15 Strange & Unusual Places to Visit This Fall
Forget ordinary leaf-peeping. This fall, take the weird road instead. From giant trolls and mysterious mansions to stone goblins, buried cars, cryptids and America’s most famous ball of twine, these 15 strange and unusual destinations turn an ordinary autumn road trip into a story worth telling.
Fall travel has rules.
Apparently.
We’re supposed to drive through colorful forests.
Drink cider.
Photograph covered bridges.
Visit pumpkin patches.
Wear flannel.
And spend an unreasonable amount of money on something containing cinnamon.
Nothing wrong with any of that.
But every once in a while, I want my fall road trip to get a little…
weird.
I want a giant troll hiding underneath a bridge.
I want cars sticking nose-first out of the Nebraska prairie.
I want a mansion where staircases don’t behave properly.
I want a desert filled with stone goblins.
I want to stand beside a gigantic ball of twine and ask myself one of life’s great unanswered questions:
Why?
And if you’ve spent any time around City Unknown, you already know our answer.
Why not?
After more than two decades of wandering down roads I probably didn’t need to take, I’ve developed a considerable appreciation for America’s oddball attractions.
Some are beautiful.
Some are historic.
Some are creepy.
Some are brilliant works of art.
And some make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Those are usually my favorites.
So this fall, we’re skipping the ordinary road trip.
Grab a sweatshirt.
Fill the tank.
Bring a camera.
And whatever you do…
don’t take the interstate the entire way.
Here are 15 strange and unusual places in America worth visiting this fall.
1. The House on the Rock
Spring Green, Wisconsin
Let’s start gently.
Actually, no.
Let’s start with a gigantic sea creature, a room hanging over a valley, automated musical contraptions and one of the strangest carousels you’re ever likely to see.
Welcome to The House on the Rock.
Alex Jordan opened his unusual house atop a rock formation to visitors in 1960.
That alone would have made an interesting roadside attraction.
Jordan apparently had other ideas.
The attraction expanded into an enormous collection of rooms, displays, machinery, collections and objects that become progressively more difficult to describe.
Eventually you stop asking questions.
That’s probably for the best.
One of its most famous features is the Infinity Room, which projects 218 feet out over the valley.
Then there’s the carousel.
Not just any carousel.
This monster contains 269 animals, 20,000 lights and 182 chandeliers.
And that’s before we’ve discussed the enormous sea creature.
Why Go in Fall?
Because Spring Green and the surrounding Wisconsin countryside become beautiful in autumn.
That gives you a wonderfully normal fall drive…
followed by several hours wondering what on Earth you just walked through.
Exactly how we like it.
City Unknown Tip
Don’t schedule this as a quick roadside stop.
The House on the Rock recommends allowing at least three hours for its Ultimate Experience.
Take them seriously.
Best for: Oddities, bizarre architecture, collections, fall road trips and anyone who likes saying, “What is THAT?”
Official Website – The House on the Rock
2. Mothman Museum
Point Pleasant, West Virginia
There are fall road trips.
And then there are fall road trips involving a mysterious red-eyed winged creature.
Obviously, we’re choosing the second one.
In November 1966, people around Point Pleasant began reporting strange events and sightings of a flying creature that became known as the Mothman.
Decades later, the legend hasn’t exactly faded away.
Quite the opposite.
Point Pleasant now has the world’s only Mothman Museum.
Inside you’ll find memorabilia, newspaper material and exhibits connected to the legend that transformed this little West Virginia town into one of America’s strangest destinations.
And outside?
There’s a Mothman statue.
Of course there is.
Why Go in Fall?
West Virginia in autumn is already worth the drive.
Add Appalachian mountains, winding roads, small towns and one of America’s great cryptid legends and suddenly we’ve got ourselves a City Unknown weekend.
Don’t Stop at the Museum
Walk around Point Pleasant.
Visit the statue.
Explore the riverfront.
And if someone mentions glowing red eyes in the woods…
Well.
