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The House On The Rock in Wisconsin is amazing. It started out as the passion project of an eccentric amateur architect, and eventually turned into this sprawling kitschy tourist trap in the middle of a forest. The original house is intricate, poorly lit, claustrophobic and sort of spooky; the additions were built more like straightforward warehouses & filled with themed attractions which vary from schmaltzy Americana, to how I imagine terrified dogs perceive normal human things. The carousel and organ rooms are especially hellish fever dreams in the best way. There's a couple of official House On The Rock hotels near the attraction as well. I stayed at one the last time I visited and really enjoyed how dated & lonely it felt. It was like staying in a fading memory. The whole House On The Rock... thing is like if, four decades ago, a chunk of a moderately weird parallel reality fell into our Wisconsin and hasn't been touched up or improved upon since.
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Dec 15, 2014 21:28
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Casa Bonita is in Lakewood, CO. I didn't think it actually existed when I first saw the South Park episode, but it's real and horrible according to a friend of mine from Denver. He says it's something where you pay for the experience, not the food, but that's a difficult selling point when you have to pay like $15 for a meal for anyone over 2. The food is seriously the worst ever.  (A picture of someone's plate from the Yelp reviews.) The experience on the other hand is apparently a crappy arcade, high schoolers jumping from cliffs, and extremely campy dinner theater.  I have never been there, but I would love to hear anyone's horror stories about it.
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Dec 15, 2014 21:46
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angelfisher posted:Casa Bonita is in Lakewood, CO. I didn't think it actually existed when I first saw the South Park episode, but it's real and horrible according to a friend of mine from Denver. What horror stories? What your friend told you about it is true. It's 100% experience. It's campy and low class and weird but it's not the end of the world to go enjoy a night there. Unless you get food poisoning I guess, which is entirely possible.
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Dec 15, 2014 22:04
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Knormal posted:
I dont know if it was this one or not but when I was a kid on a vacation somewhere we once stopped at a roadside restraunt? tourist attraction? I cant remember. It had a giant Paul Bunyon & Babe the Blue Ox statue but 2 things stuck out. There was a loudspeaker built into Paul that someone, presumably watching through CCTV, would talk and interact with the families approaching the statue. The other thing is that Babe had genitals which my 12 year old mind found to be a very weird thing.
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Dec 15, 2014 22:25
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El Estrago Bonito posted:Many of them date from a time where America was a place the size of Europe with vastly more open space. This is a good post and apt description I'll probably find it with some Google fu here in a second but what about that Turkey place with the super gaudy 70s themed hotel rooms and restaurant that only served turkey everything only down to the dessert Nostalgia4Dogges has a new favorite as of 22:54 on Dec 15, 2014 |
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Dec 15, 2014 22:48
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For years, I've thought Klamath was just something Black Isle Studios invented for Fallout 2. I had no idea it was a real place (and apparently also a Native American tribe). Dumb eurogoon here 
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Dec 15, 2014 23:00
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Speaking of Chattanooga, there's the infamous UFO house nearby. That's literally all it is, it's just someone's house that looks like a UFO. But for some reason it's embedded in people's minds down here. When I moved to Atlanta for school, I talked to a few people that knew about the UFO house when I mentioned I grew up around Chattanooga. Atlanta itself isn't a very touristy town, but we do have Underground Atlanta. It barely qualifies as a tourist trap because nobody has actually went there since the late 70s. A whole section of space was found from when the street level was raised earlier in the century, so a few guys decided to renovate it and fill it with kitschy poo poo. It's a very sad place these days.  
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Dec 15, 2014 23:02
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I guess we don't really have 'tourist traps' here in the UK in the same way that the US does (highways aren't long or desolate enough), but I faintly remember from my 90's pre-teen childhood a lot of lovely attractions that my parents used to take us to in Somerset and beyond, such as Animal Farm, which sadly isn't a George Orwell themed park but instead actually is just a farm. From the website it looks to have actually improved a bit from when we used to go there in the nineties. A much better place to spend our childhood was five minutes down the road, an abandoned military fort called Brean Down The greatest example of a lovely somerset 90's tourist trap would have to be Blobbyland. The story behind this is basically that during the nineties a television show called Noel's House Party became ridiculously popular and one of its segments involved this wierd character called Mr Blobby. Despite being heralded by critics as a one-man downfall of British civilisation, Mr Blobby somehow became so popular that he actually took number one in the christmas charts one year with whatever the hell this is. Capitalising on this popularity, not one but two theme parks were built in his honour. The first lasted one lasted only four months, but undeterred by this, the second was built in the grounds of a famous Somerset manor house and wildlife park. It didn't even last out the decade, but long enough that my parents could take us several times.
