51 Roadside Attractions You Need To See To Believe

When you were in school, you may have made a diorama or two for a class project. But you've never seen anything like this one. Apple Valley Hillbilly Garden and Toyland's main attraction is a diorama of over 4,000 toys guaranteed to bring on some serious nostalgia. The toys inside include pop culture favorites like Star Wars battlefields and "Gunsmoke"-themed Western displays. The oldest toys are from the 19th century and the newest from the modern day. The owner, Keith, will probably be present when you arrive, and his passion for his trade is clear to all who stop by. Outside the museum, the surrounding area is scattered with quirky sculptures and wacky keepsakes that have been transformed into folk art. If you're road-tripping down U.S. 24, be sure to pop in — but bring bug spray. Visitors warn that the mosquitos in the area do not mess around, and those bugs are more dangerous than you think.

John Milkovisch created the Beer Can House over a span of 20 years using over 50,000 cans of beer. Bored after retirement and "sick of mowing the grass," Milkovisch could have traveled to a relaxing post-retirement destination, but instead began laying thousands of marbles, rocks and pieces of metal into the concrete and redwood around his house in 1968. He had soon covered his entire front and backyard and began working on coating the actual structure of his house with recyclables. Specifically, Milkovisch coated his walls with aluminum beer cans. The house is now considered a folk art icon and is complete with hanging garlands of cans Milkovisch crushed — in more ways than one. The house is mostly made from beers he consumed himself, though his wife and friends did occasionally help out. The cans were hardly from the best-tasting beers in the country. Milkovisch's favorite beer was always "whatever's on special."

The largest ketchup bottle in the world isn't filled with ketchup — it's filled with water, and it holds the water reserve for the city of Collinsville, Illinois. It was originally built beside Route 159 to supply water to a Brooks Foods ketchup plant nearby, hence the Brooks Old Original Catsup bottle shape. Brooks Foods has since shut down, and the plant is no longer functional. But the 170-foot-tall water tower still pays homage to the condiment company and was restored by local preservation efforts long after the company closed. If it were actually filled with ketchup, it would contain the equivalent of 640,000 bottles of Brooks Old Original Catsup. And this town does love its ketchup — every year they celebrate the Catsup Bottle Festival. There are motor races, vendors and a children's pageant to crown each year's Little Princess Tomato and Sir Catsup. Sounds like one of the best food festivals in America to us!

In the middle of the desert near Amarillo, Texas, 10 Cadillacs are nose-down in the sand, half-buried, lined up single-file and covered in graffiti. This art installation is from the minds of Chip Lord, Hudson Marquez and Doug Michels, all of whom were members of the experimental art group Ant Farm. The trio chose to pitch their idea to eccentric millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 (who opted against using the Roman numeral III in his name to avoid looking pretentious) for funding, and he complied. In 1997, the installation was built. Since then, the cars have been repainted a number of times for various reasons, but were re-graffitied to their original colors in 2012. You can drive by and stop for a photo off the south side of Interstate 40, around 10 miles southwest of Amarillo.

The unique art installation of Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska, is a life-size replica of Stonehenge — only instead of ancient stones, it's made from modern cars. Carhenge was built by artist Jim Reinders and a group of friends and family in the 1980s. Reinders reportedly said that the structure, which consists of 38 cars and is 96 feet in diameter, "took a lot of blood, sweat, and beers" to build. It has since been joined by other car-themed sculptures and has won a couple of awards. Admission to Carhenge is free, and the site attracts over 60,000 visitors each year.

Of all the castles you can find in the United States, this is the most a-maize-ing. The Corn Palace, also advertised as The World's Only Corn Palace and the Mitchell Corn Palace, is a multi-purpose venue meant to celebrate corn built by a town that's crazy about the crop. In Mitchell, South Dakota, the high school mascot is the Kernels and their local radio station is KORN. The Corn Palace hosts an annual Corn Palace Festival. But if you're wondering what's popping at the Corn Palace at any other time of year, rest assured that if you love corn, there's no wrong season to visit. The castle is always bustling with activities including concerts, banquets, Food Truck Fridays (which has some of the best food trucks in America) and corn-themed concessions. It's made of concrete — not corn — but every year, the building's exterior is covered with thousands of bushels of South Dakota corn, grain and grasses. The greenery is arranged into one-of-a-kind murals that last till fall. They also frequently serve as a venue for local events such as graduation, sporting events and prom. Before you go, stop by the gift shop to grab yourself a corny souvenir.