Maybe get back in the car.
Best for: Cryptids, folklore, spooky season and weird Americana.
3. International Car Forest of the Last Church
Goldfield, Nevada
You’re driving through the Nevada desert.
There isn’t much around.
Then you see a car sticking vertically out of the ground.
Then another.
Then a bus.
Then painted vehicles stacked on top of each other.
At this point, you have two choices.
Keep driving.
Or turn around immediately because you’ve just found exactly the kind of place City Unknown exists to discover.
The International Car Forest of the Last Church is an enormous outdoor art installation near the old mining town of Goldfield.
More than 40 cars, buses, vans and trucks have been turned into giant desert canvases.
Some stand vertically.
Others are partially buried.
Some balance on other vehicles.
Most are covered with artwork.
Travel Nevada describes it as one of the state’s great Weird Nevada landmarks and one of America’s largest open-air car-art galleries.
Why Go in Fall?
Because wandering around the Nevada desert becomes considerably more pleasant once summer loosens its grip.
And Goldfield itself deserves exploration.
Once one of Nevada’s great mining boomtowns, it still contains historic buildings, strange art and enough desert eccentricity to justify slowing down.
City Unknown Rule
Do not merely photograph the first car and leave.
Walk around.
Look at the artwork.
Then explore Goldfield.
This is exactly the sort of town where the unexpected stop becomes the best part of the trip.
Best for: Roadside Americana, desert road trips, photography and ghost-town fans.
Travel Nevada – International Car Forest
Map – International Car Forest
4. Carhenge
Alliance, Nebraska
England has Stonehenge.
Nebraska looked at that and apparently said:
We have cars.
And thus the world received Carhenge.
Created by Jim Reinders in 1987, this wonderfully ridiculous roadside monument recreates Stonehenge using 39 vintage automobiles.
The cars are arranged to mimic the ancient monument and painted gray.
Because obviously accuracy matters when recreating Stonehenge out of old cars.
Why Go in Fall?
Western Nebraska is road-trip country.
The temperatures become friendlier, summer vacation traffic eases and the wide-open landscape makes even the drive feel like part of the attraction.
Carhenge is open year-round from dawn to dusk.
Don’t Rush Away
Alliance is worth exploring, and western Nebraska has enough unusual scenery and historic stops to turn Carhenge into something bigger than a quick photograph.
But let’s be realistic.
You’re getting the photograph.
Everyone gets the photograph.
Best for: Roadside attractions, families, photographers and anyone who appreciates automotive archaeology.
5. Goblin Valley State Park
Utah
Nature gets weird too.
And occasionally it gets really weird.
Goblin Valley contains thousands of oddly shaped sandstone formations known locally as goblins.
Some look like mushrooms.
Some resemble creatures.
Others look suspiciously like something that might begin moving the moment you turn your back.
The formations were created as softer sandstone eroded away while harder portions resisted wind and water.
Science explains it perfectly well.
That doesn’t make walking through the valley any less bizarre.
Why Go in Fall?
Utah’s desert temperatures become much friendlier once summer begins retreating.
And Goblin Valley gets bonus points for autumn travel simply because it’s called Goblin Valley.
Come on.
We’re not ignoring that in October.
Stay Until Dark
Goblin Valley is also known for its exceptionally dark skies.
If you camp nearby, the experience changes completely after sunset.
Suddenly those little stone goblins become silhouettes.
Sweet dreams.
Best for: Hiking, geology, photography, stargazing and Halloween-season road trips.
Official Goblin Valley State Park
6. Mystery Hole
Ansted, West Virginia
Some roadside attractions attempt to explain themselves.
Mystery Hole has chosen another path.
Its website promises a place where the laws of gravity appear to have gone berserk.
Good enough for me.
This old-school roadside attraction sits along Route 60 near New River Gorge and has been confusing visitors since 1973.
The guided experience lasts roughly 15 minutes.
