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We all know what a Tourist Trap is. It's a piece of pop culture the world's passed by but still somehow exists and draws visitors. Often hilariously tacky ,sometimes racist, most of them have a certain, quaint charm. South of the Border!  The Boll Weevil Monument!  Professor Cline's Dinosaur Kingdom! quote:“(V)isitors are asked to imagine themselves in 1863. A family of Virginia paleontologists has accidentally dug a mine shaft into a hidden valley of living dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the Union Army has tagged along, hoping to kidnap the big lizards and use them as ‘weapons of mass destruction’ against the South. What you see along the path of Dinosaur Kingdom is a series of tableaus depicting the aftermath of this ill-advised military strategy. As you enter, a lunging, bellowing T-Rex head lets you know that the dinosaurs are mad — and they only get madder. A big snake has eaten one Yankee, and is about to eat another. An Allosaurus grabs a bluecoat off of his rearing horse while a second soldier futilely tries to lasso the big lizard. Another Yankee crawls up a tree with a stolen egg while the mom dinosaur batters it down.”  Mammy's Cupboard!   Mighty Og!  Bedrock City!   I think tourist traps are a uniquely American/Canadian thing, Neil Gaiman once wrote... quote:"It's perfectly simple," said Wednesday. "In other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power. Sometimes it would be a natural formation, sometimes it would just be a place that was, somehow, special. They knew that something important was happening there, that there was some focusing point, some channel, some window to the Immanent. And so they would build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or…well, you get the idea." Nckdictator has a new favorite as of 23:41 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 13, 2014 03:41
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I've only ever passed South of the Border (which if you don't know is on the border between NC and SC), and the signs leading up to it are so racist sometimes that I can't believe it's still running in 2014
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Dec 13, 2014 22:59
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 The big Goldpanner from my hometown of Bathurst, Australia. This is near the western end of town and there's always a few people taking a photo with it. He gets painted a few times a year, usually once at christmas so he looks like a santa (  ) and then once or twice during the rest of the year, so he always looks in good knick.Comedy option: 
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Dec 13, 2014 23:08
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The fishing museum in Hayward, Wisconsin.
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Dec 13, 2014 23:16
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Went on a roadtrip with my family once, Carhenge definitely fits the bill.
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Dec 13, 2014 23:57
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South Dakota loves tourist traps. ---- WALL DRUG Wall, South Dakota  It's basically the grandaddy of all tourist traps (in operation since 1931). It has gone from just one drug store tempting travelers with "Free Ice Water" to an emporium of crap.  It's huge rear end tourist trap that's essentially a mall of cheap food, outdated pop culture memorabilia, old-timey photo booths, leather and rhinestone accessories, plus a bunch of cheesy oddities like weird animatronics and stuffed jackalopes.   The only reason it got so popular is because it was so good at self-promoting. There are billboards for it literally all over the world (this picture is from a sign in Antarctica). The most effective use of the billboards is on I-90 west, where travelers go to reach Mt. Rushmore. These billboards are absolutely impossible to ignore, and there's so little else to stop at on the way, Wall Drug is a basically inevitable stop.  ---- THE CORN PALACE Mitchell, South Dakota  Even if you're impressed by the decorations on the outside, don't expect anything fun to do. What's on the inside is just a faded old basketball court and a gift shop. ---- 1880s COWBOY TOWN Buffalo Ridge, South Dakota There's actually an 1880s Town in Murdo, SD as well, but it's just meant to be a run of the mill "educational" site with historical reenactors, etc. This one, built in the 1960s is truly craptastic. It's a bunch of old buildings filled with wonky animatronics. It's like a ghost town populated by just robots. Here's what it's like to walk through it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-t7HFHrJ_o (A review of this stellar attraction is here.) angelfisher has a new favorite as of 01:31 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 01:03
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Anyone traveling to Cocoa Beach on SR 50 will pass through a little town called Christmas, Florida, famous for its year-round Christmas decorations in that one spot near the post office. They also boast to have the "world's largest gator," Swampy, a roadside attraction and entrance to Jungle Adventures animal park.  The rest of the town is pretty much just trailer parks and meth labs, perhaps a little more festive than typical. 
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Dec 14, 2014 02:45
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angelfisher posted:South Dakota loves tourist traps. My grandparents dragged me to all of these places when I was around 10. I distinctly remember all of these places sucked balls. I also remember that Cowboy town being ungodly hot and miserable. Thanks for bringing back bad memories to me.
