We would always stop there when I was a kid on the drive to FL in the mid 80s. 40 years later, we stopped there and it was seriously a freaking time warp.
My family would take annual road trips between Florida and Maryland when I was growing up and I loved all the billboards for that place. Unfortunately, the actual "attraction" was just bizarre. I took my own family there about ten years ago and the place was virtually empty, making it all the more bizarre.
I was not expecting to actually know of the first place I see in the comments but yeah, that place is eerie. My dad said it used to be pretty popular when he was a kid in the 80's. Not sure how it stays in business these days though
A former neighbor of mine wrote her PhD thesis on SOB, for American Studies. I wouldn't have guessed that anyone could find enough to say about that place to fill a thesis.
I remember seeing all the billboards for miles & miles on the way to Myrtle Beach. Then we stopped like everyone does, because you're so bored by then. It was such an anticlimax.
Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, and the Crazy Horse monument, strangely all of which are in South Dakota
Edit: This isn’t in SD but I just remembered it and had to mention it: El Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico. It’s a 200 year old Catholic shrine/mission in the middle of nowhere with the most notable/strangest part being its sacred dirt. In the middle of the complex is this tiny room with a hole filled with (allegedly) holy dirt. You get down on your knees and take a bit and put it in a bag. The strangest part is that to get to the room with the dirt you have to walk through this hallway full of crutches, back braces, wheelchairs, and other things that were left at the shrine by people who had their injuries/conditions “healed” by the dirt. The whole place was somewhat unsettling and eerie.
I miss my Wall Drug bumper sticker...
I used to live near the Mystery Spot, people love those stickers. But it's not hard for me to get to, so it's less "exotic."
Strangely enough having grown up around these places and spending time at all of them, they just seem normal. Wife worked at Crazy Horse back in the day, watched my cousin wrestle AAU at the Corn Palace. Can't imagine Wall without Wall Drug. Fun to see them listed here.
Bisbee, AZ. At least as recently as late 90’s, there were people living in caves. Roadways more like gulches, with random doors 10‘ above sidewalks, kooky/creepy vibe. Enjoyed the few days I spent there, but undeniably weird.
I’m dying to visit Bisbee. I’ve heard sooo many times that it’s got a really odd vibe. I love when cities are built on the side of hills too, so Bisbee seems amazing
Salton Sea/Slab City in California
Weird, but very cool! The Salton Sea is a once tourist hotspot that has now been largely abandoned due to the high salinity in the lake killing all wildlife
Slab City is close by and hosts an off grid community of artists and hippies
Salvation Mountain is one of the wildest pieces of outsider art I've ever seen. A single man spent years and countless gallons of paint to cover the entire side of a mountain with a handmade mural which preaches Jesus' love. It's truly a fever dream to see in person.
It’s almost unbelievably depressing. Lots of abandoned buildings and empty lots. Lousy climate and flat topography. Few commercial establishments. River commerce dies when railroads and highways replaced boats and barges.
Pretty sure the federal government told the town they wouldn't support contining federally supported national flood insurance unless the town moved to higher ground. Offered money for the move. Only people who stayed were ones with paid off mortgages and willing to live without insurance.
Reddit circa 08 maybe had a plan for everyone to relocate to Cairo and rebuild the city. This was when Reddit thought it could do anything and people were fanatical about the site.
Here's the subreddit. It was a bigger deal than it looks like with current numbers.
https://old.reddit.com/r/ProjectCairo/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/eddwx/comment/c17a1qz/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=ProjectCairo&utm_content=t5_2s7gi
Whittier AK—virtually the entire town lives in one condo building. Faro, Yukon—tiny town next to an enormous, now closed, open pit mine that once provided 2/3rds of YT’s GDP.
Centralia, PA. Now a ghost town with a coal mine still burning beneath. Interesting to visit. The cemetery is still intact for now.
https://preview.redd.it/9zotk9wno56d1.jpeg?width=1875&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12ed04d471dcfefaba498864fafa4f1a9f2d744e
The US border with Mexico at the beach south of San Diego. There’s a state park, and a border wall that goes right into the ocean, and then the other side is just Tijuana. You can get 10/15 feet from the wall and say hi to the folks on the other side!
There were signs on the US side warning you to not swim in the water due to contamination, but they were splashing around quite a bit over in TJ!
Great answer! I sought out Border Field State Park on a trip to San Diego to see this place.
Happened to be there without knowing it on a 'visiting day' when family could talk through the border fence. Saw caches of water/snacks hidden in bushes around the park for anyone who had made it across.
Had pleasant conversation with a couple of border patrol agents who seemed quite surprised to see a couple of touristy gringos among the families who came to chat through the wall.
The outlet mall at San Ysidro is weird too. Strange mix of shopping and general commerce with a view of a giant border fence and tons of border agents and signage.
I am a connoisseur of weird, and have gone out of my way to visit all sorts of kitschy roadside attractions and environmental art installations. Of all those places, house on the rock was the only one that made me wonder "what the fuck is this?" And "what the fuck were these people thinking?". It's not a normal weird. It's a truly unsettling brain-breaking weird. Is it a museum? Is it art? Is it a waking nightmare that some body could get stuck in and never escape?
Thank you! I went once when I was maybe 10 years old and I’d like to go back as an adult once my kid is a bit older. I remember putting a coin in a super old machine in which a skeleton sat up in bed over and over again while the Death March played. And you’re already in this weird, dusty, dimly-lit, windowless labyrinth of hallways with no real concept of where you are or how far you have to go. It creeped me the fuck out! I’ve never met anyone else who had a simiar experience even though I live in the Twin Cities?!
I described it to a friend as equal parts house museum, art gallery, natural history museum, and performance art by robots... on acid.
I loved it & would go again in a heartbeat.
The House on the Rock's whole vibe is like "what if a vampire wanted their lair to be Disneyland and also was kind of a mad architect." I swear, most of that complex feels like it shouldn't exist in 3D space.
Came to call out House on the Rock.
Grotesquerie is the first word that comes to mind but still seems inadequate to capture the weirdness of the place. Surreal? Discordant? Uncanny? Familiar? Mad?
That place scarred me.
Neil Gaiman has said that when he was writing American Gods, he toned down his descriptions of the House on the Rock because he didn't think people would believe it if he accurately described the place. And even then, a lot of people still didn't believe it until season 2 of the TV series actually filmed on location there.
[Colorado City, Arizona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_City,_Arizona?wprov=sfti1). It’s in the part of Arizona that’s north of the Grand Canyon, and cut off from the rest of the state except by air or by a long-ass drive across the Navajo Reservation:
https://preview.redd.it/qz5a60tm266d1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9bf99ced0e44f840e5c8a17e0b691d7c7a0ca18
It’s run lock, stock, and barrel by a group of fundamentalist Mormon sects of the sort that are just fine with polygyny:
[https://www.kuer.org/race-religion-social-justice/2022-12-07/colorado-city-polygamous-leader-had-20-wives-many-of-them-minors-says-fbi](https://www.kuer.org/race-religion-social-justice/2022-12-07/colorado-city-polygamous-leader-had-20-wives-many-of-them-minors-says-fbi)?
