From majestic peaks to storybook fall foliage, Vermont is full of picturesque landscapes. So it's no surprise that one of the clearest, bluest lakes in New England is found in Willoughby State Forest near the town of Westmore.
The so-called "Queen of American Lakes" was a playground for Gilded Age robber barons, many of whose original waterfront stone mansions still line a 10-mile stretch known as Millionaires' Row.
Deep within the Nantahala National Forest and surrounded by the Great Smoky Mountains, Lake Santeetlah's forested 76-mile shoreline is almost completely protected from development.
Clear, deep, and cold, Yellowstone Lake is found in one of the world's most geologically active areas, under the watch of the Beartooth and Absaroka mountains.
The name speaks for itself: Lake Superior is the world's largest freshwater lake. And there's a lifetime's worth of views around every corner of its 2,800-mile majestic shoreline.
Flathead is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi, with clean, crystalline waters cradled in the Flathead Valley by the Mission Mountains to the east and the Salish Mountains to the west.
Crater Lake's birth story is inscribed along its nearly 22-mile rim. It formed almost 8,000 years ago when volcanic Mount Mazama blew its top and left a smoldering caldera that would eventually fill with rain and snowmelt.
Ringed by the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains and bathed in an Impressionist palette of blues, Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America and the second deepest in the U.S.
Of the handful of towns on Caddo Lake, none sums up the feel of this place better than Uncertain, Texas. Mystery seems to shroud the lake's 27,000 acres, where Spanish moss hangs like drapery from tree limbs in the world's largest cypress forest.
Amid a forbidding landscape of dusty desert, dry hills, and volcanic craters on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada, Mono Lake was nearly destroyed by Los Angeles' thirst for the waters that fed it.
In a southeast corner of the White Mountain National Forest, Echo Lake rests under the shadow of Whitehorse Ledge, whose reflection nearly covers the 16 acres of water.