In the sub-basement of a medical library at Yale University, there's a dimly lit, cavernous room filled with jars of preserved brains. Healthy brains, brains with tumors, torn-apart brains... Squishy organs of all shapes and sizes are on display at the Cushing Brain Collection for visitors to see. There's no mad scientist roving these halls — admission is open to the public and encouraged for curious minds. The collection of over 400 jarred organs was originally assembled by the pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing in the early 1900s and is still being added to today. Cushing's main topic of study was brain tumor treatment, though he was also a talented artist and surgeon. His collection was donated years after Cushing's death and has been on display ever since at one of the strangest museums in America.

This is a secret gem of Hawaii that only the locals know. At Dole Plantation, visitors can find and walk through the world's largest maze. It was officially awarded the title in 2008 and has held it ever since. The Giant Pineapple Garden Maze encompasses over 3 acres of land and has nearly two and a half miles of paths. The paths are made up of approximately 14,000 native Hawaiian plants. Visitors can pay $8 for admission to the maze and treat themselves to a refreshing cup of Dole Whip afterwards. At the center of the labyrinth, there's a mystery — but you have to find all eight stations within the maze before you can find out what it is.

Ohio has plenty of corn, but this is no ordinary cornfield. The Field of Corn in Dublin, Ohio, is one of the oddest, most famous attractions in the Midwest. The artistic installation features 109 person-sized sculptures of gray ears of corn. Each one is 6 feet 3 inches tall, and all are set in orderly rows across the large field. The piece is meant to symbolize the community's longstanding legacy of farming and to celebrate the culture of the town — but the sentiment may have been a tad too corny, because it became more of a joke to residents than a serious homage to agriculture. Tax dollars were being spent on inedible giant food, rather than actual food grown in the ground. The field was once used to farm actual corn by Sam Frantz, who helped to pioneer the use of hybridized corn. No matter the controversy, visitors still come from all over to visit the installation and learn kernels of the town's history.

You've heard of the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and other odd regional creatures, but what about the Boggy Creek Monster? Residents of Fouke, Arkansas, have been hearing about him for decades. The legend states that the 300-pound, hairy beast wanders the area at night and sleeps during the day. There have been over 40 reported sightings of the monster, though none have been confirmed. One alleged sighting ended in a hospital visit — a child named Bobby Ford was treated for severe gashes across his back. The local legend has inspired a local attraction called Fouke Monster Mart filled with souvenirs, food and artwork based on the creature. The store has statues of the monster and a large mural depicting his frame.

Off the side of Highway 62, there is a property covered in an eclectic collection of outdoor artwork. The Glass Outhouse Art Gallery contains an outhouse, a giant can of Pepsi Cola, a "Ghoul's Gym" filled with exercising skeletons, men drowning in "quicksand" and more. The owners give out free cold drinks and popsicles, both of which you'll need to stay hydrated walking around the scorching desert oasis. The only bathroom on the property is a glass outhouse with a one-way window for a door. You can see out, but you can't see in.

With a name like Hole N" the Rock, you might not think this landmark was really anything special. But when you see the giant lettering painted on the side of a rock off of Highway 191 in Moab, Utah, don't drive by without making a pit stop. The incorrectly punctuated signage points to a 5,000-square-foot cavern carved into the rock face by local couple Albert and Gladys Christensen in the 1940s. They blasted open the hole with dynamite to use it as their home, working on creating a large enough space for 12 years. Once it was finished, they moved in with their family and opened a diner they hoped would earn them some money. The establishment brought a whole new meaning to the idea of a "hole-in-the-wall" diner, and was quite a success. Albert died just five years after it was finished, in 1957. But his wife lived in the hole and ran the diner until 1970, when she died. Both Albert and Gladys are buried on the property. Now, the cavern functions as a roadside attraction complete with guided tours of the old home, a rock and cactus garden, Native American pottery, a petting zoo and an ice cream shop.

The Democratic Party commissioned the Jimmy Carter Smiling Peanut in Georgia as a publicity stunt to win the hearts of voters — and it worked. The 13-foot-tall attraction helped Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford in Plains and every other voting district in Georgia in 1976. The statue still stands tall bearing Carter's trademark toothy grin. Tragically, the second-largest peanut in the world was caught in a fender bender in 2000 and had to be moved from the local train depot to the Davis E-Z Shop in Plains. But it still stands intact today. There is just one mystery of this giant peanut: There's a small hole in his frame and no one is sure how it got there. Some theories say that the Secret Service carved it there during the election so they wouldn't have to crack open his shell to check the interior for bombs.