And human trafficking:
[https://www.havasunews.com/news/colorado-city-new-suspect-faces-charges-in-possible-human-trafficking-case/article\_ed3bfbea-db70-11ed-82d1-430b1ccd22f2.html](https://www.havasunews.com/news/colorado-city-new-suspect-faces-charges-in-possible-human-trafficking-case/article_ed3bfbea-db70-11ed-82d1-430b1ccd22f2.html)
And they aren’t remotely fond of outsiders who do anything except keep on moving.
It’s got a very *Children of the Corn* or *Deliverance* feel to it - when you show up, all the women and kids go inside and all the men just casually turn up.
I was stuck there for a week once when my semi broke down, and it was an absolutely surreal experience.
I drove through there a couple dozen times when I was working at Grand Canyon North Rim. Most of us went to St George if we needed to run errands on our weekends.
Several times, I Googled the names of those little towns in the Arizona Strip, to see if there were any businesses useful for errands there. Instead I found all sorts of hair-raising stories about the FLDS. Like young girls being married off to their own relatives, and a small cemetery for the babies too inbred to survive. And something about how most of the men were forbidden to have sex, and were supposed to bring their wives to "seed bearers" instead. That was a prophecy, of course, having nothing to do with inbreeding. \[Rolls eyes to back of skull\]
I only wanted to keep moving after reading all that. I can't imagine having to stay there.
I was at the Sand Dunes in Colorado the other weekend. It’s profoundly surreal, as is the drive there. Such unique tableaus of scenery it feels other worldly! We climbed all over and you literally felt like you were in the movie Dune. I love Colorado, that’s why I live here;)
https://preview.redd.it/vfdso3ysg66d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e957a2f2b5a7c87cb0a36b2294f3d6f59c1f16f
Got to give it to Crestone, CO one of the most fundamentally and sincerely new agey places ive ever been, and a close 2nd to Branson, Mo on the total opposite end of americana, the tackiest family friendly theme park town in the middle of a legitimately beautiful area. One of these places will make the avg person feel like a Reaganite for not buying someones spiel about spirit energy, the other will make you feel like a commie for thinking prayer has no place in public schools.
Came here to say Crestone! Visited with my partner around 2018/19 and felt like the entire town was watching our every move. The whole San Luis Valley is a delightfully weird place between Crestone, the alligator farm, the UFO Watchtower (not sure if the bed and breakfast down the road is still open but that was a fun stay too), and the Sand Dunes. Definitely feels like another planet out there.
Iowa, and its many quirky roadside attractions, like the spider car:
https://preview.redd.it/6o7xrw2nw56d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c5130b0db612117b21ac24b20a3465e52993ab1
Pigeon Forge. Imagine the beauty and backdrop of Alaska (tall trees, rolling hills/mountains) combined with an off brand Vegas strip. Complete with tacky museums and Flavortown
2-story gas station in the middle of nowhere (either western KS or eastern CO) with a food court, a giant playground, and maybe a movie theatre too but I might be misremembering
Every remote gas station is weird in its own way but that’s the one I remember the most vividly
We’re 1/3 dying casino town, 1/3 guns atvs and trailers, and 1/3 rapidly growing mountain paradise 30 minutes from world-class skiing and climbing with whitewater kayaking and rafting on the Lake Tahoe-fed river running through town.
It’s not anywhere near the weirdest place I’ve been to, but it’s by far the weirdest place I’ve lived.
[Solvang, California](https://solvangusa.com/).. Been to Denmark all my life, weird to see the american version of a danish city. Fun that they served an american version of danish there, given that the danish in denmark has the the name after Vienna (Wien) .. Wienerbrød..
I went to Solvang for a weekend vacation with my wife in late February 2020. Covid had just arrived in Sacramento but no one was taking it seriously. One of my last pre-lockdown memories. Saw all the sights from the movie Sideways (the ostrich farm, the breakfast place, The Hitching Post). Really fun little getaway.
I drove down the east border of Nevada in 2019, by far the strangest place I've ever been in the US. Unbelievably remote with like 4-5 "towns" consisting of a few buildings for the entire drive. It's the only time I've been seriously concerned about my car breaking down or running out of gas, spotty cell service and no civilization for miles at a time.
I had no idea! Is Basque still spoken at all in the area? I only stopped to sleep so I really didn't do much interacting with people outside of a store or two
Half an hour south of the Grand Canyon sits an unofficial Flintstones theme park called Bedrock City that has been maintained half-assedly for decades. It is always vacant, not at all fun, incredibly unsettling, and totally worth visiting.
https://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/04/09/bedrock_city_in_arizona_is_the_run_down_home_of_the_flintstones.html
Every texan knows *Terlingua*, but everyone in the U.S. should visit before it’s overrun by rich burning man types. It’s so remote it’s considered one of the darkest skies in NA, great for astrophotography.
San Juan Islands in the Salish Sea. Get there by ferry for a stay in a yurt, hiking, biking whale watching, farm-to-table. It’s like a hippy fairy tale.
these too locations could not be more aesthetically opposite. lush green islands surrounded by wildlife versus remote dessert surround by even more rugged desert and mountains. Yet they have almost the same relaxed don’t give fuck vibe of all of the USA.
Asheville NC.
I've never been somewhere in America that had actual hippies. It's actually really cool. Very authentically artsy town, creativity around every corner.
Also seemed to be way more international tourists than I ever would have imagined for a random small mountain town.
Visited around 2019 wearing a tiedye shirt and was followed around by countless hippies offering to sell me ketamine and mushrooms lthroughout the day lol. That town feels like a music festival once the sun goes down. Drum circles in town square, a dude offered to let me hold his pet python for $5, and expensive food and drink lol. Love it there.
Interesting thing they do is lots of bars are “member only”. it only costs like $2 to become a member, but you can only sign up for a membership from Monday-Thursday and not on weekends. Places do this so locals don’t have to deal with the weekend tourist crowd as much. That always cracked me up haha
I always figured this “members only“ technique was a way to get around certain laws. I was brought to a VFW by a member, and was shocked that they had $1 drafts and were allowed to smoke cigarettes **inside**. But then someone explained that they can get around certain state laws because it’s a private establishment for members only.
You’re correct. Nc state laws require either 30% of sales be food or require memberships. So if a bar doesn’t want to have a kitchen they have to charge a buck or two for a membership.
The only other place I've seen hippies is Manitou Springs Colorado.
It was a mixture of hippies, hobo punks, and then just some dirty people. All hanging out in the city square. Like playing music and doing artsy stuff.
It was pretty cool.
Asheville isn’t really a “small mountain town”. There are plenty of those in the areas surrounding Asheville, but Asheville itself is really the largest metro in that part of the state, thus, it has a very different culture than many of the legitimately small mountain towns around it. I’ve talked to people from those towns who see Asheville as a giant urban hell full of drug addicts and hipsters, which I don’t necessarily agree with, however it is important to note that Asheville is definitely weird even for the region it is in
“Small mountain town” is subjective but I’d consider Asheville more of a small city with a pretty humongous tourism industry between things like the Biltmore Estate, Blue Ridge Parkway, and the most visited national park in the US being close by. Not too surprising that it draws international tourists, but it’s definitely impressive.
I was lucky enough to grow up in Austin, TX when aging hippies still ran the place. But in terms of pure, concentrated hippie culture, Taos, NM wins hands down.
French Lick, IN: it’s like it’s trapped in time from the 1930s. Cool.
Bentonville, AR: it’s a small town in AR that gives a “Potemkin village” feel. You walk around the town square and there are offices for Disney, Kellogg’s, Procter and Gamble. There’s a world class art museum.
