Road trips aren’t always about the destination.
Sometimes the most memorable part is the wonderfully strange thing you discover along the way.
America is filled with quirky roadside attractions created by people who apparently looked at an enormous ball of twine, a field full of half-buried Cadillacs, or a giant metal grasshopper and thought, “People need to see this.”
And you know what?
They were right.
I’ve always loved discovering unusual places when I travel. While filming the SouthShore, Florida episode of Love Eat Travel with Michelle Valentine, I visited one that gave me an entirely new appreciation for an important part of American entertainment history: the International Independent Showmen’s Museum.
It was colorful, nostalgic, unexpected, and exactly the kind of hidden gem I love finding.
From carnival history in Florida to giant roadside sculptures across the country, here are eight weird and wonderful American attractions worth pulling off the highway to see.
International Independent Showmen’s Museum in Riverview, Florida
I have to begin with the attraction I’ve actually explored while filming Love Eat Travel.
The International Independent Showmen’s Museum preserves the fascinating history of America’s carnival and traveling show industry.
And what a history it is.
The museum is filled with carnival memorabilia, historic wagons, elaborate displays, photographs, artifacts, and pieces of an entertainment culture that once traveled from community to community bringing rides, games, performers, food, music, and excitement with it.
Stepping Into America’s Carnival Past
Walking through the museum feels a little like wandering backstage into another era.
Before television, streaming, theme parks, and all the entertainment choices we have today, the arrival of a traveling carnival could be a major event for a community.
The showmen who traveled with these productions developed an entire industry and culture around bringing entertainment directly to towns across America.
During our visit, I learned just how much work, ingenuity, and history existed behind those colorful midway lights.
There are beautiful old carnival wagons, vintage signs, photographs, miniature displays, and memorabilia documenting generations of traveling showmen.
Some of the exhibits are enormous.
Others are tiny details you could easily walk past if you aren’t paying attention.
Together, they tell a story I had never really considered before visiting.
Meeting Doc Rivera
One of the things that made our filming experience especially memorable was hearing stories from Doc Rivera.
His enthusiasm for carnival history brought the exhibits to life.
That’s one of my favorite things about filming Love Eat Travel.
A museum can contain thousands of objects, but meeting someone who understands the stories behind those objects can completely change how you experience them.
Suddenly you’re not simply looking at an old wagon or carnival artifact.
You’re imagining the people who traveled with it, the towns they visited, and the generations of families whose livelihoods were connected to the show business world.
A Hidden Piece of Florida History
The museum also makes perfect sense in this part of Florida.
The communities around Gibsonton and Riverview have a long association with carnival and show-business history.
That makes visiting the museum more than simply seeing a collection of unusual objects.
You’re discovering a piece of local culture that many Florida visitors never know exists.
I love places like this.
They’re unexpected, they’re wonderfully specific, and you leave knowing something you didn’t know when you walked through the door.
Explore the International Independent Showmen’s Museum with Love Eat Travel with Michelle Valentine.
Harland Sanders Café & Museum in Corbin, Kentucky
Some roadside attractions are strange because somebody built something enormous beside the highway.
Others are wonderful because you walk inside and realize there’s far more there than you ever expected.
That’s exactly how I felt when we visited the Harland Sanders Café & Museum while filming Season 2 of Love Eat Travel with Michelle Valentine in Kentucky.
Yes, you can order Kentucky Fried Chicken here. But this is definitely not an ordinary fast-food stop.
The museum is actually woven throughout the restaurant, with thousands of pieces of memorabilia displayed around the dining areas. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be something else to see.
There were photographs showing how Colonel Harland Sanders got his start, old advertisements, seemingly every style of chicken bucket imaginable, and more KFC merchandise and promotional items than I ever knew existed.
And, of course, there were Colonel Sanders statues.
I even kissed one.
I have photographic evidence.
From Gas Station to Famous Chicken
One of the things that surprised me most was learning how the whole story began.
