an hour and 15 minutes till dinner, but I don't know that we should rush through all 18 of these.

But it's a really cool dinner.

It is a really cool dinner.

Because it is in like a speakeasy.

Yeah, they actually just text me the code to get in. I'm pretty excited about it.

And if you had any doubt, you should not. We ain't sissies.

We're no amateurs. We did it.

So because we finished it, our waiter did give us a Sharpie and say we, we can actually sign this.

We get to sign the board.

So I'm gonna do it upside down.

It's not upside down to you.

Right?

Ah! Are you running out of room?

Kind of.

Oh my gosh.

Josh and Rachael, there you go. Come here, look for that, and finish 18 beers. All right, after 18 beers, we decided to walk towards dinner, and a place called Diablo's showed up, which is tacos and mezcal. So I got a small mezcal drink.

Small.

And a few things for our chips.

I just want you to know, I ordered chips and salsa. Josh said, how about some queso and guac?

Yeah. All right, drinks were good, chips were good, price was great.

Yeah.

Great service. Ended up being $29 for those 2 drinks. We are headed to Don's and it's supposed to be like a speakeasy restaurant.

Yeah, as we mentioned earlier, they text us where we're supposed to go and the code to get in. And as many of you know, and if you haven't been following us, you'll soon learn that we are trying to hit all 50 states and run in all 50 states. So Arkansas is going to be state number 46 for us.

Yeah, we got a 10K in mind.

Super excited.

So we ain't gonna be doing anything too crazy tonight. Hi, how are you?

Good. Yes, please.

500,000 or something. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. So anyway, there you go.

Thank you, have a good night.

All right, the appetizers are here. This is, uh, their biscuit, which has like a butter candle. Yeah, isn't that a candle that's melting? And I think it's got apricot as well.

Yeah.

And then this is a pork belly burnt ends with grits. Looks good. Looks freaking good. Southern food, here we go. Uh, biscuits were a little heavy. The pork belly was delicious. This is our main. We did do the ribeye, um, which has a duck egg on it, some grits, and a housemade A.1. What did you get over here?

I got the duck bolognese, I believe it is. Yeah, and it has got duck, some, uh, Smoked bruschetta.

I call it bowtie, but they called it farafel.

Yeah, and then some grilled bread.

Thick bread. That looks very tasty.

Looks delicious.

Yum.

Thank you. This way? Okay. Yeah, there you go. Thank you.

You weren't supposed to get lost in the phone booth.

I got lost in the phone booth. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh my gosh.

I am so full.

Yeah, man, that caught up to us. Uh, I thought that the food was really good.

My hair, it's so wonky.

You're okay, you look beautiful.

It's fine.

Uh, and for some reason they had some weird thing going on with their liquor license tonight. They did give us a text message about an hour before saying they have some issues. Yeah, so no drinks there, which probably is good considering what we had before.

One of my favorite bites was the steak. Yeah, it was really good.

Yeah, I thought the steak was definitely the best. It was most expensive, but you know, sometimes it needs to be. Yeah, uh, we're gonna try to work our way back to the hotel, maybe stop by a bar, maybe not.

We'll see, we'll see. So we were talking about the fact that you can drink the water, and you can, but this is hot. Like, it's legit hot water.

So don't drink it straight out of the faucet.

No, but there you go.

There you go, right on Bathhouse Row here.

Yeah.

All right, we're headed back, going to bed. Good morning.

Good morning.

It's early, but we are walking to the start line for the 10K. The half marathoners are already running by us.

Yeah.

And this is where we're headed later today, Quapaw Baths, which I've never taken a public bath, but it— I think it's private. I think it is. Yeah, so that'll be interesting to see how that goes. Uh, but as long as we're not too tired or like racing for first, which we don't intend to—

We're not doing that today.

We'll try to bring you along with the run. All right, the race was good.

It was good.

Yeah, we finished. That helps.

It was harder than I expected.

Yeah, a lot more uphill, but the The scenery was beautiful.

Oh, it's gorgeous.

Nice colors. But we now deserve a bath.

I don't understand what we're doing, but we're gonna go experience a bathhouse.

Yeah, so we're going to show you as much as we can. If not, you'll have pretty pictures over it and we'll give a voiceover or talk about our experience later. All right, so like I said earlier, there are 2 different Different spots where you can do these public baths. Buckstaff, which is a men's and women's, we believe, and this one is more modern and it does have men and women. I saw that the public, the public bath part, it looks like just a bunch of hot tubs.

Oh.

But it is the thermal spring water and there is some chlorine in it though because it is public. That's about $30 a person and they do have bathing suits, but I didn't record it. So if I can find some pictures of it, I'll show you. But we're doing the private bath. We don't really know how that's gonna go, but it is an aromatherapy bath. It sounds like it's about the same price.