That’s 15 minutes of tilted rooms, strange perspectives and your brain attempting to reconcile what your eyes are telling it.
Why Go in Fall?
Because it’s West Virginia.
In October.
Near New River Gorge.
You couldn’t ask for a much better excuse for a mountain road trip.
And the Mystery Hole currently lists weekend operating hours during October, making it a particularly appropriate fall stop.
City Unknown Tip
Pair this with New River Gorge National Park.
Nature gives you spectacular Appalachian scenery.
Mystery Hole gives you a building where gravity has apparently resigned.
Everybody wins.
Best for: Classic roadside attractions, families and fall mountain drives.
7. Winchester Mystery House
San Jose, California
Imagine inheriting a fortune.
Now imagine using part of it to build a mansion.
Then continue building.
And building.
And building.
For decades.
The result is the Winchester Mystery House, the former home of Sarah Winchester.
Construction on the Victorian mansion began in 1886 and continued for decades.
Today it contains 160 rooms and enough unusual architectural features and legends to keep visitors arguing about the place long after they leave.
The mansion is famous for its maze-like layout and peculiar design.
And yes, it has accumulated more than its share of ghost stories.
Why Go in Fall?
This one practically begs for an October visit.
The house embraces its mysterious reputation, and fall brings additional Halloween atmosphere.
But even without the ghost stories, the architecture and Sarah Winchester’s complicated history make the mansion fascinating.
City Unknown Tip
Separate the history from the legends.
Enjoy both.
You don’t have to believe every ghost story to appreciate a house this strange.
Best for: Architecture, history, mysteries and Halloween travelers.
Official Winchester Mystery House
Map – Winchester Mystery House
8. The Enchanted Highway
Regent, North Dakota
Somebody looked at 32 miles of North Dakota highway and decided it needed enormous metal sculptures.
I would like to shake that person’s hand.
The Enchanted Highway begins near Interstate 94 and runs south toward the tiny community of Regent.
Along the way you’ll encounter enormous scrap-metal creations including:
Geese in Flight.
Grasshoppers.
Pheasants.
A giant fisherman.
Theodore Roosevelt.
And the World’s Largest Tin Family.
This is not your standard scenic byway.
Thank goodness.
Why Go in Fall?
North Dakota’s prairie landscape takes on golden autumn tones while temperatures cool considerably from summer.
And unlike a single roadside attraction, this one gives you an entire weird little road trip.
City Unknown Tip
Drive the whole route.
Don’t turn around after the first couple of sculptures.
Most of the installations appear farther south along the highway.
Best for: Road trips, giant roadside art, photographers and wonderfully unnecessary detours.
Official North Dakota Enchanted Highway Guide
9. Serpent Mound
Peebles, Ohio
Not everything strange needs to be kitschy.
Some places leave you with more questions than answers.
Serpent Mound is an enormous ancient earthwork shaped like a snake with a curled tail.
The site is a National Historic Landmark built by American Indian cultures of Ohio.
And here’s where things become particularly interesting:
Its precise age remains debated.
Different archaeological investigations have produced evidence supporting different construction periods.
That’s a real mystery.
Not a gift-shop mystery.
Why Go in Fall?
The earthwork sits amid the wooded countryside of southern Ohio.
Once autumn color arrives, the surrounding landscape becomes part of the experience.
Walk the site slowly.
Read the interpretation.
Give the place the respect it deserves.
Important
This is an Indigenous cultural site, not merely a quirky roadside attraction.
Treat it accordingly.
Best for: Archaeology, history, ancient places and thoughtful travelers.
Ohio History Connection – Serpent Mound
10. Salvation Mountain
Niland, California
Just when you think the Southern California desert can’t become more colorful…
There it is.
Salvation Mountain.
Artist Leonard Knight spent decades transforming adobe, straw, donated paint and found materials into a massive folk-art monument near the Salton Sea.
The central message?
God Is Love.
Whatever your beliefs, it’s difficult not to be fascinated by the sheer determination required to create something this large, colorful and personal in the middle of the desert.
