Hit the Road for Hidden Gems of the Revolutionary War

Visit these 7 spots to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution

an American Revolutionary War reenactor speaks to a crowd

Celebrate 250 years since the American Revolution with a road trip to these little-known battlegrounds. The Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts, hosts events and exhibitions.

Elizabeth Friar

Kinsey Gidick,

AARP

Published May 28, 2025

You probably recall the Boston Tea Party from high school history class — colonists in disguise, chests of tea, a salty protest that made a splash. But what about Fort Ticonderoga, from which patriots dragged 60 tons of captured British artillery through snow and wilderness to Boston, giving Gen. George Washington his first major victory? Or Brunswick Town, a thriving North Carolina port abandoned during the onset of the war in 1775 because of the imminent arrival of the British?

According to AARP’s 2025 travel trends survey, escaping the ordinary is one of the top motivators for travel. And what could be further from the ordinary than walking in the footsteps of patriots who once stood their ground? As we mark the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, it’s time to go beyond the textbook and explore the lesser-known battlegrounds where liberty was just as fiercely fought and history feels startlingly alive. Here are seven under-the-radar places to rediscover forgotten stories and feel the echoes of America’s fight for liberty.

The taking of Fort Ticonderoga gave the Continental Army a significant cache of artillery.

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Fort Ticonderoga, New York

The capture of Fort Ticonderoga — an intimidating fortress perched above Lake Champlain — might seem like a relatively low-stakes moment in the overall conflict. On May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold led 83 ambitious Patriots in a surprise rush on a sleepy small garrison of 50 British troops. But the taking of the fort by the nascent army proved a bold wake-up call that would change the course of a war. As Stuart Lilie, vice president of public history at the site, explains, “This was the first offensive victory of the American Revolution.” And gave the Continental Army a significant cache of necessary artillery.

Fast-forward to today, and Fort Ticonderoga is turning the American Revolutionary War commemoration into full-blown time travel thanks to the fort’s “Real Time Revolution” project. “From now until 2027, when people visit, they will be seeing who was in the fort, to the year, the month, the week, the day, even the hour in some cases,” says Matthew Keagle, Fort Ticonderoga’s curator. With a stellar interpretive team, this site is a must-visit for anyone wanting to understand the beginnings of the war and the failed Patriot invasion of Canada.

The Liberty Trail, a network of Revolutionary War sites across South Carolina, includes recognition of a battle in Camden, where Americans suffered defeat. Here, actors re-create the Battle of Camden with a drummer playing a drum with King George’s cipher.

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Liberty Trail, South Carolina

Too often, we only consider the North in the American Revolution, but it was very much fought in the South as well. In fact, more than 200 battles took place in South Carolina alone.

“I’m a firm believer that the Revolutionary War was won right here,” says Rick Wise, executive director of the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust (SCBPT) and a veteran of Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Wise has devoted his retirement to studying and preserving the Southern campaign of the Revolutionary War, and he argues that it was not in grand battles of the North, but in the gritty, guerrilla-style skirmishes across the backwoods of the lowcountry where the tide truly turned against the British.

And there’s no better place to see his point come to life than along the Liberty Trail — a network of Revolutionary War sites across South Carolina curated by SCBPT and the American Battlefield Trust. At its center lies the Revolutionary War Visitor Center in the historic town of Camden. Here you can pay tribute to 14 soldiers whose remains were discovered in 2022 and reinterred with honor in 2023. These casualties of a crushing British victory on Aug. 16, 1780, which claimed the lives of 900 Patriot soldiers, didn’t die in vain, however. Wise says a new Continental commander arrived a day before the battle. Enter: Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion. In the backcountry and swamps of South Carolina, Marion and his men disrupted and annoyed British columns through swift and unexpected raids while evading British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, who was so annoyed he gave Marion his famous moniker.

Follow in the footsteps of the Swamp Fox and the Patriots of the Palmetto State on the Liberty Trail.

St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, is the site where Patrick Henry is said to have delivered his iconic cry for freedom: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

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St. John’s Church, Virginia

Was it really “Give me liberty or give me death”? There’s only one way to decide for yourself.

Step inside St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, the site where Patrick Henry is said to have delivered his iconic cry for independence. While the fiery phrase may be more legend than documented fact (as noted by historian Mary Beth Norton, Cornell University’s Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History Emerita), the church remains a powerful place to grapple with the myths and realities of the American Revolution.

During a recent discussion at St. John’s Church while promoting his new film The American Revolution, historian and award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns acknowledged that the documentary omits the dubiously authentic content of Henry’s speech. Still, standing inside the church offers something the screen cannot: a visceral sense of “uncertainty, tension, and a growing sense of urgency” felt by the 120 Virginians gathered there in 1775, Burns said, according to the Richmonder.

a lantern sits in the foreground with a father and child in the background

The Concord Museum holds the original lantern believed to have been used on Paul Revere’s midnight ride.