Yeah, it was. It was $66 with tax.

So if you can get a private, I think you should so far. And we picked oatmeal and honey because it's super strong smelling.

Yeah, it was strong smelling. This is kind of cool.

Yeah.

This is mineral water to drink and hydrate. And, Bella, if you need any help, I'm going to sprinkle your selected bath salts in here for y'all. The jets go for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the jets turn off, and y'all can hop out, put on your clothes, meet us outside. We have cucumber water and ice-cold peppermint out there for y'all. Okay? Perfect. All right, so we just finished up doing our private aromatherapy bath at Kuapa, and I will tell you, as Josh mentioned earlier, it was about the same price as the general admission, but I think it's worth it. Mainly especially for us, we're not going to sit in the hot tubs probably more than 20 minutes at a time, and being able to do that privately— the rest of them felt very Public, kind of crowded, kind of noisy. The private ones you have to have a reservation for, the public one you don't. So I guess it just depends on your planning, but for us I would definitely recommend the private bath.

And we did not know whether you could or should wear swimsuits.

Yeah, it wasn't real clear.

The only thing that we had seen did talk about having swimsuits and rubber sole shoes.

Yes.

Um, but I don't know if that's for the public Or for both.

Yeah, it was nice that, uh, when we finished though, they gave us like a peppermint washcloth to cool down and some cucumber water. It was very relaxing. I think it was quite an experience, something I probably won't forget ever. And having that today is pretty cool.

Yeah, and they have a bunch of these chairs just looking out over the street, and there's a lot of buildings that do. So if you ever just want to go sit and walk People watch, you can.

Yeah.

Let's go eat. Time for some pizza. All right, we grabbed some pizza at the Grateful Head. It was really good. Yeah.

And they have some local beers on tap too, so they were good too.

Yeah, those were good. Bubba's something.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, check it out. And they've got some angel wings right here, but Rachael doesn't do them. After lunch, we walked across the street to the Fordyce Bathhouse, which is the official visitor center and museum for Hot Springs National Park. When it opened in 1915, it was the largest, most elaborate, and most expensive bathhouse on Bathhouse Row, designed to rival European spas. Visitors can take a free self-guided tour through 23 meticulously restored rooms complete with original fixtures and equipment like porcelain tubs, steam cabinets, and early 20th century exercise machines showcasing the historic bathing experience. Fordyce featured amenities for the whole patron including a music room with a grand piano, a gymnasium, and a barber shop. Access to the Fordyce Bathhouse Visitor Center and Museum including the self-guided tours is completely free of charge ensuring that the public can explore this piece of history. We were just told that we're on the right trail, and that feels so good because there's no signs. We're going to the tower. All right, this is the first sign we've seen of this Peak Trail. Doesn't seem like we're too far away. The Hot Springs Mountain Tower is a 216-foot observation tower that provides panoramic views and has 2 observation decks. One is an open-air upper deck and the other is enclosed lower deck with historical exhibits. All right, it's been an active day. It has been an active day. I think I'm at like 25,000 steps already. But we've been seeing this town and we did end up going up to the tower. That was really nice.

It was very pretty.

Yeah, like $12 a person. There is an elevator, so if you hike like we did—

I was nervous we had to walk the stairs up and I was a little hesitant to say yes, but then I learned about the elevator.

That was cool. But yeah, the view was amazing. And then after that we ended up checking out— there's a winery here on the main street. Strip and just happened to have, uh, 11 tasters there. We were going to buy a glass or two.

Yeah, we just wanted to buy like a glass of wine. Yeah, that didn't happen.

So, but now we're all gussied up, ready for dinner tonight, uh, but we're going to go check out a museum first.

Yes.

All right, so we have about 15 minutes to kill, so we decided let's go ahead and sit on one of these bathhouses. So we grabbed a nice seat, but I'm gonna give you a little backstory as far as the museum we're headed to, which is called the Gangster Museum of America. And the connection to the mob here is that Hot Springs was a haven for mobsters from the early 20th century because of its wide-open governance, which permitted gambling and prostitution, as well as its seclusion for moonshine making and the presence of Major League Baseball's winter training program, which—

What?

was very popular back in the 1880s through the 1940s, including people like Babe Ruth. All right, that was awesome.

Yeah, it was way better than I expected it to be.

Yeah, we actually thought it was just gonna be like a normal museum where you go around, look at exhibits, read stuff, but it's like 8 or 9 rooms. They have different, different documentary-style productions that they show, and then they have a host that kind of talks you through all the things. Like, Hot Springs was a big freaking deal.

Yeah, it was a big deal.

Yeah, like so many famous people, mobsters and celebrities came here, baseball players, huge history. I don't want to like steal their thunder, but you should go there.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I think it was $16 a person. Highly recommend. Let's go eat.