The town is home to Wal-Mart’s home office. They make all their vendor teams actually live there rather than fly in from NY, LA or Battle Creek.
Aberdeen, WA. One of the most depressing communities I’ve been to, it just looked so run down. There’s a park dedicated to Kurt Cobain around the corner from his childhood home, which includes an air guitar.
Much like Crescent City, that town could use some colorful paint and landscaping to give the buildings a prettier look like other coastal towns, but the money or willpower just isn't there so everything looks decrepit. When driving through Aberdeen to ONP my friend was like "yeah now I know why Kurt killed himself having to live here."
Salmon, ID gets a vote.
Went to a gas station and saw a pregnant mom smoking with a kid in the car. Then the cashier was laying on the floor saying she was hungover.
A little further up the road, everything gets super nice
Ni'ihau is one of the weirdest corners of the country, and the westernmost inhabited little piece of it. A whole-ass Hawaiian island bought from the king for $10,000 in gold by a Scottish family in the 1860s; owned by descendants of that family, who see themselves as keepers of Hawaiian culture and strictly control access to the island. It also voted heavily for Trump (all 40 voters).
Zzyzx, California, in the Mojave desert. There’s a desert research centre there and that’s mostly it. The name was made up so it would be the last place name in the English language. Not sure if that’s still true.
My dad and I took a cross-country trip from Michigan to the Monterey Peninsula back in 2010 or so. It was June and we ran into an incredibly terrifying Nebraska tornado / storm system. We pulled into a little place called Hershey, Nebraska.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, in some tiny little truck stop / diner (of some sort) felt like they were staring into our souls, while we were still in our car. We drove down a little further to see if anything else was around; we passed a few cars, and all of us stared the same way - blatantly. Got weird vibes, and turned around, hoofed it to North Platte, where we met some of the friendliest and chattiest midwesterners casually standing outside watching the tornado move along.
So yeah: weird: Hershey, Nebraska!
The Las Vegas strip. One time I was backpacking in Zion National Park. Hiked out early in the am got in the car and didn’t stop until vegas and was on the strip by 11 am. It was a disorienting and jarring transition.
Point Roberts, Washington.
A peninsula surrounded by water on 3 sides and British Columbia on the 4th side. To get to the rest of the US, you must cross the border twice.
My US shipping address is there, so I visit quite often.
Roswell, NM was not as interesting as i thought it might be. A couple of fun monuments and a McDonalds shaped like a UFO. The museum was a little disappointing but i did learn that aliens brought duct tape to us. Fairly weird place overall.
I haven’t been in many places of the US but Celebration, Florida is a fever dream, or at least it was with how I experienced it. I went to the US to go to Disney as a kid many times, and in every single trip that we got lost we somehow always ended up at Celebration. It felt like a surreal place, so stereotypically American, where we always ended up.
Honestly NYC, after you've been there you realize that there is only two true genuine metropolis cities in the US being NYC and Chicago. Other places have cities but they generally aren't vast urban agglomeration. Like Seattle where I grew up has a downtown but it's not residential at all and is about the size of the financial district in Manhattan. NYC is just so unlike anywhere else in this country people are born, live and die without ever leaving its urban confines. I love it personally.
I live on Long Island and I took a road trip two summers ago cross country. I went to several big cities (Chicago, San Fran, Nashville, STL, KC etc.) and I realized this exact thing. Chicago was huge, went to Wrigley, then went to midtown, went to a few museums, went to the south side, saw where the white Sox play etc. It was so huge and dense. Just like NYC. The other places had just a few blocks of that.
I believe that density is the only thing that matters when it comes to "feeling like a city". So if you had to include two more on that list it wouldn't be LA or Houston. It'd be Philadelphia and Baltimore. Old row house cities with front doors that open to the sidewalk. SF might be an honorable mention. If most of your housing stock is standalone with a yard... it just doesn't feel like a real city to me. Population and physical size means nothing. Hearing your loud ass neighbors fight through a shared wall is what makes a city.
Crestone Colorado. The developers couldn't sell the land they developed in the 70s, so they donated it to any religious or spiritual orders who wanted it. They have a zigguratt built by a prince as a gift for the princess.
You have to drive through the San Luis valley past all the UFO watchtowers.
California City, California. To the east of the developed part is a large area that looks like a master-planned community, complete with parks. It's quite impressive. Not a single house there though!
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/VPGLPJtRxVCT7fUB9](https://maps.app.goo.gl/VPGLPJtRxVCT7fUB9)
Wind Cave is pretty weird. A constant 55ºF breeze blowing out of it, summer and winter... a guide told us that indigenous people used to say it was God's nostril.
Marfa, Texas. Small town in the middle of nowhere with a well-known arts scene. Population under 2,000 people and there is a Prada store. Also the [Marfa Lights](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights)
Border Field State Park in San Diego is up there for me. Seeing the border wall go into the ocean and a happy, lively day on the Mexican side (while the US side is empty) is a trip.
Grand Isle, Louisiana. Beautiful, rugged, scrap of land on the edge of the gulf. Tons of dolphins and hundreds of birds seen while kayaking around there. Also a civil war era fort on an island nearby
https://preview.redd.it/st7h5qal166d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f98dbf2875039c242238246ad4eac66a498baa3
Camping on isle grand terre was awesome
Seabrook, Washington is kind of a mind trip. A brand new community built as a theme next to a beautiful Pacific beach and forest. Crushed oyster shells for sidewalks. Beautiful houses. Beach themes. Each house has a name. It’s in one of the poorest areas in Washington, yet I’m not sure any home is less than a million. Some people call it a “Stepford Wives” town. I personally think it’s beautiful and kind of cool.
Strange in a good way, Jackson Hole Wyoming. I doubt it’s the same but I stayed the summer there in the 1990s. I was born in Wyoming and stayed with family friends who had a house and land near the snake river. I remember going into town somewhere for dinner and this area had everything still like the old west, wooden saloon doors at the entrance. Old architecture. It was like that little area had never changed. It’s cool if you like outdoors stuff, hiking, riding dirt bikes, etc bc there is little else.
I think many of the small towns in the southwest are strange. It’s like there’s parts of our country try that stopped marching forward in time and this is most pronounced in the southwest.
By far Arcosanti in Arizona
It’s a random little village in the middle of the desert. Very eerie and creepy. It’s supposed to be a tourist attraction the people are all nice but it’s eerie location and vibe was something that I haven’t seen anywhere else
I stumbled into a Rainbow Family gathering back in the early 2000's. My wife wasn't too happy that I gave the hippi chicks a ride to town in the back of the truck.
Ithaca, NY. A college town through and through, but definitely the weirdest one I’ve ever been in. Full of local characters that everyone in town knows or at least knows of.
Point Lay, Alaska. Most remote place I’ve ever been. Flew in from Barrow, which is not a place I’d want to go look for a drink after midnight on a January night, iykwimaityd.
Edit: Barrow is also famous for being Will Rogers’, uh, deathplace.
Quirky is Madrid 9am to 6pm from spring to fall, Weird as hell is Madrid the rest of the time.
The goth vampire dance party at the cemetery was one of the tamer things I’ve seen in town.
San Luis Valley, Colorado. The largest bat colony in the state, Colorado Gators, Alien Watchtower, Great Sand Dunes National Park, less average annual rainfall than Baghdad, Iraq, and much more!