Sanders wasn’t simply a man who woke up one morning and decided to open a fried chicken restaurant. His business began as a service station for travelers, and he eventually began serving food to the people who stopped there.
Over time, the operation expanded to include his café and a motel.
Basically, he figured out that if travelers were already stopping for gas, he could give them more reasons to stay and spend their money there.
It worked rather well.
During filming, I interviewed a man who had worked there for decades, and hearing the history while actually standing where so much of the story happened made the museum much more interesting.
See the Original Kitchen
One of my favorite parts is the original kitchen.
It’s now roped off, but you can look inside and see the space connected to the early days of Sanders’ cooking.
There’s also a large motel-room display that helps you picture what the entire operation was like when travelers were stopping here for more than a bucket of chicken.
The displays aren’t confined to one little museum room, either. That’s what I liked so much about this place.
You continue discovering photographs, memorabilia, old packaging, promotional pieces and pieces of KFC history as you move throughout the restaurant.
There is a lot to take in.
And Yes, We Ate the Chicken
Naturally, we weren’t going to film the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken without eating some chicken.
Our crew was treated to lunch and invited to order whatever we wanted. We sat together at a big, long table in a special room that made the experience even more fun.
One wall displays the famous herbs and spices associated with the recipe, and there’s even a safe door playing into the mystery of that closely guarded recipe.
And somewhere among my many photographs from this filming day is one of me happily holding a piece of fried chicken.
Research can be difficult.
One Very Unusual Kentucky Road Stop
What made the Harland Sanders Café & Museum so much fun for me was the sheer amount of history packed into a place where people are still walking in and ordering lunch.
You can eat fried chicken, see the original kitchen, explore the early motel history, look through decades of memorabilia and discover how a roadside business grew into one of the most recognizable restaurant brands in the world.
And if you’re like me, you might stop to kiss Colonel Sanders on the way through.
Explore London, Kentucky with Love Eat Travel with Michelle Valentine.
Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas
There aren’t many places where visitors are encouraged to spray-paint the attraction.
Cadillac Ranch is one of them.
Located near historic Route 66 in Amarillo, Cadillac Ranch consists of ten Cadillacs buried nose-first in the Texas ground.
Over the years, visitors have covered the cars in layer upon layer of spray paint, turning the installation into an ever-changing piece of public art.
The result is strange, colorful, and instantly recognizable.
It’s also exactly what a roadside attraction should be.
You see it.
You wonder why it’s there.
And then you pull over.
The Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota
A palace decorated with corn sounds like something someone invented after spending far too much time driving across South Dakota.
But the Corn Palace is real.
And it’s spectacularly unusual.
The exterior is decorated with enormous murals made using naturally colored corn and other grains.
Even better, the designs change, so the building itself becomes an evolving piece of agricultural art.
What I like about the Corn Palace is that beneath the novelty there’s actually a wonderful celebration of the region’s agricultural heritage.
It’s quirky, but it also tells you something about the place you’re visiting.
The World’s Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas
Every great American road trip eventually needs something billed as the “World’s Largest.”
In Cawker City, Kansas, it’s twine.
Lots and lots of twine.
What began as one man’s project grew into a community tradition as people continued adding twine to the enormous ball.
That’s part of what makes classic roadside attractions so much fun.
They don’t necessarily need to make sense.
They just need someone sufficiently committed to an idea to keep going with it.
And apparently, once your ball of twine becomes large enough, people will travel to see it.
The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, California
The Mystery Spot has been puzzling and entertaining California travelers for generations.
Visitors enter an area where their sense of balance and perspective seems to go completely haywire.
People appear to lean at impossible angles.
Objects seem to behave strangely.
And suddenly you may find yourself questioning whether gravity has decided to take the afternoon off.
There are scientific explanations involving visual perception and the unusual orientation of the structures, but knowing that doesn’t necessarily make the experience less fun.
