Your Guide to Western Weirdness
The West has some of the most creative roadside attractions in the country. Out here in the land of endless highways and wide open spaces, people have built some truly amazing attractions. Giant concrete dinosaurs welcome travelers, UFO museums celebrate the unexplained, and someone built a 134-foot thermometer because why not?
Desert highways are perfect for the kind of attractions that make road trips memorable. These aren’t your typical tourist stops – they’re the places that spark conversations and create the best travel stories.
Western Weird: Bigger, Stranger, More Inexplicable
Everything’s supersized out west, including the weirdness. While other regions might have a quirky museum or two, the West specializes in attractions you can see from space. We’re talking about people who spent decades covering mountains in paint, building alien landing pads in their backyards, and creating “mystery spots” where physics supposedly doesn’t work.
The best part about western attractions? Most were built by complete obsessives who had a vision and absolutely zero regard for whether anyone else would understand it.
Desert Roads and Alien Highways
Western states perfected the art of the bizarre roadside stop out of pure necessity – when you’re driving through 200 miles of nothing, any excuse to pull over becomes interesting. That’s how we ended up with alien-themed diners, gravity-defying houses, and monuments to things that probably shouldn’t have monuments.
The alien thing is particularly strong out west. Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway is lined with UFO everything, and half the desert attractions claim some connection to alien activity. Whether you believe it or not, it makes for some seriously entertaining stops.
Things to Do West by State: Click to Explore the Weird
Click on any state and you will find lots of cool things to do!
Looking for a different State? Here is a map for Regional Reference 🙂
Chasing Desert Mirages and Roadside Legends
Western attractions often come with stories that sound completely made up but somehow aren’t. Places where cars supposedly roll uphill, buildings that survived impossible disasters, or collections of random objects that someone spent 40 years assembling in the middle of nowhere.
The key to western road tripping is following those hand-painted signs that promise something incredible just a few miles down a dirt road. Half the time you’ll find exactly what was advertised, and the other half you’ll find something even weirder.
Have a little out of the ordinary spot you’d like to share? Feel free to comment, or message us!