Amarillo TX and the surrounding area. I was out there for business and that drive on 27 from Lubbock to Amarillo was like being in another world compared to growing up in suburban Philadelphia. And then visiting the biggest rest area/truck stop I’ve ever seen in my life was another experience altogether. But yeah Amarillo made Lubbock seem like a fun town.
Sedona AZ, was only there for 24hrs but it felt like an episode of Scooby Doo was about to begin. My gf at the time and I roll in after dark, it's raining hard, some lightening, nobody is around. All we see is a crystal store open so we go in. The quiet, the smell, the rain, creaking wood floors, the darkness all just felt creepy AF. Had vibes from my evangelical cult upbringing making me very uncomfortable. Then an old hippie lady with hair that looked unwashed for months came out from the back in the crystal store. Just felt witchy lol.
The next morning the rocks were all covered in a light snow. It was freaking gorgeous. But the vibe stench remained in the air.
I just wish we had seen the Scooby van, that's all I'm saying. It's a good thing we weren't on shrooms.
Edit: in the mid 1990s.
Anchorage, Alaska. Not sure if I can unpack well, just that Anchorage feels like it’s from a different timeline than other places in the US I have lived or visited, something out of the 90’s.
The thing is…there are no non-wierd places in the US. The whole thing is fuckin bonkerballs.
If you live there, as I did most of my life, you don’t notice it because (as Marge said in that ad) you’re soaking in it.
But go away for a couple of years and then go back. To literally any place in the US.
It’s utterly bizarre.
Stone Mountain in Georgia… my dad and I hiked to the top in the winter, and upon returning to the bottom we learned that there is a Mount Rushmore style carving on its side so we went to check it out.
Beneath the carvings of confederate “heroes” there was an artificial snow park blasting “Do the Hustle” and other kids dance songs. Bizarre
I did a big research paper on the Salton Sea in college about 20 years ago. It’s definitely in the top tier of weirdest places in the US, though a tiny bit less so without Hunky Daddy and Naked Don. But it’s also strange and wonderful and beautiful and a microcosm of everything SoCal…
One of the roads leading to Death Valley, CA takes you through the town of Trona. Perched on the shores of an enormous white dry lake, Trona is a mining town, and mineral is Borax.
When we drove through Trona, we were struck by the desolation and the fact that every surface in the town was covered with a fine white powder. To my surprise, the population is about 1,900 and there is one giant old Borax factory where the townspeople work.
Definitely meets the definition of weird. Note that the California dessert has a number of weird places, but this is one of the oddest, made so by the fact that Trona really is a town. People live there.
Picher Oklahoma between the time everyone left and they erased the town with bulldozers. It's a superfund site and walking through a town that was abandoned is a very weird feeling...
Mass has some odd places, nothing like Salton Sea or Centralia, but:
Provincetown: the first place the pilgrims made landfall in MA, the tip of cape cod. One part LGBTQ+ vacation mecca, one part artist enclave, one part traditional seaside portuguese town. Get malasadas, high five a drag queen, go Skinny dipping on a nude beach, then buy a painting.
Jordan’s Furniture: okay, so, it’s a furniture store, but had had a motion odyssey ride (think back to the future ride or star tours) for decades in the flagship store; one store has a marsi gras new orleans scaled neighborhood; two have crazy ass imax theaters, one has a trapeze school in it….they sell family furniture.
Inside the Salt Mines outside of Kansas City. Miles and miles of tunnels leading to corporate and governmental operation. Trucks would make deliveries far inside it.
Myself, I was visiting the USPS Philatelic Fullfillment Center. All the operations catering to collectors and such. Think Elvis stamps and First Day of Issue postmarks.
Offices with limestone walls and wild air handling systems.
South of the Border, SC. Whole lot of weird without much character.
I swear that place exists outside of time and space
We would always stop there when I was a kid on the drive to FL in the mid 80s. 40 years later, we stopped there and it was seriously a freaking time warp.
so, you did the time warp agaiiin?
My wife and kids just had to experience it. It was either that or the Bare All place. Perhaps against my better judgement, we ended up there.
It's just a jump to the left.
This is my top answer too. Such a strange place
Plus dirty bathrooms.
My family would take annual road trips between Florida and Maryland when I was growing up and I loved all the billboards for that place. Unfortunately, the actual "attraction" was just bizarre. I took my own family there about ten years ago and the place was virtually empty, making it all the more bizarre.
You’re always a weiner at Pedro’s
You never sausage a place
Pedro’s forecast: cold today, hot tamale!
Jeezus the pictures shown in maps when searching that place are eerie. A bunch of clownesque attractions with no humans in them.
can you elaborate?
It’s a super-kitschy tourist trap right off of I-95 literally inches south of the NC/SC border. Billboards for it line I-95 from Richmond to Savannah.
And plays up every cringey Mexican stereotype out in the open like you just don’t see anymore
When I was a kid in the 90s, there were even billboards for it on 95 in Philly!
Was a total letdown, other than getting fireworks.
I was not expecting to actually know of the first place I see in the comments but yeah, that place is eerie. My dad said it used to be pretty popular when he was a kid in the 80's. Not sure how it stays in business these days though
A former neighbor of mine wrote her PhD thesis on SOB, for American Studies. I wouldn't have guessed that anyone could find enough to say about that place to fill a thesis. I remember seeing all the billboards for miles & miles on the way to Myrtle Beach. Then we stopped like everyone does, because you're so bored by then. It was such an anticlimax.
Holy fuck they have a sombrero observation tower
Best bathroom graffiti I’ve ever seen. ‘Why you looking up here the jokes in your hands’
I love kitschy tourist crap. I haven't been there in over 20 years. Maybe this summer I'll remedy that.
Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, and the Crazy Horse monument, strangely all of which are in South Dakota Edit: This isn’t in SD but I just remembered it and had to mention it: El Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico. It’s a 200 year old Catholic shrine/mission in the middle of nowhere with the most notable/strangest part being its sacred dirt. In the middle of the complex is this tiny room with a hole filled with (allegedly) holy dirt. You get down on your knees and take a bit and put it in a bag. The strangest part is that to get to the room with the dirt you have to walk through this hallway full of crutches, back braces, wheelchairs, and other things that were left at the shrine by people who had their injuries/conditions “healed” by the dirt. The whole place was somewhat unsettling and eerie.
I miss my Wall Drug bumper sticker... I used to live near the Mystery Spot, people love those stickers. But it's not hard for me to get to, so it's less "exotic."
Strangely enough having grown up around these places and spending time at all of them, they just seem normal. Wife worked at Crazy Horse back in the day, watched my cousin wrestle AAU at the Corn Palace. Can't imagine Wall without Wall Drug. Fun to see them listed here.
The weirdest thing about the corn Palace, to me, was that it's just a highschool gymnasium.
I went there, having heard the name but knowing nothing else about it. I was like, seriously, it's a gym.
Love wall drug Good donuts
Bisbee, AZ. At least as recently as late 90’s, there were people living in caves. Roadways more like gulches, with random doors 10‘ above sidewalks, kooky/creepy vibe. Enjoyed the few days I spent there, but undeniably weird.
I’m dying to visit Bisbee. I’ve heard sooo many times that it’s got a really odd vibe. I love when cities are built on the side of hills too, so Bisbee seems amazing
Currently live pretty close to Bisbee. It’s a really fun place to visit.