Phantly Roy Bean Jr. was a 19th-century Texan and a character straight out of an old Western. After arriving from the nearby town of Beanville with nothing but a tent, some supplies and 10 barrels of whiskey to his name, "Judge" Roy Bean settled down in a tent city he called Vinegaroon. Here, he was named the justice of the peace and began calling himself the "Law West of the Pecos," ruling with an outdated lawbook and a jury made up of his best bar customers (who were required to buy a drink during recesses). Oh yeah, Roy Bean held his court in a saloon called the Jersey Lilly, named after the British actress he was infatuated with, Lilly Langtry. The court was wild, and Bean's saloon still stands. Visitors can tour it and the (much nicer) visitors center nearby to learn about the town's history and the strange, gunslinging saga of Judge Roy Bean.

Just 15 minutes outside the Chicago O'Hare airport in Pisa's sister city, Niles, Illinois, there's a half-sized replica of Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tower was built in 1934 by Robert Ilg, intended as a place to store water for a nearby public pool. Ilg also had a special admiration for Galileo, who was said to have used the original leaning tower to help prove theories about gravity. Today, the on-site water fountains serve no purpose other than aesthetics. But the tower remains an attraction for visitors. It's also 10 minutes from the world's first-ever McDonald's — a somewhat different food scene than you'd find in Pisa, Italy.

People from everywhere from Wisconsin to Texas claim to have invented the hamburger, so it's tough to say who was ever really the first. But legend has it, Louis Lassen was the first to sell this iconic American food on his lunch wagon in 1900. Like many other foods, the hamburger may have been invented by mistake. Lassen's restaurant sold steak sandwiches, but one day, he ran out. To accommodate a hungry customer, Lassen took trimmings from other pieces of beef, ground them into a patty, grilled the patty and slapped it on two slices of toast. The rest is history. You can still eat at Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut, but there are a few conditions. There are only two sandwiches on the menu: a hamburger and cheeseburger. And, as a sign inside the restaurant will tell you, "This is not Burger King, you don't get it your way." You get it Louis' way, or you don't get it at all: on white toast without ketchup or other condiments. The only toppings allowed are tomato and onion. But despite its oddities, Louis' Lunch serves one of the best burgers in America you can get for under $10.

After he dies, actor Nicolas Cage himself hopes to become a national treasure. The actor has made a number of wild purchases in his lifetime, including a haunted mansion and a pet octopus, but this just might be the strangest. Cage purchased a tomb located in a cemetery in New Orleans and shaped like a giant pyramid with the ominous inscription "Omnia Ab Uno," which translates from Latin as "Everything From One." What this means remains a mystery, as do Cage's motivations for purchasing the tomb, though some speculate it has something to do with his alleged affiliations with the Illuminati. Regardless of his reasons, Cage has unintentionally attracted tourists to his tomb; some have even left prints of bright lipstick behind.

You might not think of newspaper as the most reliable form of shelter, but the architect behind the famous Paper House made it work. This remarkable structure in Rockport, Massachusetts, has stood against all odds for nearly 100 years. Elis F. Stenman, the mechanical engineer behind mass-produced paper clips, began building his house of paper in 1922 as a side hobby. His idea was that paper made good insulation and could be protective and useful against the Northeast's brutal winter. Once the house was finished in 1924, Stenman moved in and lived in the house until 1930. The structure itself is made of wood, as are the roof and floors — but all of the walls and layers of insulation are 100 percent paper. Varnish painted on the exterior makes the house waterproof. Inside, the house is decorated with intricately folded pieces of furniture also made of paper. The structure has functioned as a museum since the 1930s and is frequented by curious visitors year-round.

A trip to Peggy Sue's is a trip back in time — to both the 1950's and the prehistoric age. On the side of a highway in the middle of the Mojave Desert, travelers will find a '50s-style diner (complete with a '50s-style menu) with a giant jukebox for a door. Peggy opened the establishment with her husband Chip in 1981. Peggy worked as an actress and Chip was a worker at Knott's Berry Farm, one of the best theme parks in America that few people have heard of. The interior of the diner is filled with the couple's TV and movie memorabilia, including a life-size statue of Betty Boop. Waitresses are decked out in vintage-style pink-and-teal uniforms. There's also a vintage ice cream counter and a backyard "Diner-Saur Park." Out back, visitors can walk off the best greasy diner meals while meandering through 10-foot-tall metal statues of dinosaurs and a massive King Kong.

Scott "The Reptile Man" Peterson, zoologist and educator, founded the Reptile Zoo in 1996 in hopes of spreading his personal love of reptiles to others. This is no ordinary zoo — and these aren't just ordinary reptiles. The facility houses an albino alligator and a two-headed turtle, both alive. Peterson also has giant tarantulas, brightly colored frogs, an extensive snake collection (including the world's deadliest snake, the black mamba), color-changing chameleons, enormous lizards and a tortoise petting station. Museum visitors can hold many of the snakes on site and participate in a kid-friendly scavenger hunt.

