Thermal environments are a critical abiotic factor influencing activity patterns, determining physiological rates, and setting the limits of species distributions for terrestrial ectotherms across broad geographic scales. As such, linking immediate environmental conditions with fitness-relevant activities is an essential aspect of organismal ecology. This is particularly important for plethodontid salamanders, which are lungless, desiccation-vulnerable ectotherms with low metabolic rates, and whose key life history activities are closely tied to temperature. We conducted repeated surveys of Plethodon cinereus (Eastern red-backed salamander) with standardized coverboard arrays in central Ohio forests and used infrared thermography to quantify salamander body temperatures and characterize thermal landscapes at the coverboard level, within arrays, and across sites. Plethodon cinereus exhibited limited evidence of thermal microhabitat selection based at either fine (the level of a coverboard) or coarse (across coverboard arrays) spatial scales. However, as thermal conditions deviated further above and below mean temperatures, salamanders selected more moderate available temperatures for surface activity. The general lack of thermally selective behavior, except at the thermal extremes of our survey observations, demonstrates not only that individuals of P. cinereus are surface active across a broad temperature range, but also suggests that they may be exploiting thermal heterogeneity to balance evaporative water loss and metabolic demands. This activity pattern suggests that salamanders can perform physiological functions across a broad temperature range and also behaviorally buffer the negative impacts of extreme temperatures, important considerations for predicting responses to future climates.