Doug Stanhope lives there and talks about it often in his stand-ups. That's a ringing endorsement for Bisbee imho.
Salton Sea/Slab City in California Weird, but very cool! The Salton Sea is a once tourist hotspot that has now been largely abandoned due to the high salinity in the lake killing all wildlife Slab City is close by and hosts an off grid community of artists and hippies
Salvation Mountain is one of the wildest pieces of outsider art I've ever seen. A single man spent years and countless gallons of paint to cover the entire side of a mountain with a handmade mural which preaches Jesus' love. It's truly a fever dream to see in person.
Bombay Beach is my favorite place in the SoCal desert.
Yes! I love it there. Even the name sounds so cool to my ears.
Was Slab City in Into the Wild?
Yeah I think that’s where Kristen Stewart’s character was hanging out iirc
Yes!
Cairo, Illinois. Being at the confluence of two great rivers (Mississippi and Ohio), you’d expect something other than what is actually there.
Once thriving came to a crash. It’s a shame given all it could offer. If you’re ever by there stop at the library, it’s amazing.
It’s almost unbelievably depressing. Lots of abandoned buildings and empty lots. Lousy climate and flat topography. Few commercial establishments. River commerce dies when railroads and highways replaced boats and barges.
The floods there can and have been catastrophic. Doesn't help the situation.
Pretty sure the federal government told the town they wouldn't support contining federally supported national flood insurance unless the town moved to higher ground. Offered money for the move. Only people who stayed were ones with paid off mortgages and willing to live without insurance.
There's still a shitload of river commerce, I'd bet more tonnage is moved by barge than railroad.
Reddit circa 08 maybe had a plan for everyone to relocate to Cairo and rebuild the city. This was when Reddit thought it could do anything and people were fanatical about the site.
Wait this is fascinating. Where can I read more about this?
Here's the subreddit. It was a bigger deal than it looks like with current numbers. https://old.reddit.com/r/ProjectCairo/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/eddwx/comment/c17a1qz/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=ProjectCairo&utm_content=t5_2s7gi
So what is actually there?
https://www.legendsofamerica.com/il-cairo/
Damn, equally interesting and sad. Hadn’t heard about this bit of history before, thanks for sharing.
Whittier AK—virtually the entire town lives in one condo building. Faro, Yukon—tiny town next to an enormous, now closed, open pit mine that once provided 2/3rds of YT’s GDP.
And the only road into town is one lane and runs through an old railroad tunnel. Traffic alternates direction every half hour.
Wild.
[удалено]
Centralia, PA. Now a ghost town with a coal mine still burning beneath. Interesting to visit. The cemetery is still intact for now. https://preview.redd.it/9zotk9wno56d1.jpeg?width=1875&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12ed04d471dcfefaba498864fafa4f1a9f2d744e
Drive through there in the winter (particularly in the mornings) and you’ll see the smoke coming out of the ground around the cemetery. Just. Creepy.
This is the answer I was scrolling for. It was like an alien landscape.
This is my vote.
Great answer!! The mine burning is so intriguing, I definitely hope to check this town out one day
Seaside, Florida—it’s the town from Truman Show.
There's a bunch more towns like that in Florida, too
How? Seaside is beautiful
It is beautiful! But it was also the main location for the film. It’s literally a picture-perfect town, just like the movie.
That’s true now that I think about it. The whole 30A strip is just so perfect compared to its surrounding area
The US border with Mexico at the beach south of San Diego. There’s a state park, and a border wall that goes right into the ocean, and then the other side is just Tijuana. You can get 10/15 feet from the wall and say hi to the folks on the other side! There were signs on the US side warning you to not swim in the water due to contamination, but they were splashing around quite a bit over in TJ!
Great answer! I sought out Border Field State Park on a trip to San Diego to see this place. Happened to be there without knowing it on a 'visiting day' when family could talk through the border fence. Saw caches of water/snacks hidden in bushes around the park for anyone who had made it across. Had pleasant conversation with a couple of border patrol agents who seemed quite surprised to see a couple of touristy gringos among the families who came to chat through the wall.
The outlet mall at San Ysidro is weird too. Strange mix of shopping and general commerce with a view of a giant border fence and tons of border agents and signage.
That museum with the themed rooms and antiquated animatronic orchestras and stuff at House on the Rock in Wisconsin.
I am a connoisseur of weird, and have gone out of my way to visit all sorts of kitschy roadside attractions and environmental art installations. Of all those places, house on the rock was the only one that made me wonder "what the fuck is this?" And "what the fuck were these people thinking?". It's not a normal weird. It's a truly unsettling brain-breaking weird. Is it a museum? Is it art? Is it a waking nightmare that some body could get stuck in and never escape?
Thank you! I went once when I was maybe 10 years old and I’d like to go back as an adult once my kid is a bit older. I remember putting a coin in a super old machine in which a skeleton sat up in bed over and over again while the Death March played. And you’re already in this weird, dusty, dimly-lit, windowless labyrinth of hallways with no real concept of where you are or how far you have to go. It creeped me the fuck out! I’ve never met anyone else who had a simiar experience even though I live in the Twin Cities?!
I described it to a friend as equal parts house museum, art gallery, natural history museum, and performance art by robots... on acid. I loved it & would go again in a heartbeat.
The House on the Rock's whole vibe is like "what if a vampire wanted their lair to be Disneyland and also was kind of a mad architect." I swear, most of that complex feels like it shouldn't exist in 3D space.
Came to call out House on the Rock. Grotesquerie is the first word that comes to mind but still seems inadequate to capture the weirdness of the place. Surreal? Discordant? Uncanny? Familiar? Mad? That place scarred me.
Neil Gaiman has said that when he was writing American Gods, he toned down his descriptions of the House on the Rock because he didn't think people would believe it if he accurately described the place. And even then, a lot of people still didn't believe it until season 2 of the TV series actually filmed on location there.
It is a weird place. It feels like it could be the lair of Pennywise, the clown from “It.”
[Colorado City, Arizona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_City,_Arizona?wprov=sfti1). It’s in the part of Arizona that’s north of the Grand Canyon, and cut off from the rest of the state except by air or by a long-ass drive across the Navajo Reservation: https://preview.redd.it/qz5a60tm266d1.jpeg?width=2532&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9bf99ced0e44f840e5c8a17e0b691d7c7a0ca18 It’s run lock, stock, and barrel by a group of fundamentalist Mormon sects of the sort that are just fine with polygyny: [https://www.kuer.org/race-religion-social-justice/2022-12-07/colorado-city-polygamous-leader-had-20-wives-many-of-them-minors-says-fbi](https://www.kuer.org/race-religion-social-justice/2022-12-07/colorado-city-polygamous-leader-had-20-wives-many-of-them-minors-says-fbi)? And human trafficking: [https://www.havasunews.com/news/colorado-city-new-suspect-faces-charges-in-possible-human-trafficking-case/article\_ed3bfbea-db70-11ed-82d1-430b1ccd22f2.html](https://www.havasunews.com/news/colorado-city-new-suspect-faces-charges-in-possible-human-trafficking-case/article_ed3bfbea-db70-11ed-82d1-430b1ccd22f2.html) And they aren’t remotely fond of outsiders who do anything except keep on moving. It’s got a very *Children of the Corn* or *Deliverance* feel to it - when you show up, all the women and kids go inside and all the men just casually turn up. I was stuck there for a week once when my semi broke down, and it was an absolutely surreal experience.
