Norfolk Botanical Garden

Roughly 175 acres on a peninsula in Lake Whitehurst, laid out in 1938 and among the largest botanical gardens in the mid-Atlantic. It was built by 220 workers, 200 of them Black women, hired under a Depression-era programme and paid very little to clear swamp by hand — a fact the garden now marks with a memorial rather than glossing over.

The azalea collection is the historic core and peaks in April, but the site is built to work year-round: a Japanese garden, a rose garden with several thousand bushes, a bald cypress swamp on boardwalks, a large children's garden with water play, and a canopy walk added recently. Trams and boats run narrated loops in season for anyone not wanting to walk the full circuit.

Practical: open daily, around $20-26, and directly beside Norfolk International Airport — planes overhead are part of the experience. Two to three hours. Dogs are allowed on certain days, and bicycles are permitted on the paths.