Why Go in Fall?
Because this is the desert.
Summer and I have discussed the matter.
We’ll visit later.
Cooler fall weather makes exploring the Salton Sea region considerably more appealing.
Make It a Road Trip
Combine Salvation Mountain with the Salton Sea and other strange desert stops.
California tourism itself features Salvation Mountain as the finale of an offbeat-art desert road trip.
That tells you something.
Best for: Folk art, desert photography, unusual road trips and outsider art.
11. World’s Largest Ball of Twine
Cawker City, Kansas
We need to talk about the twine.
Because eventually every respectable American roadside-attraction article reaches the twine.
Cawker City is home to a gigantic ball of sisal twine that began with local farmer Frank Stoeber in 1953.
But here’s my favorite part.
It keeps growing.
People continue adding twine.
At some point this stopped being one man’s project and became a multigenerational commitment to seeing just how ridiculous one ball of string can become.
I respect that.
Why Go in Fall?
Kansas road trips are made for wandering.
Instead of racing across the state on the interstate, take the smaller highways through farm country and small towns.
Then suddenly:
Twine.
Lots of twine.
City Unknown Tip
The attraction itself doesn’t require hours.
The fun is making it part of a larger Kansas backroad adventure.
That’s what roadside attractions were invented for.
Best for: Classic Americana, roadside attractions and people who need an unusual Christmas card photograph.
Map – World’s Largest Ball of Twine
12. Museum of the Weird
Austin, Texas
Austin has spent years telling us to keep it weird.
Someone took the assignment seriously.
The Museum of the Weird sits on historic Sixth Street and carries on the tradition of America’s old dime museums.
Inside?
Monsters.
Mummies.
Wax figures.
Oddities.
Strange artifacts.
And enough wonderfully questionable material to generate a long conversation afterward.
This isn’t a giant polished museum.
That’s part of the charm.
It feels like the kind of place you would have stumbled into during a 1950s road trip after seeing a hand-painted sign promising:
YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT’S INSIDE!
Naturally, we’d stop.
Why Go in Fall?
Austin finally begins cooling off, and October gives the museum’s already unusual collection exactly the atmosphere it deserves.
City Unknown Tip
Make it part of a larger Austin weirdness tour.
The city has enough murals, unusual shops, local restaurants and eccentric neighborhoods to keep this theme going all day.
Best for: Oddities, kitsch, horror fans and travelers who read every roadside sign.
13. Coral Castle
Homestead, Florida
Here’s a mystery.
One man.
More than 1,000 tons of coral rock.
And decades of questions about exactly how he moved it.
Coral Castle was created by Latvian immigrant Edward Leedskalnin.
The site contains enormous pieces of coral limestone fashioned into walls, furniture, sculptures and architectural features.
Leedskalnin worked largely alone.
Naturally, this produced stories.
Lots of stories.
Magnetism.
Secret techniques.
Lost knowledge.
Impossible engineering.
Aliens probably got blamed somewhere along the way too.
Aliens always get dragged into these things.
Why Go in Fall?
South Florida becomes a more appealing road-trip destination as the year moves away from peak summer heat.
And Coral Castle makes an excellent unusual stop if you’re heading toward the Keys or exploring the Homestead area.
City Unknown Tip
Enjoy the legends.
But pay attention to the craftsmanship.
Sometimes human determination is strange enough without adding extraterrestrials.
Best for: Mysteries, engineering, architecture and Florida road trips.
14. City Museum
St. Louis, Missouri
Calling this place a museum is technically correct.
It’s also wildly insufficient.
Imagine somebody gave a group of artists an old shoe warehouse and said:
“Build whatever you want.”
Then nobody came back to supervise.
That’s roughly the energy we’re dealing with.
City Museum is an enormous artist-built environment filled with tunnels, caves, slides, climbing structures, sculptures and spaces that seem designed specifically to make adults ask:
Am I allowed to climb into that?