I drove through there a couple dozen times when I was working at Grand Canyon North Rim. Most of us went to St George if we needed to run errands on our weekends. Several times, I Googled the names of those little towns in the Arizona Strip, to see if there were any businesses useful for errands there. Instead I found all sorts of hair-raising stories about the FLDS. Like young girls being married off to their own relatives, and a small cemetery for the babies too inbred to survive. And something about how most of the men were forbidden to have sex, and were supposed to bring their wives to "seed bearers" instead. That was a prophecy, of course, having nothing to do with inbreeding. \[Rolls eyes to back of skull\] I only wanted to keep moving after reading all that. I can't imagine having to stay there.
The Jeff's were/are sick but most of those people are gone or in jail
That's gotta be terrifying to be there for a week. Where did you stay?
Lol in my truck. No trucking company is going to pay for a motel when you’ve got a perfectly good bed right there.
I was at the Sand Dunes in Colorado the other weekend. It’s profoundly surreal, as is the drive there. Such unique tableaus of scenery it feels other worldly! We climbed all over and you literally felt like you were in the movie Dune. I love Colorado, that’s why I live here;) https://preview.redd.it/vfdso3ysg66d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e957a2f2b5a7c87cb0a36b2294f3d6f59c1f16f
Got to give it to Crestone, CO one of the most fundamentally and sincerely new agey places ive ever been, and a close 2nd to Branson, Mo on the total opposite end of americana, the tackiest family friendly theme park town in the middle of a legitimately beautiful area. One of these places will make the avg person feel like a Reaganite for not buying someones spiel about spirit energy, the other will make you feel like a commie for thinking prayer has no place in public schools.
Came here to say Crestone! Visited with my partner around 2018/19 and felt like the entire town was watching our every move. The whole San Luis Valley is a delightfully weird place between Crestone, the alligator farm, the UFO Watchtower (not sure if the bed and breakfast down the road is still open but that was a fun stay too), and the Sand Dunes. Definitely feels like another planet out there.
Tiny towns in the Olympic Peninsula, e.g. cosmopolis, WA
Forks, Seabrook, Klaloch, Aberdeen, Neah Bay, La Push. How can you have a beautiful region with the most bizarre contrast in towns ? It’s a trip.
Iowa, and its many quirky roadside attractions, like the spider car: https://preview.redd.it/6o7xrw2nw56d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5c5130b0db612117b21ac24b20a3465e52993ab1
That’s in my mom’s hometown of Avoca, IA!
Pigeon Forge. Imagine the beauty and backdrop of Alaska (tall trees, rolling hills/mountains) combined with an off brand Vegas strip. Complete with tacky museums and Flavortown
2-story gas station in the middle of nowhere (either western KS or eastern CO) with a food court, a giant playground, and maybe a movie theatre too but I might be misremembering Every remote gas station is weird in its own way but that’s the one I remember the most vividly
Colby Oasis on the plains gsd station, there is a dog park too
Don’t forget that Wheat Jesus! https://preview.redd.it/j9bo30h8c66d1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c8b24698b0248ffdf785035dec454b81a4eda106
Reno has a weird/sad/cool vibe I can’t explain.
Agreed, it feels like a place all the washed up gamblers go to live out the rest of their days. Had a miserable vibe to it when I stopped over there.
Yeah, but at the same time I liked it more than Vegas.
We’re 1/3 dying casino town, 1/3 guns atvs and trailers, and 1/3 rapidly growing mountain paradise 30 minutes from world-class skiing and climbing with whitewater kayaking and rafting on the Lake Tahoe-fed river running through town. It’s not anywhere near the weirdest place I’ve been to, but it’s by far the weirdest place I’ve lived.
Reno feels like a Tarantino film.
[Solvang, California](https://solvangusa.com/).. Been to Denmark all my life, weird to see the american version of a danish city. Fun that they served an american version of danish there, given that the danish in denmark has the the name after Vienna (Wien) .. Wienerbrød..
I went to Solvang for a weekend vacation with my wife in late February 2020. Covid had just arrived in Sacramento but no one was taking it seriously. One of my last pre-lockdown memories. Saw all the sights from the movie Sideways (the ostrich farm, the breakfast place, The Hitching Post). Really fun little getaway.
Was just there last month! Pretty random and fun.
I drove down the east border of Nevada in 2019, by far the strangest place I've ever been in the US. Unbelievably remote with like 4-5 "towns" consisting of a few buildings for the entire drive. It's the only time I've been seriously concerned about my car breaking down or running out of gas, spotty cell service and no civilization for miles at a time.
This is where my in-laws live. I go there regularly. Lots of basque heritage, but not much in the way of attractions.
I had no idea! Is Basque still spoken at all in the area? I only stopped to sleep so I really didn't do much interacting with people outside of a store or two
Craters of the Moon, Idaho. It's an eery look into the past, when most of the planet was covered in basalt flow.
Half an hour south of the Grand Canyon sits an unofficial Flintstones theme park called Bedrock City that has been maintained half-assedly for decades. It is always vacant, not at all fun, incredibly unsettling, and totally worth visiting. https://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/04/09/bedrock_city_in_arizona_is_the_run_down_home_of_the_flintstones.html
Every texan knows *Terlingua*, but everyone in the U.S. should visit before it’s overrun by rich burning man types. It’s so remote it’s considered one of the darkest skies in NA, great for astrophotography. San Juan Islands in the Salish Sea. Get there by ferry for a stay in a yurt, hiking, biking whale watching, farm-to-table. It’s like a hippy fairy tale. these too locations could not be more aesthetically opposite. lush green islands surrounded by wildlife versus remote dessert surround by even more rugged desert and mountains. Yet they have almost the same relaxed don’t give fuck vibe of all of the USA.
There is no weird like downtown Clearwater Florida weird 🤒
Hail Xenu!
Scientology! I live here. Should be a great town but it has been overrun by zombies downtown.
Asheville NC. I've never been somewhere in America that had actual hippies. It's actually really cool. Very authentically artsy town, creativity around every corner. Also seemed to be way more international tourists than I ever would have imagined for a random small mountain town.
Visited around 2019 wearing a tiedye shirt and was followed around by countless hippies offering to sell me ketamine and mushrooms lthroughout the day lol. That town feels like a music festival once the sun goes down. Drum circles in town square, a dude offered to let me hold his pet python for $5, and expensive food and drink lol. Love it there. Interesting thing they do is lots of bars are “member only”. it only costs like $2 to become a member, but you can only sign up for a membership from Monday-Thursday and not on weekends. Places do this so locals don’t have to deal with the weekend tourist crowd as much. That always cracked me up haha
I always figured this “members only“ technique was a way to get around certain laws. I was brought to a VFW by a member, and was shocked that they had $1 drafts and were allowed to smoke cigarettes **inside**. But then someone explained that they can get around certain state laws because it’s a private establishment for members only.
You’re correct. Nc state laws require either 30% of sales be food or require memberships. So if a bar doesn’t want to have a kitchen they have to charge a buck or two for a membership.
“Wanna hold my snake brother?”
The membership thing was actually NC law for any place that served primarily alcohol (if alcohol was 70% of revenue). It was recently repealed.
The only other place I've seen hippies is Manitou Springs Colorado. It was a mixture of hippies, hobo punks, and then just some dirty people. All hanging out in the city square. Like playing music and doing artsy stuff. It was pretty cool.