Sometimes it’s enjoyable to simply play along with the mystery.
Foamhenge in Virginia
Why travel all the way to England to see Stonehenge when you can see one made from foam in Virginia?
Okay, you should probably still visit Stonehenge.
But Foamhenge is certainly easier to explain as a roadside attraction.
Created as a full-size replica of the famous prehistoric monument, Foamhenge recreates the arrangement of Stonehenge using considerably lighter materials.
It’s absurd.
It’s creative.
And it makes for a great road-trip photograph.
That’s really all I ask from a wonderfully weird roadside attraction.
World’s Largest Collection of Smallest Versions of Largest Things in Lucas, Kansas
Yes, you read that correctly.
This attraction celebrates America’s obsession with gigantic roadside attractions by making tiny versions of them.
Think about that for a moment.
Someone sees the World’s Largest Something and decides what the world really needs is the smallest version of the world’s largest version.
This is precisely the kind of creative eccentricity that makes American roadside travel so entertaining.
Lucas itself has developed a reputation for unusual folk art and quirky attractions, making it an interesting stop for travelers who appreciate the unconventional.
The Enchanted Highway in North Dakota
Most roadside attractions require you to stop the car.
North Dakota’s Enchanted Highway turns the drive itself into the attraction.
The route is lined with enormous metal sculptures rising dramatically from the surrounding landscape.
You’ll encounter giant birds, grasshoppers, deer and other creations along the drive.
Part of the fun is the scale.
These aren’t little pieces of roadside art.
They’re enormous.
Driving through an otherwise expansive landscape and suddenly encountering a gigantic metal sculpture is exactly the kind of unexpected moment that makes a road trip memorable.
Why I Love America’s Weird Roadside Attractions
The best roadside attractions tell you something about the people who created them. Sometimes that story is artistic. Sometimes it’s historical. Sometimes it’s a community tradition.
And sometimes I suspect somebody simply had a really strange idea and enough determination to make it happen. That’s part of their charm.
You don’t visit the World’s Largest Ball of Twine because you’ve spent your entire life desperately wanting to understand twine. You visit because you’re nearby, you’ve heard about this ridiculous enormous thing, and you think: “We have to see that.”
Those spontaneous detours can become some of the stories you remember most from a trip.
There’s a giant sculpture ten miles down the road… Go look at it. And when you discover an entire museum devoted to a part of American culture you knew almost nothing about… Walk inside.
You may find that the weird little detour becomes one of your favorite memories from the entire trip.
Look Beyond the Obvious Attractions
Visiting the International Independent Showmen’s Museum in SouthShore, Florida, and the Harland Sanders Café & Museum in Kentucky reminded me why I love finding places that aren’t necessarily at the top of every travel itinerary.
Before filming at the Showmen’s Museum, I knew this part of Florida had connections to carnival history. But walking among the artifacts and hearing the stories gave me a much better understanding of just how significant that history was.
Then in Kentucky, I discovered an entirely different piece of American history. I knew Colonel Sanders and Kentucky Fried Chicken, of course, but I had no idea how much there was to see at the place where his restaurant story began.
That’s the difference between simply seeing something unusual and discovering the story behind it.
Sometimes the strange or unexpected attraction gets you through the door. The story is what makes you remember it.
Discover More Road Trip Stops with Love Eat Travel
Some of my favorite Love Eat Travel experiences have been places I probably never would have discovered without getting off the main road and exploring a little more.
In SouthShore, Florida, that led me into the colorful history of America’s carnival and traveling show industry.
In Kentucky, it led me to the original Harland Sanders Café, where a service station, motel and roadside café eventually became part of one of the most recognizable food stories in America.
And that’s exactly why I think it’s worth leaving a little extra time in your road trip schedule for the unexpected.
Explore SouthShore, Florida with Love Eat Travel with Michelle Valentine.
Explore London, Kentucky with Love Eat Travel with Michelle Valentine.
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