Usually the answer is exactly what you hoped.
Why Go in Fall?
Here’s where this gets even better.
City Museum runs Fright at the Museum during the Halloween season.
As if this place required additional weirdness.
City Unknown Tip
Do not wear your fancy shoes.
This is not a stand-back-and-read-the-plaque museum.
You’re going inside things.
Over things.
Under things.
Possibly through things.
Dress accordingly.
Best for: Families, adventurous adults, art, Halloween and people who never stopped climbing on stuff.
15. Fremont Troll
Seattle, Washington
We’re finishing under a bridge.
Seems appropriate.
Beneath Seattle’s Aurora Bridge lurks an enormous concrete troll clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle.
The Fremont Troll was installed in 1990 and has since become one of Seattle’s great pieces of public weirdness.
It’s approximately 18 feet tall.
And yes, you can walk right up to it.
Why Go in Fall?
Seattle in fall brings cool temperatures, changing leaves, coffee weather and the return of the Pacific Northwest’s famously moody skies.
Frankly, the Troll looks better under gray clouds anyway.
Sunshine would ruin his complexion.
Keep Exploring
Don’t photograph the Troll and immediately leave.
Explore Fremont.
This neighborhood has long embraced Seattle’s quirky side, making the Troll a starting point rather than the whole adventure.
And if you’re planning a larger Washington trip, head over to our City Unknown Washington Day Trips and Hidden Gems guides afterward.
Best for: Public art, city exploration, photography and wonderfully strange roadside stops.
Which Strange Fall Destination Is Calling Your Name?
Want seriously weird?
Go to the House on the Rock.
Want spooky weird?
Point Pleasant and Mothman.
Want desert weird?
International Car Forest or Salvation Mountain.
Want nature weird?
Goblin Valley.
Want ancient mystery?
Serpent Mound.
Want classic roadside-America weird?
Carhenge or the World’s Largest Ball of Twine.
Want “I have absolutely no idea what I’m looking at” weird?
Once again…
House on the Rock.
Seriously.
I cannot adequately prepare you for that place.
The City Unknown Rule of Weird Road Trips
Here’s something I’ve learned after more than twenty years of traveling:
Never underestimate the weird roadside attraction.
The Grand Canyon will still be there.
Yellowstone isn’t going anywhere.
You already know Disney World exists.
But years from now, when somebody asks about that road trip through Nebraska, you know what you’re going to remember?
The afternoon you stood in a field staring at Stonehenge made from automobiles.
You’ll remember the enormous troll beneath a Seattle bridge.
You’ll remember the strange little museum in West Virginia devoted to a red-eyed flying creature.
You’ll remember walking among cars buried vertically in the Nevada desert.
And you’ll definitely remember the gigantic ball of twine.
Those places tell another side of America’s story.
They’re created by dreamers.
Artists.
Collectors.
Eccentrics.
Communities with a sense of humor.
People with strange ideas and enough determination to actually build them.
And that’s why we love them.
Turn This Into the Ultimate Weird Fall Road Trip
You don’t need to visit all 15.
Pick one.
Then build outward.
Instead of asking:
“What’s the fastest way there?”
Ask:
“What strange little town is between here and there?”
Find the old diner.
Stop at the roadside stand.
Take the historic highway.
Visit the forgotten downtown.
Photograph the ridiculous statue.
Eat somewhere you’ve never heard of.
That’s where the trip happens.
The destination just gives you an excuse to leave home.
Keep Exploring With City Unknown
If unusual places are your kind of travel, you’ve found the right corner of the internet.
Start with our Day Trips Across America and explore destinations state by state.
Then dig into our Hidden Gems Across America to find the places that don’t always make the usual tourist lists.
For an autumn road trip with a slightly more normal definition of “scenery,” check out 15 Small Towns in America That Are Better in the Fall.
And if Halloween is beginning to creep into your travel plans…
Good.
We’re just getting started.
Your Next Detour Starts Here
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