How do you plan your (photographic) trips?`

Here in Ontario (Canada), we have a lot of reference material, including books that catalog off the beaten track locations, like “Waterfalls of Ontario” (which has a companion web site), “Ontario Abandoned Places”, and “Ontario Back Roads”. There are web sites for national parks and provincial parks, including hundreds of “non-operating parks” which can be entered but are not maintained. It might be worthwhile to check whether your state has similar resources.

I have been experimenting with CoMaps, Organic Maps and OSM, but it’s unfortunately still hard to top Google Maps as a virtual exploration tool. AllTrails is good for determining how easy or tough a trail is.