Mike Ritter

Concord Museum, Massachusetts

For many travelers, stepping into a Revolutionary War town is enough to tick the history box and move on. But Concord, Massachusetts, deserves more than a brief visit because it and Lexington, Massachusetts, are home to the first shots of the war. Step inside the Concord Museum, where curator David Wood, who’s stewarded the collection for four decades, upends misconceptions by pointing to one of its crown jewels: the actual lantern believed to have been used on Paul Revere’s midnight ride. It's more than a relic – it’s a flickering window into the true story of a nation’s awakening.

“Paul Revere had a very good publicist in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,” Wood says with a laugh. He explains that our favorite midnight rider owes much of his fame to Longfellow’s poetic spin in Paul Revere’s Ride. Revere was just one part of a far-reaching network — a coordinated strategy of riders and signals designed to alert the colonists that war was on its doorstep. And that’s just one part of the story worth deeper consideration.

The Concord Museum’s new exhibit, “Whose Revolution,” expands the lens even further beyond the battlefield, asking who else shaped, and was shaped by, the war. “It looks at the experiences of women, it looks at the experiences of free and enslaved Black people in Concord,” Wood says.

All that remains of the once thriving port town of Brunswick Town, North Carolina, are the ruins of an Anglican church.

Courtesy of Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site

Brunswick Town, North Carolina

America has no shortage of ghost towns, but don’t overlook Brunswick Town, North Carolina, a once-thriving colonial port whose rise and fall was deeply tied to Great Britain.

“It was founded in 1726 … [to be] a deep-water international port,” says Andrew Craver, a historic interpreter at the Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site. Located 35 miles south of Wilmington along the Cape Fear River, Brunswick Town built its reputation on tar, pitch and turpentine. Naval stores shipped the items across the pond to keep the British Royal Navy afloat. But when the Stamp Act passed in 1765, the town’s 150 to 250 residents began to reconsider their loyalty to the Crown. Craver explains that the town became a hotbed for the defense of individual liberties.

In 1766, seven years before the Boston Tea Party, the colonists challenged the king’s authority to distribute the tax stamps. “That is sort of the first domino to relatively fall in the process going forward to the steps to revolution,” Craver says. The British exacted their revenge in 1776 when they invaded. Having gotten early word of their impending arrival, the city evacuated and essentially never returned. Today, all that remains are the ruins of an Anglican church completed in 1768, but it’s worth seeing if only to imagine the place where some of the first sparks of revolution burned.

two cannons surronded by trees and greenery

Fort George in Pensacola, Florida, was a military stronghold for England.

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Fort George, Pensacola, Florida

Revolutionary fighting in Florida? It’s true. “Fort George – and the Siege of Pensacola – was incredibly important for the American Revolution,” says Jessie Cragg, curator of exhibits at the University of West Florida Historic Trust. During the American Revolution, West Florida was under British occupation and served as a major military stronghold for England. “With our deep-water port and strategic location, the British utilized this area as staging for reinforcements, access to natural resources that helped supply troops, and provided a defensive line against the neighboring Spanish in Louisiana,” Cragg says.

Spanish commander Bernardo de Gálvez saw a strategic opening to reclaim former Spanish territories stretching from Louisiana to Florida. In 1781, capitalizing on Britain’s divided military focus, Spanish and French forces launched a two-month campaign against Pensacola, targeting Fort George. Joined by a common enemy, the alliance proved mutually beneficial for Spain and the Patriots, Cragg says.

Though little of the original Fort George still remains, a commemorative structure was built for the nation’s bicentennial in the 1970s, which you can tour today.

the exterior of Fort Chambly National Historic Site

A trip to Fort Chambly National Historic Site provides a look at the Continental Army’s attempt to seize modern-day Quebec.

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Fort Chambly, Quebec, Canada

Though Patriot control was fleeting, a visit to Canada’s Fort Chambly National Historic Site offers a glimpse into the Continental Army’s failed attempt at seizing the modern-day province of Quebec.

The ambitious 1775 invasion, aimed at securing the northern frontier and rallying French-Canadians to the Patriot cause, saw an early victory at Chambly. However, a combination of factors, including an outbreak of smallpox, spoiled those plans.

According to the Parks Canada Fort Chambly Interpretation Papers written by a team of historians, as British reinforcements arrived via the St. Lawrence River, the Americans withdrew, marking the beginning of the end for the ill-fated Canadian campaign. Today, visitors can take a self-guided tour of the remarkable riverfront fortress originally constructed by the French in 1711.

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Kinsey Gidick is a freelance travel writer based in central Virginia. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Travel + Leisure, BBC, and Smithsonian, among others.