Let's eat. And as Josh mentioned, a lot of those celebrities frequented this next place we're going to be going to, which is the Oldest bar in Arkansas, the Ohio Club.

Déjà vu all over again.

Déjà vu.

We're in the same spot, but this time we got regular-sized beers. Don't need to try 18 this time.

I got the Bee's Knees. It's a honey basil. It's really good.

And I did a wheat beer, which was one of my favorites from the 18 last time. And yeah, same exact table. Uh, we are going to try a few chips, queso, and then there's like a Corn nuggets.

Yeah, yeah.

But burgers over at Ohio Club were good. The one that Rachael got, which was the Hangover one, was I think the best.

So good. The butt on there just was so standout.

Great tater tots, great sweet potato fries. Patty melt was good.

I'd say patty melt was good. It just— I think the burger was too thick.

Yeah, it could have been more of a smashdown.

Yeah, this beer cheese dip is Yeah. Really good.

And obviously we like Superior Bathhouse Brewing.

We do.

Cheers. Good morning.

Good morning.

It is our final day here in Hot Springs. We have to fly out of Little Rock here in a couple hours, but we've got a few things to do. And everyone we talked to said that there's one breakfast place you have to go to.

You have to, you have to, you have to. So we're headed there.

I think it's called the Pancake Shop. Yeah, yeah. So we're getting pancakes.

I will say too, one of the best parts about all of this, this town is very walkable. Yeah, at least where we're staying, like downtown, very cool, very walkable.

Everything is less than a mile away other than that 10K.

So here we are at the Pancake shop, everything comes out super fast. It is delicious looking. Blueberry pancake here, sausage and cheese omelette. Sausage is made locally, comes with some butter, syrup, obviously jams, a whole stack of toast between the two of us, uh, coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice.

And then Josh got a ham steak that looks amazing, and we did 2 pancakes so they split it.

Yeah, let's eat. Wow!

Yeah, nice cool little diner. So by 8 AM they have a line waiting and they give coffee on the outside for you to wait. All right, that's what $50 worth of breakfast looks like in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

And that was fantastic!

Endless cups of coffee. The bread was— I knew it wasn't homemade, but man, it was great. And because they must just Let's use some liquid butter on that.

Yeah, 100%. That butter's just melted right on there.

Yeah, that was a fantastic breakfast. Make sure to hit it up if you're here. Yeah, we got time for one more thing. All right, so we got to see a brief bit of this yesterday on our hike up to the mountain tower, but there is a grand promenade that goes right behind the bathhouses, and it's a really nice walkway that you can just take And it's— the entrance is right across the street from our hotel. And then you can even see down here how far things are to make it easy to tell whether you should try it or not. But let's go check it out.

The Grand Promenade was first proposed in 1931 as a path from Reserve Street to Fountain Street for visitors to enjoy after they had completed their bathing routine. However, due to like lack of funding and other pieces that came about, it didn't get finished until 1957. It was named a National Recreational Trail in 1982.

All right, and just like that, that is going to be the wrap-up of this trip.

48 hours in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Yeah, it was definitely better than I even expected. I, I wasn't sure what to expect. We— I've never been to Arkansas.

Uh, I've only been on the, like, tip of it over by Missouri, but not in a town like this. This was impressive.

Yeah. Uh, now we do like to end all of these trips by saying our favorite bite and our favorite moment of the trip. Let's go favorite bite. You go first.

Favorite bite, going to the cheeseburger last night at the Ohio Club.

Yeah, I think that that was in the running for me, so I'm gonna go ahead and do this morning, the white bread, the ham and egg all in one bite. That was my favorite.

That was a great breakfast.

Yeah, it was just good classic diner-style breakfast, and the price was cheap.

The price was cheap, the atmosphere was fun, they were friendly but getting you in and out fast. Like, it just hit all the right spots. It was good.

All right, and then the favorite moment of the trip?

Mine was when we were actually— we had to pause and take a picture running up that hill yesterday. It was so beautiful. Like, and knowing that we're this close to hitting all 50 states, so I'm pretty excited.

And I would go back to night 1 when we stopped at Superior Bathhouse Brewing and all of a sudden here comes out 18 beers.

Yeah, that was fun.

Like, it's just an impressive thing to look at and we're like, okay, this is vacation mode activate now. Yeah, it was really fun.

It was a really great weekend.

It was. It's a nice relaxing little town. I thought it was going to be even busier when I first got here and thinking that like it's kind of like a mountain town where it's going to end up being overly touristy. But it wasn't.

It wasn't at all.

No, it was a joy. And if you want a relaxation trip, I think it was good.

I recommend hot springs. Yeah.

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