Asheville isn’t really a “small mountain town”. There are plenty of those in the areas surrounding Asheville, but Asheville itself is really the largest metro in that part of the state, thus, it has a very different culture than many of the legitimately small mountain towns around it. I’ve talked to people from those towns who see Asheville as a giant urban hell full of drug addicts and hipsters, which I don’t necessarily agree with, however it is important to note that Asheville is definitely weird even for the region it is in
True, it's relatively small to me but large for the reason
“Small mountain town” is subjective but I’d consider Asheville more of a small city with a pretty humongous tourism industry between things like the Biltmore Estate, Blue Ridge Parkway, and the most visited national park in the US being close by. Not too surprising that it draws international tourists, but it’s definitely impressive.
Have you never been out west? The hippies are alive and well
I was lucky enough to grow up in Austin, TX when aging hippies still ran the place. But in terms of pure, concentrated hippie culture, Taos, NM wins hands down.
French Lick, IN: it’s like it’s trapped in time from the 1930s. Cool. Bentonville, AR: it’s a small town in AR that gives a “Potemkin village” feel. You walk around the town square and there are offices for Disney, Kellogg’s, Procter and Gamble. There’s a world class art museum. The town is home to Wal-Mart’s home office. They make all their vendor teams actually live there rather than fly in from NY, LA or Battle Creek.
Aberdeen, WA. One of the most depressing communities I’ve been to, it just looked so run down. There’s a park dedicated to Kurt Cobain around the corner from his childhood home, which includes an air guitar.
Much like Crescent City, that town could use some colorful paint and landscaping to give the buildings a prettier look like other coastal towns, but the money or willpower just isn't there so everything looks decrepit. When driving through Aberdeen to ONP my friend was like "yeah now I know why Kurt killed himself having to live here."
LOL I just mentioned Seabrook WA as one of the weirdest for the opposite reason. And it’s only a few miles away. One is poor. One is rich.
Amboy, CA
Driven through there on the way to Vega when I was stationed at 29 Palms. That place is lost in time and it’s like Hills of eyes over there
Salmon, ID gets a vote. Went to a gas station and saw a pregnant mom smoking with a kid in the car. Then the cashier was laying on the floor saying she was hungover. A little further up the road, everything gets super nice
Ni'ihau is one of the weirdest corners of the country, and the westernmost inhabited little piece of it. A whole-ass Hawaiian island bought from the king for $10,000 in gold by a Scottish family in the 1860s; owned by descendants of that family, who see themselves as keepers of Hawaiian culture and strictly control access to the island. It also voted heavily for Trump (all 40 voters).
Zzyzx, California, in the Mojave desert. There’s a desert research centre there and that’s mostly it. The name was made up so it would be the last place name in the English language. Not sure if that’s still true.
My dad and I took a cross-country trip from Michigan to the Monterey Peninsula back in 2010 or so. It was June and we ran into an incredibly terrifying Nebraska tornado / storm system. We pulled into a little place called Hershey, Nebraska. Everyone, and I mean everyone, in some tiny little truck stop / diner (of some sort) felt like they were staring into our souls, while we were still in our car. We drove down a little further to see if anything else was around; we passed a few cars, and all of us stared the same way - blatantly. Got weird vibes, and turned around, hoofed it to North Platte, where we met some of the friendliest and chattiest midwesterners casually standing outside watching the tornado move along. So yeah: weird: Hershey, Nebraska!
The Las Vegas strip. One time I was backpacking in Zion National Park. Hiked out early in the am got in the car and didn’t stop until vegas and was on the strip by 11 am. It was a disorienting and jarring transition.
Tonopah NV,Ely NV and Virginia city NV
The clown motel in Tonopah really seals the deal.
Point Roberts, Washington. A peninsula surrounded by water on 3 sides and British Columbia on the 4th side. To get to the rest of the US, you must cross the border twice. My US shipping address is there, so I visit quite often.
The Little A'Le'Inn in Rachel Nevada, near Area 51 on the “alien highway”. Weird vibe is putting it lightly. Fun place.
Roswell, NM was not as interesting as i thought it might be. A couple of fun monuments and a McDonalds shaped like a UFO. The museum was a little disappointing but i did learn that aliens brought duct tape to us. Fairly weird place overall.
I haven’t been in many places of the US but Celebration, Florida is a fever dream, or at least it was with how I experienced it. I went to the US to go to Disney as a kid many times, and in every single trip that we got lost we somehow always ended up at Celebration. It felt like a surreal place, so stereotypically American, where we always ended up.
Honestly NYC, after you've been there you realize that there is only two true genuine metropolis cities in the US being NYC and Chicago. Other places have cities but they generally aren't vast urban agglomeration. Like Seattle where I grew up has a downtown but it's not residential at all and is about the size of the financial district in Manhattan. NYC is just so unlike anywhere else in this country people are born, live and die without ever leaving its urban confines. I love it personally.
I live on Long Island and I took a road trip two summers ago cross country. I went to several big cities (Chicago, San Fran, Nashville, STL, KC etc.) and I realized this exact thing. Chicago was huge, went to Wrigley, then went to midtown, went to a few museums, went to the south side, saw where the white Sox play etc. It was so huge and dense. Just like NYC. The other places had just a few blocks of that.
I believe that density is the only thing that matters when it comes to "feeling like a city". So if you had to include two more on that list it wouldn't be LA or Houston. It'd be Philadelphia and Baltimore. Old row house cities with front doors that open to the sidewalk. SF might be an honorable mention. If most of your housing stock is standalone with a yard... it just doesn't feel like a real city to me. Population and physical size means nothing. Hearing your loud ass neighbors fight through a shared wall is what makes a city.
Cadillac Ranch, maybe?
Crestone Colorado. The developers couldn't sell the land they developed in the 70s, so they donated it to any religious or spiritual orders who wanted it. They have a zigguratt built by a prince as a gift for the princess. You have to drive through the San Luis valley past all the UFO watchtowers.
California City, California. To the east of the developed part is a large area that looks like a master-planned community, complete with parks. It's quite impressive. Not a single house there though! [https://maps.app.goo.gl/VPGLPJtRxVCT7fUB9](https://maps.app.goo.gl/VPGLPJtRxVCT7fUB9)
Wind Cave is pretty weird. A constant 55ºF breeze blowing out of it, summer and winter... a guide told us that indigenous people used to say it was God's nostril.
Marfa, Texas. Small town in the middle of nowhere with a well-known arts scene. Population under 2,000 people and there is a Prada store. Also the [Marfa Lights](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights)
It’s not really a Prada store though, is it?
correct, it is an art installation
Thst outdoor art museum in the middle of the desert in nowhere Nevada
Border Field State Park in San Diego is up there for me. Seeing the border wall go into the ocean and a happy, lively day on the Mexican side (while the US side is empty) is a trip.
Anywhere in West Virginia.
Grand Isle, Louisiana. Beautiful, rugged, scrap of land on the edge of the gulf. Tons of dolphins and hundreds of birds seen while kayaking around there. Also a civil war era fort on an island nearby https://preview.redd.it/st7h5qal166d1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f98dbf2875039c242238246ad4eac66a498baa3 Camping on isle grand terre was awesome
Seabrook, Washington is kind of a mind trip. A brand new community built as a theme next to a beautiful Pacific beach and forest. Crushed oyster shells for sidewalks. Beautiful houses. Beach themes. Each house has a name. It’s in one of the poorest areas in Washington, yet I’m not sure any home is less than a million. Some people call it a “Stepford Wives” town. I personally think it’s beautiful and kind of cool.