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Dec 14, 2014 07:08
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Ron Jon's Surf Shop, Cocoa Beach, FL_001_crop.jpg)
Somebody has a new favorite as of 17:57 on Dec 14, 2014 |
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Dec 14, 2014 17:13
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Cat Army
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Gaunab posted:I've only ever passed South of the Border (which if you don't know is on the border between NC and SC), and the signs leading up to it are so racist sometimes that I can't believe it's still running in 2014 Something racist exists on the border of the Carolinas in TYOOL 2014?
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Dec 14, 2014 20:15
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I-10 The Thing Arizona. Sorry no pictures at the moment.
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Dec 14, 2014 20:26
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 "SEE 7 STATES FROM BEAUTIFUL LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN & SEE ROCK CITY AND THE RUBY FALLS" painted on barns all over the south. Lookout Mountain is a hill in southern Tennessee that alleges you can see 7 states, but all you really see is trees.  A town in rural southern Indiana that wanted to be named "Santa Fe" but was told by the US Post Office it was taken. So when asked for a new name they went with the smart rear end response of "Santa Claus" which was accepted. A local tycoon took his kids to Santa Claus and saw it was some tiny town of around 20 people and decided to build a large Christmas-themed village there, which eventually turned into Holiday World, the world's first Theme Park. The town isn't a trap, really. It's more of a theme park with a Christmas themed suburb attached, but whatever.
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Dec 14, 2014 20:44
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This'll serve as a memorial for the Byron Peach in Georgia. Also known as the Giant Butt of Byron. In the middle of the countryside where Georgia grew all the peaches it got its nickname from, it was built to attract thru traffic into a number of kitschy antique shops and overpriced dried fruit candy and nut stores. Plus maybe the Cracker Barrel. Having family in south Georgia as a kid, my family made many trips a year from Atlanta to visit and this dumb thing served as the "halfway-there" marker. We never stopped there once, not even just to refuel or grab some fast food. In 2011 it blew down in a windstorm and was never rebuilt. They still have the Byron Peach Watertower, though!  Being a part of the city infrastructure, it actually gets maintained and probably won't fall over on its own.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:05
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Dec 14, 2014 21:13
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 Solvang, CA is puddle of Dutch in the middle of the desert. Look forward to famously Dutch pastimes such as sitting in a giant shoe and feeding ostriches.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:27
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littleorv posted:My grandparents dragged me to all of these places when I was around 10. I distinctly remember all of these places sucked balls. I also remember that Cowboy town being ungodly hot and miserable. Thanks for bringing back bad memories to me. quote:Having family in south Georgia as a kid, my family made many trips a year from Atlanta to visit and this dumb thing served as the "halfway-there" marker. We never stopped there once, not even just to refuel or grab some fast food.  The Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota. That's all it is, plus a gift shop. Apparently there was a canning factory there that supplied Green Giant, and visitors would receive cans of Green Giant vegetables. They were losing out on visitors, and then they realized I-90 passed Blue Earth. They thought a massive Green Giant statue might lure more visitors. The canning factory's closed now but the Green Giant remains. My family used to stop there all the time on the way up to the Twin Cities.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:44
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Yo, imma blob posted:
Reminds me of Helen, GA a town in the north georgia mountains remade to look like a traditional swiss village: 
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Dec 15, 2014 05:35
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Peanut President posted:Reminds me of Helen, GA a town in the north georgia mountains remade to look like a traditional swiss village: I've heard Helen's been doing pretty badly the last few years and not getting many visitors, shame though, I haven't been since like 2001.
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Dec 15, 2014 07:22
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This sort of crosses the line between Tourist Trap and beloved local landmark: Enchanted Forest In the late 60's a watchmaker in Portland Oregon decided he was going to build an amusement park. Despite the fact that all he had was some child labor and no practical skills relating to Amusement Park construction or administration he bought a bunch of land near the highway and got to work. Over the course of several decades he built a small castle, a western town, some roller coasters, a massive fairy tale village, a theater for plays, a musical "dwarf cavern" and other crazy poo poo. Most of the figures were sculpted by hand from concrete, various members of his family did everything from write the plays performed on the stage to compose the music played in the park. It's a bizarre combination outsider art and carny amusements. Also a really great place to be high as balls. Here is a good collection of photos: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=45057 And a pretty OK documentary someone made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYFSELCVT30 
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Dec 15, 2014 08:15
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Yo, imma blob posted:
Solvang ain't Dutch.
