Roadside oddities31.7773° N, 106.4481° W
El Paso, TX
A private home transformed over decades with elaborate hand-sculpted concrete ornament inspired by Mexican and religious imagery.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
Roadside oddities
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Roadside oddities2,517
Suggest a stopGiant objects, odd monuments and things built for no clear reason.
- Roadside oddities32.8790° N, 111.7543° W
Casa Grande, AZ
Restored motel, restaurant and business signs glow together in a downtown park built specifically to preserve Casa Grande's disappearing roadside neon. The collection is most dramatic after dark when the signs are illuminated.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities29.7354° N, 98.6989° W
Boerne, TX
A historic Hill Country show cave with guided tours through limestone chambers, formations and a deep underground room.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities39.2993° N, 87.9931° W
Casey, IL
Casey’s Big Pencil is a deliberately oversized teacher-style pencil created as part of the town’s Big Things Small Town project. The city explicitly says it is often mistaken for the world’s largest but is only a supersized replica, and visitors can see it free at 8 West Main Street along with Casey’s cluster of giant objects.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities39.2994° N, 87.9921° W
Casey, IL
Casey’s Big Yardstick is a 36-foot-long yardstick with every inch enlarged to a foot, built as part of Jim Bolin’s town-wide Big Things project. It is not presented by Casey as a current Guinness record holder, but it remains a free outdoor stop at 3 East Main Street within walking distance of the town’s other oversized objects.
- Access
- Roadside, no entry
- Roadside oddities45.2805° N, 85.2302° W
Charlevoix, MI
Sears executive Albert Loeb built this sprawling Norman-style complex in 1918 as a model farm, creating an improbable stone castle amid northern Michigan farmland. After decades of changing uses, the restored property now offers tours and events that let visitors legally explore the towers, courtyards and collections.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities44.4634° N, 110.8367° W
Yellowstone National Park, WY
One of Yellowstone's largest geyser cones, built by thousands of years of mineral deposits into a castle-like formation.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities43.7206° N, 71.3225° W
Moultonborough, NH
The mountaintop mansion known as Lucknow was completed in the early twentieth century for industrialist Thomas Plant. Its Arts and Crafts design incorporated then-cutting-edge technology including unusual plumbing, refrigeration and electrical systems. The estate, trails and mansion are ticketed or seasonally operated depending on the area.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities45.9101° N, 84.7432° W
St. Ignace, MI
Castle Rock has operated as an old-school Upper Peninsula tourist stop since 1929, sending visitors up a steep staircase to the top of a nearly 200-foot limestone stack. Large Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox figures wait outside the gift shop, adding classic roadside kitsch to the natural formation.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities38.8612° N, 100.1697° W
Quinter, KS
Chalk spires and eroded badlands surround the isolated Castle Rock formation in western Kansas. The site is reached across private ranch roads, so visitors should only go in dry conditions and respect posted access rules.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities37.5688° N, 90.1551° W
Fredericktown, MO
The Castor River squeezes through Missouri's only known pink-granite shut-ins, creating cascades over exposed 1.5-billion-year-old rock. Missouri Department of Conservation provides a public trailhead and a one-mile loop to the formation.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities42.9900° N, 71.4630° W
Manchester, NH
An otherwise ordinary pedestrian alley in downtown Manchester has been turned into a gallery of cat-themed murals. More than 20 painted cats appear in styles ranging from realistic portraits to pop-culture riffs. The public walkway is free and open year-round.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities41.7050° N, 121.5153° W
Tulelake, CA
A long, branching lava-tube system offers a more technical caving experience than the monument's easy caves and requires route-finding, lights and current closure checks.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities38.9832° N, 75.5687° W
Felton, DE
A mechanical dinosaur assembled from Caterpillar equipment parts has been associated with the Carter Machinery property in Felton. Recent reports indicate the sculpture may travel to events rather than remaining permanently planted, so this pin should be treated as a call-ahead stop.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities38.0564° N, 91.2410° W
Leasburg, MO
Cathedral Cave is a separate cave system inside Onondaga Cave State Park, reached on a more limited guided-tour schedule. The route includes undeveloped passages and the large formation known as the Cathedral Bell.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities34.5737° N, 86.2216° W
Woodville, AL
The enormous entrance to Cathedral Caverns opens into a commercial cave filled with stalagmites, flowstone and immense chambers. Guided tours are required for cave access, while the surrounding state park offers surface recreation.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities30.2269° N, 97.7716° W
Austin, TX
A towering backyard environment built from bicycles, electronics, bottles, signs and other discarded objects. Visits are by arrangement because it remains on private residential property.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities46.5901° N, 112.0336° W
Helena, MT
A towering Gothic Revival cathedral modeled after European church architecture, with twin spires, carved stonework, and an extensive stained-glass interior.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities42.7748° N, 71.9883° W
Rindge, NH
This outdoor sanctuary spreads memorials, stonework and worship spaces across a hill facing Mount Monadnock. Its centerpiece is a massive open-air altar assembled as a memorial to Americans who died in military service. The grounds are generally open dawn to dusk year-round, although staffed facilities have more limited hours.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities43.8417° N, 103.5353° W
Custer State Park, SD
Clusters of narrow granite pinnacles rise almost vertically above the forest and form one of the Black Hills' most dramatic rock landscapes. A trail from the Needles Highway reaches the base of formations that resemble an enormous natural stone cathedral.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities36.1882° N, 95.7460° W
Catoosa, OK
Installed for the Route 66 centennial in 2026, this public monument incorporates locally chosen imagery including Catoosa's Blue Whale. It is a new physical marker of the town's long relationship with the Mother Road.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities35.0709° N, 94.6794° W
Poteau, OK
Cavanal Hill is locally promoted as the world's highest hill because its rise is often cited at just under the traditional 2,000-foot threshold for a mountain. The classification is promotional rather than a universal geographic rule, but the claim has become part of the place's identity.
- Access
- Open to visitors
- Roadside oddities43.0167° N, 89.8149° W
Blue Mounds, WI
Discovered accidentally during quarry blasting in 1939, this limestone cave contains flowstone, stalactites, columns and colorful mineral formations. Guided tours follow paved underground passages through one of Wisconsin's best-known cave systems.
- Access
- Seasonal or ticketed
- Roadside oddities44.9304° N, 87.1724° W
Sturgeon Bay, WI
Lake Michigan waves have carved caves, arches and undercut ledges into the limestone shoreline. On rough days water explodes through openings below the cliffs, but visitors must remain behind barriers and away from dangerous edges.
- Access
- Open to visitors