Tasha Zemke is Outside magazine’s associate managing editor and a member of the Outside Online travel team. She's also an avid world traveler. Josh Drinkard always wanted to build his own cabin.

LITHOPOLIS, Ohio — Officials plan to celebrate the log-cabin heritage of the Fairfield County village of Lithopolis by building a new log cabin using the beams salvaged from three historic log homes.

While searching for a new home a few years ago, my wife and I toured a log cabin for rent in the mountains of western North Carolina. It was built with historic reclaimed wood, and the long, stacked ...