If you ever find yourself in Hatch, New Mexico, and want to stop for a bite, consider stopping at Sparky's. A novelty restaurant specializing in burgers, barbecue and espresso, they'll satisfy your greasy food and caffeine cravings. But the best part about Sparky's is the decor. Out front, a robot alien named Sparky greets hungry customers, as does the Statue of Liberty, Ronald McDonald and a 30-foot-tall Uncle Sam. On the roof, the A&W family lines up with burgers. Across the street, you'll see huge statues of Robin Hood, Hamm from "Toy Story," Yogi Bear, a robot, a bucket of KFC and a bright-green alien. Inside, many of the menu items find creative ways to incorporate Hatch chile peppers (the town's namesake) into dishes like burgers, fries, milkshakes and other classic diner fare.

It may not be the best dive bar in Arizona, but Sultana Bar is certainly the oldest. Situated on the curbside of Route 66, this watering hole still stands where it opened 14 years before the highway was built. The neon sign out front advertises world-famous bar, cocktails and "package goods," a phrase referring to the old practice of selling packaged alcohol to go. Beneath the (still-operating) bar, there is a large maze of tunnels reportedly dug by opium smugglers in the early 20th century. During Prohibition, the tunnels were used to hide and transport stockpiles of liquor while the above-ground portion was used to show silent movies to thirsty customers. The theater portion of the establishment now functions as a venue for special events while the bar portion functions as, well... a bar. Complete with beer-and-a-shot specials, pool tables and a jukebox, this cheap establishment still welcomes weary travelers for a guaranteed and historically good time.

Even if you're not a believer, you should stop by the UFO Watchtower to try your luck at spotting aliens. Just north of Hooper, Colorado, local resident Judy Messoline has built an observation platform with a 360-degree view of the San Luis Valley. The valley is the site of many supposed UFO sightings on clear nights, which inspired Messoline to start inviting people to camp on her property for extra cash. Though the venture started as something of a joke, Messoline has at this point been entirely converted. She now believes wholeheartedly in aliens and flying saucers, keeping detailed records of stories people tell her of their sightings while passing through. In addition to a 10-foot-high viewing platform and a gift shop filled with paraphernalia, visitors can stroll through the "Healing Garden" out back. Here, Messoline says that over 20 psychics have confirmed the presence of two large "vortexes." The spaces are outlined by rocks and littered with objects such as CDs and old toys that eager visitors have left behind.

High Point, North Carolina, is known as the "furniture capital of the world," and it's got a statue to prove it. The town's chamber of commerce commissioned the gigantic chest of drawers in 1926 to honor the town's hosiery industry. The first statue was 20 feet tall, but it was later rebuilt into a 38-foot-tall Goddard-Townsend block front chest. From the front of the drawers hang two 6-foot, neon-colored socks. There's not much to do there other than ogle, but visitors seem to agree that the location is the high point of the town.

You'll know you've arrived at PistachioLand in Alamogordo, New Mexico, because outside the building is a huge 30-foot-tall pistachio. The monument is more than just an advertisement for the local nut business. Tim McGinn, whose father Tom founded McGinn's Pistachio Tree Ranch, commissioned the statue to commemorate the elder McGinn after he passed away. It might seem a little nutty to create a roadside spectacle to remember your father by, but Tom was said to have loved roadside attractions while he was still alive. "Tom dreamed big, expected big, and accomplished big things," reads the bronze plaque placed outside. "He would have said the monument is not big enough!" The icon is held up on a pole and anchored in 9 feet of concrete. But don't let this gigantic nut be your only draw to this attraction. While you're at PistachioLand, pick up some delightful pistachio-flavored treats such as chili-chocolate pistachio brittle, barbecue roasted pistachios and homemade pistachio milkshakes.

Yard Birds Mall and Flea Market is a shopping venue in Chehalis, Washington, with a hodgepodge of over 100 vendors, including local artisans, antique shops and more. But if you don't stop to shop, you should at least visit the gigantic black bird statue posted outside, which is beloved by locals because it's a remnant of an once-popular shopping chain, Yard Birds, that closed in the 1990s. (At another location, the chain erected an even crazier 60-foot-tall bird statue that visitors could actually drive though, but it spectacularly burned down in the '70s.) The 7-acre venue is now home to shopping year-round as well as a one-of-a-kind swap meet, a Miss Yard Birds Pageant, a Kid Day, classic car meets and other events. Indoors, visitors can also entertain themselves at the black light mini golf course or rent out a party room to host events. Though it may not seem especially venerable, the mall is quite the landmark. If you pass through Washington, you should stop to see it — in fact, you should try to see the most iconic landmark in every state you visit.