Six places in the US where you can sleep at a drive-in

From retro 1950s properties to modern glamping sites, these places are reviving one of the US's most enduring pastimes – and offering travellers one last classic summer experience.

At the Frontier Drive-Inn, there are no televisions in the guest rooms. Instead, as the property rather cheekily puts it, the biggest TV in southern Colorado is right outside your door.

That would be the outdoor screen left over from the Frontier's first life as a drive-in cinema, which opened in 1955 and went dark three decades later. Today, the former cinema anchors a retro-inspired hotel where guests sleep in Quonset-style yurts and vintage trailers, then gather outside for films beneath the famously dark skies of the San Luis Valley.

As Labor Day (7 September) approaches, the Frontier and other properties like it are providing a fresh take on one of the US's most enduring warm-weather pastimes – and offering one last classic summer experience before the season winds down.

For generations of Americans, drive-ins have been inseparable from summer. The country's first drive-in opened in 1933, but they exploded after WWII, when rising car ownership, suburban expansion and the baby boom helped push their number to nearly 5,000 by the late 1950s, according to April Wright, a drive-in historian and director of Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-In Movie in which she visits roughly 500 open, abandoned or former drive-in sites.

"Going to the drive-in was just something you did every summer," Wright said.

Though their heyday may have passed, Wright says the appeal of drive-ins isn't purely nostalgic. Plenty of younger visitors are experiencing them for the first time, drawn to the fact that a night at the drive-in is as much about the ritual around the film as the film itself.

"What it's always been about, and what it is still about today, is spending time with friends and family, and creating an experience," Wright said.

Now, a handful of hotels, motels and campgrounds around the US are turning that experience into an overnight stay. Some have revived long-shuttered drive-ins, while others let guests sleep within sight of giant screens that have been showing films for decades. At these properties, film night doesn't end with the final credits.

When the Frontier was redeveloped, its original 1950s screen and roadside sign were among the few pieces of the old drive-in still standing – and both have been preserved.

Luke Falcone, co-owner of Frontier, said the screen had survived decades of the San Luis Valley's harsh weather and was too important to the site's history to lose. "When doing historic preservation projects, if you come across something that isn't broken, you've hit the jackpot," he said.

Despite the name, the Frontier is no longer a traditional drive-in: guests don't pull up in their cars, but settle into lawn chairs or onto blankets to watch fan-favourite films under the stars. "By bringing folks out of their rooms (and cars), we provide an entirely different experience that we can all bond over," Falcone said. The programming leans into nostalgic cult classics, while the accommodation is decidedly modern.

About 15 miles (24km) from the Frontier, the Best Western Movie Manor takes the drive-in hotel idea one step further: guests can watch from bed.

The motel was built beside The Star Drive-In Theatre, which opened in 1955 as drive-ins were booming across the US, and many rooms face one of its two screens through large picture windows, with the film's audio piped inside. Each room is named after a movie star, from Cary Grant to Robert De Niro, and guests can also head outside and watch from their cars. More than 70 years after The Star first lit up, it still shows films seasonally (generally from spring to the end of September).

The Sutherlin/Umpqua Valley KOA Holiday campground occupies the former Cloverleaf Drive-In, where the original 100ft (30m) screen survived long after the cinema itself closed. When the current owner bought the property in 2006, they chose to keep the screen and eventually added a digital projector and FM transmitter, bringing films back to the site.

Today, films are shown most weekends. Some RV sites sit directly in front of the screen (or have private patios angled towards it), allowing guests to watch from their rigs and tune into the film over their radios, much as they would at a traditional drive-in. Tent campers and guests in the rest of the RV sites can bring chairs or blankets to a grassy viewing area just in front of the screen, where the sound plays aloud.

Unlike most of the places on this list, Four Brothers isn't a survivor from the golden age of the silver screen. The Hudson Valley theatre opened in 2013, reviving the format decades after thousands of its predecessors had disappeared. Since then, the family-run property has added mini-golf, fire pits and Hotel Caravana, where guests can sleep in vintage trailers within the drive-in grounds or even pitch their own tent.

Set along Scenic Byway 12 in southern Utah, Ofland Escalante occupies a former drive-in site within Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Guests spend the day hiking, exploring slot canyons or visiting nearby Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef national parks, then return in time for the nightly film. "The movie starts just after dusk and it anchors the whole evening," said Noah Ellis, CEO of Ofland Hotels. "It's a key amenity, not an add-on."

The old drive-in comes with its own fleet of vintage cars – including a 1957 Chevrolet and Ford Thunderbird – that are parked facing the screen. Guests grab complimentary popcorn and classic sweets from the concession stand, choose a car and settle in beneath the desert sky.

"The site was a drive-in long before it was a hotel, so keeping actual cars in the mix mattered to us," Ellis said. "There's something about a row of vintage cars, climbing in with a bag of popcorn, that stays with people." Overnight options range from modernised vintage Airstreams to a variety of cabins.

Tucked into the mountains of north-eastern Georgia, the Tiger Drive-In first opened in 1954, went dark in the 1980s and then sat abandoned for roughly two decades. It returned to life in 2004, and today guests can stay after the movie in one of three vintage 1960s campervans parked on the drive-in grounds (each with a private deck facing the screen), or camp in a tent or RV.

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