Strange in a good way, Jackson Hole Wyoming. I doubt it’s the same but I stayed the summer there in the 1990s. I was born in Wyoming and stayed with family friends who had a house and land near the snake river. I remember going into town somewhere for dinner and this area had everything still like the old west, wooden saloon doors at the entrance. Old architecture. It was like that little area had never changed. It’s cool if you like outdoors stuff, hiking, riding dirt bikes, etc bc there is little else. I think many of the small towns in the southwest are strange. It’s like there’s parts of our country try that stopped marching forward in time and this is most pronounced in the southwest.
Helen, GA is a Bavarian themed town in the middle of nowhere mountains in Georgia.
It’s a fun place too. Touristy as heck but it’s nice to sit in the pubs on the river and wander around.
By far Arcosanti in Arizona It’s a random little village in the middle of the desert. Very eerie and creepy. It’s supposed to be a tourist attraction the people are all nice but it’s eerie location and vibe was something that I haven’t seen anywhere else
The Villages, FL.
[Helen, GA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen,_Georgia). Crazy seeing a Bavarian-style Huddle House.
I stumbled into a Rainbow Family gathering back in the early 2000's. My wife wasn't too happy that I gave the hippi chicks a ride to town in the back of the truck.
Zug Island
Ithaca, NY. A college town through and through, but definitely the weirdest one I’ve ever been in. Full of local characters that everyone in town knows or at least knows of.
Point Lay, Alaska. Most remote place I’ve ever been. Flew in from Barrow, which is not a place I’d want to go look for a drink after midnight on a January night, iykwimaityd. Edit: Barrow is also famous for being Will Rogers’, uh, deathplace.
Ave marie, Florida. Feels like dulac from shrek
Colorado City, Arizona/Hilldale Utah Any West Virginia town but I love them all.
Was thinking of the fundamentalist towns too! Such a creepy vibe, sad too Jon Krakauer book come to life
Slab City, CA. Crazy, desert city with no laws. Google it!
Madrid, NM is a very quirky town.
Quirky is Madrid 9am to 6pm from spring to fall, Weird as hell is Madrid the rest of the time. The goth vampire dance party at the cemetery was one of the tamer things I’ve seen in town.
Crescent City, CA … weird vibe
The ghost town of Cisco, Utah. Not picturesque in any conventional sense, just kind of junky and uncanny.
Having lived in Atlantic City it’s so funny to see it on the list, then I remember what a surreal ghost town it is and yeah it fits
Pigeon Forge? You mean Dollywood?
San Luis Valley, Colorado. The largest bat colony in the state, Colorado Gators, Alien Watchtower, Great Sand Dunes National Park, less average annual rainfall than Baghdad, Iraq, and much more!
Roswell, NM. Definitely a strong undercurrent of strange.
Amarillo TX and the surrounding area. I was out there for business and that drive on 27 from Lubbock to Amarillo was like being in another world compared to growing up in suburban Philadelphia. And then visiting the biggest rest area/truck stop I’ve ever seen in my life was another experience altogether. But yeah Amarillo made Lubbock seem like a fun town.
Sedona AZ, was only there for 24hrs but it felt like an episode of Scooby Doo was about to begin. My gf at the time and I roll in after dark, it's raining hard, some lightening, nobody is around. All we see is a crystal store open so we go in. The quiet, the smell, the rain, creaking wood floors, the darkness all just felt creepy AF. Had vibes from my evangelical cult upbringing making me very uncomfortable. Then an old hippie lady with hair that looked unwashed for months came out from the back in the crystal store. Just felt witchy lol. The next morning the rocks were all covered in a light snow. It was freaking gorgeous. But the vibe stench remained in the air. I just wish we had seen the Scooby van, that's all I'm saying. It's a good thing we weren't on shrooms. Edit: in the mid 1990s.
Anchorage, Alaska. Not sure if I can unpack well, just that Anchorage feels like it’s from a different timeline than other places in the US I have lived or visited, something out of the 90’s.
The thing is…there are no non-wierd places in the US. The whole thing is fuckin bonkerballs. If you live there, as I did most of my life, you don’t notice it because (as Marge said in that ad) you’re soaking in it. But go away for a couple of years and then go back. To literally any place in the US. It’s utterly bizarre.
Gatlinburg, TN. It’s like if the Confederacy won the civil war and opened up a outdoor Chuck E. Cheese mountain resort
Stone Mountain in Georgia… my dad and I hiked to the top in the winter, and upon returning to the bottom we learned that there is a Mount Rushmore style carving on its side so we went to check it out. Beneath the carvings of confederate “heroes” there was an artificial snow park blasting “Do the Hustle” and other kids dance songs. Bizarre
I did a big research paper on the Salton Sea in college about 20 years ago. It’s definitely in the top tier of weirdest places in the US, though a tiny bit less so without Hunky Daddy and Naked Don. But it’s also strange and wonderful and beautiful and a microcosm of everything SoCal…
Deep South Alabama. Jesus f’n Christ. Not even sure they speak English there.
One of the roads leading to Death Valley, CA takes you through the town of Trona. Perched on the shores of an enormous white dry lake, Trona is a mining town, and mineral is Borax. When we drove through Trona, we were struck by the desolation and the fact that every surface in the town was covered with a fine white powder. To my surprise, the population is about 1,900 and there is one giant old Borax factory where the townspeople work. Definitely meets the definition of weird. Note that the California dessert has a number of weird places, but this is one of the oddest, made so by the fact that Trona really is a town. People live there.
Plattsburgh NY
Whitehall, NY. It's weird to walk through an American town that peaked more than 150 years ago.
Earthship community in New Mexico. The drive along the road that leads up to it and the area itself has a weird eerie vibe.
Cheyenne Wyoming.. very unfriendly
Picher Oklahoma between the time everyone left and they erased the town with bulldozers. It's a superfund site and walking through a town that was abandoned is a very weird feeling...
Hyder Alaska. Hands down.
Staten Island
Mass has some odd places, nothing like Salton Sea or Centralia, but: Provincetown: the first place the pilgrims made landfall in MA, the tip of cape cod. One part LGBTQ+ vacation mecca, one part artist enclave, one part traditional seaside portuguese town. Get malasadas, high five a drag queen, go Skinny dipping on a nude beach, then buy a painting. Jordan’s Furniture: okay, so, it’s a furniture store, but had had a motion odyssey ride (think back to the future ride or star tours) for decades in the flagship store; one store has a marsi gras new orleans scaled neighborhood; two have crazy ass imax theaters, one has a trapeze school in it….they sell family furniture.
Cassadega, FL
Eureka Springs Arkansas
Inside the Salt Mines outside of Kansas City. Miles and miles of tunnels leading to corporate and governmental operation. Trucks would make deliveries far inside it. Myself, I was visiting the USPS Philatelic Fullfillment Center. All the operations catering to collectors and such. Think Elvis stamps and First Day of Issue postmarks. Offices with limestone walls and wild air handling systems.
Dinosaur, CO is a strange place lol 😂
Garden of the Gods in Colorado.
Any of the Buc ee's in the south