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Dec 15, 2014 08:29
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MightyJoe36 posted:Ron Jon's Surf Shop, Cocoa Beach, FL It should be noted that even under tropical storm conditions, Florida has no waves to surf.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:01
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El Estrago Bonito posted:This sort of crosses the line between Tourist Trap and beloved local landmark: When I was a little kid we'd visit family that lived in Portland every year and usually make a trip out to this place (also OMSI  ). I don't have too many memories of it anymore, but I do know I always had a bit of fun there. I also remember passing that Thrill-Ville USA park and it looked terrifyingly run-down even in 1988.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:36
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angelfisher posted:South Dakota loves tourist traps. So yesterday i got 90E and 90W mixed up as to which i wanted to get back into town (I never take 90, except to go to that head shop in Luvurne) and no lie nearly went there just to see what the gently caress was up with the billboards. Until we passed it (It's visible from 90) and it just looked like the seediest, most run down strip of buildings ever. I still stopped. Buffalo jerky is all over on 90 since there's so many tourists, but its so drat good. And i needed to get off at the hartford exit to make the u-turn anyway...it is terrible.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:40
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Che Delilas posted:When I was a little kid we'd visit family that lived in Portland every year and usually make a trip out to this place (also OMSI Thrill-Ville is gone now but it was a strange beast. Basically they bought up well regarded amusements from boardwalks and parks that went under for cheap. It was carny as all hell but people used to make pilgrim like voyages there because they would have some ride they remembered from being a kid on the Santa Monica pier in 1974 for one summer. Also I think they used to repair damaged rides in return for getting to use them in the off season so tons of creepy county fair poo poo was always half assembled in their back lot. It was owned by a family of local RV Park slumlordy people and after they lost their various battles trying to avoid paying taxes, rezoning land or paying meaningful insurance it transformed back into the RV park from whence it came.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:49
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I think I've seen some of these tourist traps in Sam & Max hit the road. Here is one from where I live  It's a little bit less disappointing when they dress it with ridiculous costumes and make him piss beer though. 
SpaceGoatFarts has a new favorite as of 12:20 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 12:16
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TREES OF  MYSTERY  Home to such mysterious trees as this one:  And this one:  But perhaps most famous for the giant statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.  Basically someone took a chunk of Northern California redwood forest, came up with names for all the normal variations of tree growth you get within a redwood forest, and charged an entrance fee. Bip Roberts posted:Solvang ain't Dutch.
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Dec 15, 2014 12:34
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Got me thinking about all the time I used to spend on RoadsideAmerica.com, about the place where you can drive through the middle of a tree: Which of course got me thinking about this:  But this would have to be the best...... 
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Dec 15, 2014 12:43
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 This loving place - M&Ms World in Leicester Square, London. People travel around the world to come to one of the best-known cities in the world, rich in culture and history, and they go to this place and buy loving sweeties alongside twenty thousand other tourists. Nothing screams 'I'm a dozy pillock' like these yellow bags.
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Dec 15, 2014 13:17
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These all look like shitholes, what the hell USA, do you not have anything better to do?
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Dec 15, 2014 13:20
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Medieval Medic posted:These all look like shitholes, what the hell USA, do you not have anything better to do? Not when you're on the highway.
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Dec 15, 2014 13:32
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Medieval Medic posted:These all look like shitholes, what the hell USA, do you not have anything better to do? Many of them date from a time where America was a place the size of Europe with vastly more open space. Families had begun to spread out across the country post WWII when we had used devious socialism to send huge amounts of soldiers to college and trade school for free and the car had become affordable and available to the average person. What this created was the golden age of the American highway, where entire families would load up into station wagons and drive thousands of miles across empty deserts, forests and back country in order to visit grandparents for holidays. You'd have a scenario where people would have just driven the length of modern England through empty expanses of nothingness and if you knew where to hitch your post you were basically guaranteed business from people who were bored out of their loving minds. Wall Drug for instance is (well, was) positioned at basically the only place you could sell cold drinks, food and a bathroom at the edge of a massive hot as gently caress desert. America is also loving huge and was way more culturally segregated in those days, so even though you were just a podunk town being visited by small town people from a podunk town hundreds of miles away that was identical to yours you had to dress it up and loving SELL your town as something mysterious or fantastical to these people otherwise they would just keep on trucking to the next spot with a funny name. And there wasn't a thousand years of history to build on either, these were places where people had rarely ever lived, so you had working class people who were tasked with building a thing, any thing, that they could dream up to make people stop and spend a little change. Thats how you get poo poo like a statue of babe the blue ox and various worlds largest "thing our town has a lot of".
