This One-Of-A-Kind National Park Has Striking Scenery That Looks Like An Alien Planet

You're standing on top of a sand dune so snowy white it seems as if you've been transported to an alien planet in a faraway galaxy. Undulating white waves of sand, the color and texture of refined sugar stretch out in every direction as far as you can see. Face west and a range of hazy purple mountains line the horizon, but face due east, and from the right angle, the only colors visible are the pure white of the sand, and the pure cerulean blue of the sky. It doesn't seem like something you should be able to see on this Earth. Welcome to New Mexico's White Sands National Park, located approximately 50 miles northeast of Las Cruces.

The park is compact, and you can do and see everything in a day or two, making it a perfect pit stop if you're road-tripping to a place like Santa Fe to sample a cacao ceremony. Start with the 8-mile scenic drive along dunes drive. Once you are deep into the park, the roadways are covered in compacted white sand (it's made of gypsum, the same substance used to make the sheetrock that lines your living room walls), so no blacktop is visible, and it's easy to pretend you're driving a landing module — a fun game if you have kids on board. You'll even see why car companies love to film ads here.

You can and should stop at the scenic boardwalk for a stroll, but to get the full impact of the park's beauty, you must get out and take a hike. The 4.4-mile Alkali Flats Trail is the best for getting the full dune experience. The "trails" over the dunes aren't trails in any conventional sense, just routes marked by a series of bright-colored poles buried in the sand to serve as guideposts. You'll be struggling up one side of a dune and sliding down the other, and this style of hiking can be frustrating or exhilarating, depending on how you gear up to approach it.

First, leave the hiking poles behind, as they'll only impede you. Hiking boots or even trail runners will only fill up with sand and be heavy and itchy; the best footwear for tackling the dunes is actually a pair of water socks. Trudging up a dune is slow going, and don't try to head straight up or you'll just slide back with every step. Instead, approach at a shallow angle to make better progress. To go down again, employ a technique from mountaineering called glissading: Get a running start then slide down the steep surface like a surfer angling down the face of a big wave. It's an addictive thrill like no other, and after your first glissade, you'll be scampering up the next dune eagerly, just to do it again.

A favorite White Sands activity among both kids and kidults is sledding. You can buy a plastic sled from the gift shop, along with a bar of wax (highly recommended for the smoothest flow) and sled down the dunes that line Dune Drive — it's a blast, just like winter sledding, but you're wearing sunscreen instead of a parka. Many visitors sled down the first dune they climb, right into the parking lot, but that can make for a hard landing at the bottom. Instead, slide down the other side, into a bowl of soft sand.

Definitely stay long enough to watch the sun set over the dunes, a perfect canvas for a spectacular light show. Hike out on the White Sands Backcountry Trail, pick a slope, and settle in for an eyeful of velvety pink, purple and orange hues. If you want to see the sunrise, you'll have to obtain a backcountry permit to camp overnight, where you'll be treated to some epic stargazing, too. Time your visit right, and you can take a ranger-led full moon night hike, a great way to stretch those sore muscles after all that sledding and glissading.

If you decide that sand sledding is your new jam, you can also visit Colorado's Great Sand Dune National Park, where you'll find the tallest dunes in North America, or Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore, where you can finish your day of sledding with a plunge in icy Lake Michigan.