Tag Archives: roadside attractions

America’s Largest Roadside Attractions in the World

“…Wait we drove all the way just for this?”

~Disappointed children everywhere

 largest cherry pie

America likes things big, and while normally that would be our cue to raise our eyebrows and euphemistically write out “laaaadies” we’re being serious.

Okay, well we’re not being serious at all, we’re just not making genital jokes.  We are, however, talking about America’s wonderful, adorably ridiculous obsession with having the world’s largest ____.  It doesn’t really matter what it is, hundreds of small towns, and even some not-so-small ones, like to find something on this planet that doesn’t exist in a comically large form, just so they can make the world’s largest version of that item and stick it prominently in their town for people taking road trip breaks to gawk at.

It’s a delightfully quaint bit of Americana that truly couldn’t occur in a lot of places outside of America—we have so much vast space that it’d just feel a little bit empty if it didn’t have a World’s Largest Paul Bunyan Statue here, or a World’s Largest Ball of Twine there.  What other country could be willing and able to welcome that?

Europe might appreciate the charm, but they’re far crowded and cramped together. China’s too busy trying to buy all our currency in a desperate but ultimately futile attempt to continue their economic growth indefinitely. That last sentence was way too heady for an article about silly large version of everyday items, so for our third example we will just say that Russians are too cold and drunk to try to top us in the field of making giant yo-yos.

We want to embrace America in all of its quirks, which is why our newest feature on this site will present, for you…

America’s Largest Roadside Attractions in the World

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A Road Trip of Roadside Attractions Through America’s Midwest: Part 3

“Daddy, mom said that we’re supposed to call the police if you start drinking behind the wheel again.”

~How many times does daddy have to tell you kids to shut the hell up?

America is a glorious, sprawling land, with a lot of weird shit out there.  As we’ve established in our first and second road trips through Midwestern America, the best part of driving through America is being able to stop and waste time at a whole variety of strange, exotic places.  Except for that spider-car.  That was terrifying as all shit.

AGHHHHHH FLASHBACK

After our last trip, which ended with several AFFotD staffers getting wasted at Mount Rushmore, we don’t really know what happened.  When we eventually woke up, we all were missing one shoe, one sock, and the sleeves of our shirts had been cut off.  Oh, also, our car was scattered around us in dozens of pieces.  Or so we thought.  Actually, our car was nowhere to be found.  Turns out we’re in Alliance, Nebraska, where we were greeted with this sight.

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A Road Trip of Roadside Attractions Through America’s Midwest: Part 1

“Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?”

~Those fucking kids.  I swear to God, I will drive this van into a ravine.


America is a land of roads.  More than any other nation, the highways and interstates of this great land speak of a legacy.  You can drive to any state you want, assuming you had enough time, gas money, and activated charcoal to fool the breathalyzers.   Except for Hawaii, but Hawaii the 51st most American state in the World.  Guam is ahead of it, and Guam isn’t even a goddamn state.

But if it is the roads of America that serve as this nation’s heart, roadside attractions serve as our soul.  America can take something like twine, try to make the world’s biggest ball of it, and center it as the primary reason for people to visit their town.  And people will stop and see that big ass ball of twine because hey, that’s sorta cool, besides, we all need a piss stop anyway.  Hell, this is a country that not only has a “world’s largest cherry pie tin,” they have a contending giant pie tin forty-five minutes away.

No other place in the world comes close to the glory of a roadside attraction during a lengthy road trip.  In Europe, you have to deal with Smart Cars getting all up on your grill.  In South America, the closest thing they have to a “Roadside attraction” is the fact that they carve murder roads into cliffs as a way to battle population growth.

“Hola?”  “ADIOS!”

Every state in America has something just off the highway in some small town that is gloriously pointless.  What is more American than the World’s Largest Toilet ?  Why, the World’s Largest American Flag, obviously, and that’s just two towns over.  Fuck yes!

America’s Midwest is often known as “America’s Heartland,” and Indiana even admits in its state motto of “The Crossroads of America” that “You basically go through our state to get where you want to go.”  For this reason, today’s America Fun Fact of the Day will be about…

Landmark Attractions of the American Midwest (or, like, 3 states)

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