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Dec 15, 2014 13:51
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I request help from Mexican Goons. Do we have tourist traps in Mexico? Do we meven have them? Or has a foreign goon stumbled with one during their trips to Mexico? I don't think archeological sites,and historical ones from the colonial times, count. But I'm sure Baja California and Cancun might have some.
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Dec 15, 2014 13:59
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Dec 15, 2014 14:15
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Honestly the whole town should be included, but in particular I thought the biggest tourist trap I've ever been to was the Roswell UFO Museum. I mean, I guess I should have seen it coming, but going there was just...weird. The guy at the front desk looked exactly how you'd imagine a UFO enthusiast to look, and you get these cheap little walkman "guided tour" things. Some of the stuff was kind of interesting to look at, but the vast majority is "scientists said (boring but realistic explanation of an event), BUT WHAT IF IT WAS ALIENS!!!" type stuff. The whole town in general is so desolate and apparently only funded by the sale of green alien tshirts and stickers, considering there is pretty much nothing but places to buy those. yeah I eat ass has a new favorite as of 14:26 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 14:23
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Chrpno posted:Got me thinking about all the time I used to spend on RoadsideAmerica.com, about the place where you can drive through the middle of a tree: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tcw326PJuDw
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Dec 15, 2014 15:12
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Peanut President posted:
poo poo yes. I'm currently in a car with friends headed from Bowling Green to Atlanta. We're right outside Chattanooga right now I think, on 24E. Apparently we're supposed to see Rock City/Ruby Falls, without question.
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Dec 15, 2014 17:20
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 This is another Georgia classic, the Big Chicken.
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Dec 15, 2014 18:19
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Many of them date from a time where America was a place the size of Europe with vastly more open space. Families had begun to spread out across the country post WWII when we had used devious socialism to send huge amounts of soldiers to college and trade school for free and the car had become affordable and available to the average person. What this created was the golden age of the American highway, where entire families would load up into station wagons and drive thousands of miles across empty deserts, forests and back country in order to visit grandparents for holidays. You'd have a scenario where people would have just driven the length of modern England through empty expanses of nothingness and if you knew where to hitch your post you were basically guaranteed business from people who were bored out of their loving minds. Wall Drug for instance is (well, was) positioned at basically the only place you could sell cold drinks, food and a bathroom at the edge of a massive hot as gently caress desert. America is also loving huge and was way more culturally segregated in those days, so even though you were just a podunk town being visited by small town people from a podunk town hundreds of miles away that was identical to yours you had to dress it up and loving SELL your town as something mysterious or fantastical to these people otherwise they would just keep on trucking to the next spot with a funny name. It's worth reiterating just how goddamn huge the United States is. For a European reference, Lisbon and Moscow are closer together than New York and San Francisco. Basically, the US has the exact opposite relation between history and distance that Europe has. In London (or Paris, or Prague, or whatever), 100 miles is on the other side of the world and a century ago was yesterday, but in the US, 1914 was ancient history and a lot of people drive 100 miles to work every single day.
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Dec 15, 2014 20:39
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Nckdictator posted:Bedrock City! There was a guy in a Fred Flinstone costume walking around that came over to take a picture of us. My dad asked him to say Yabba-Dabba-Do and he said no.
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Dec 15, 2014 20:44
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whatshesaid posted:poo poo yes. I'm currently in a car with friends headed from Bowling Green to Atlanta. We're right outside Chattanooga right now I think, on 24E. Apparently we're supposed to see Rock City/Ruby Falls, without question. Chattanooga goon here. You'd not be missing much by skipping it. Ruby Falls is just a fake waterfall at the end of a boring cave. You're not even going anywhere near the original cave and the waterfall is driven by a pump. Rock City can barely be called better. It's kinda depressing and gross. Do yourself a favor and skip that poo poo. If you want to see the geography, hit up Cloudland Canyon state park about 25 minutes or so away. Better yet see the Tennessee Aquarium instead. Decent saltwater and an exceptional freshwater sections. Plus you'll get a better idea of the town. It's a very pretty city
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Dec 15, 2014 21:12
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