Cloudcroft, NM

Cloudcroft perches at 8,650 feet in New Mexico's Sacramento Mountains, offering summer temperatures 20-30 degrees cooler than the desert below. Reach this mountain retreat via the scenic 18-mile climb on US Highway 82 from Alamogordo, gaining over 4,000 feet through Lincoln National Forest. The historic Lodge at Cloudcroft, built in 1899, still operates as a Victorian resort and is reportedly haunted by Rebecca, a chambermaid who died there in the early 1900s.