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Dec 15, 2014 23:10
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 Lincoln's Lincoln's 50,000 Silver Dollars, a combination gift shop, hotel, diner and western bar, the last of which features 50,000 silver dollars mounted on the walls or imbedded in the bar top. It used to only be the 10,000 Silver Dollars, but I guess that's inflation for you. We used to travel from Oregon to Montana all of the time when I was a kid and always stopped here. Lots of fun to look at all of the cheesy crap for the first 30 minutes. The warehouse-sized souvenir shop was something else, all the Western crap you could think of and more. Clocks made out of varnished slices of trees with Indians airbrushed on it, Indian jewelry, all kinds of knives, and I remember at age 8 finding a box that said "The South Will Rise Again!" with a naked plastic hillbilly inside that had a huge erection. Also my brother found a can of Coke II in their drink fridge years after they stopped selling it. angelfisher posted:Casa Bonita is in Lakewood, CO. I didn't think it actually existed when I first saw the South Park episode, but it's real and horrible according to a friend of mine from Denver.
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Dec 15, 2014 23:35
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angelfisher posted:Casa Bonita is in Lakewood, CO. I didn't think it actually existed when I first saw the South Park episode, but it's real and horrible according to a friend of mine from Denver. $15 is stupid cheap for a meal, but yes the food is pretty crap. $15 is well worth the  factor though. If you want touristy + food that is actually good, check out The Buckhorn Exchange. It has liquor license #1 in the state and a lot of taxidermy. Like...a lot a lot. It's basically Ron Swanson: the Restaurant. I ate five different animals last time I went.
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Dec 16, 2014 00:32
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Chrpno posted:Which of course got me thinking about this: Oh that's some bullshit, everyone knows that the world's largest ball of twine is in Cawker City, Kansas:   I took these pictures at 3am while driving through north central Kansas when my GPS decided to route me through Cawker City, which would explain the lovely cell phone pictures. It was also loving cold and windy, but damnit I was going to touch that drat ball of twine on the way home.
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Dec 16, 2014 03:03
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Low Desert Punk posted:Atlanta itself isn't a very touristy town, but we do have Underground Atlanta. It barely qualifies as a tourist trap because nobody has actually went there since the late 70s. A whole section of space was found from when the street level was raised earlier in the century, so a few guys decided to renovate it and fill it with kitschy poo poo. It's a very sad place these days. I went to a bar & grill in this place once. I entered in the middle of one of the waitresses having a emotional breakdown, who then proceeded to lock herself in the restroom and start breaking poo poo. Also yes the rest of this place is pretty sad.
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Dec 16, 2014 03:16
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mysterious frankie posted:The House On The Rock in Wisconsin is amazing. It started out as the passion project of an eccentric amateur architect, and eventually turned into this sprawling kitschy tourist trap in the middle of a forest. The original house is intricate, poorly lit, claustrophobic and sort of spooky; the additions were built more like straightforward warehouses & filled with themed attractions which vary from schmaltzy Americana, to how I imagine terrified dogs perceive normal human things. The carousel and organ rooms are especially hellish fever dreams in the best way. There's a couple of official House On The Rock hotels near the attraction as well. I stayed at one the last time I visited and really enjoyed how dated & lonely it felt. It was like staying in a fading memory. The whole House On The Rock... thing is like if, four decades ago, a chunk of a moderately weird parallel reality fell into our Wisconsin and hasn't been touched up or improved upon since. I really need to go there someday, even if just the footage from it makes me nauseous and claustrophobic. I mean look at this poo poo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk64z1YN_sY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8D5TeCvskY The worst video I've seen is of a room with featureless, chalk white, melty-faced automatons dressed in marching band outfits. I couldn't have pictured anything as horrific in my worst nightmares. Unfortunately I couldn't find the video footage of it.
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Dec 16, 2014 03:25
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Christoff posted:This is a good post and apt description The Gobbler! Long dead, which is a shame because I never got to see it.
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Dec 16, 2014 03:55
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Basticle posted:I dont know if it was this one or not but when I was a kid on a vacation somewhere we once stopped at a roadside restraunt? tourist attraction? I cant remember. It had a giant Paul Bunyon & Babe the Blue Ox statue but 2 things stuck out. There was a loudspeaker built into Paul that someone, presumably watching through CCTV, would talk and interact with the families approaching the statue. The other thing is that Babe had genitals which my 12 year old mind found to be a very weird thing. You're thinking of the old Paul Bunyan Amusement park in Brainerd, MN. Used to be right in town, but it shut down and someone bought the works and moved it about 10 miles out of town, and renamed it Paul Bunyan Land. https://www.google.com/search?q=pau...Dw&ved=0CEYQsAQ
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Dec 16, 2014 04:05
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The Canadian side of Niagara Falls is a gigantic gaudy tourist trap thats been built up over time to a Vegas like monstrosity.   Most Goons would know it as the home of the yearly Halloween scare photos, though they probably run those haunted houses year round. My favorite attraction is the butterfly garden. 
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Dec 16, 2014 04:53
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Tombstone, Arizona. The entire town.      You'd think it's at least okay because of all the historic buildings and the fact that it's a National Historic Landmark District, but you'd be wrong. A lot of buildings are not original, improperly restored with incorrect materials, destroyed and covered over with something not original, replacement of historic features with new construction and electric lights on almost every sign, Vegas-style. Plus it costs to get into anything that's not a shop. As a result the NPS is looking at pulling their status. The whole place is kitschy and fake and hilarious, filled with bikers and goofball tourists.
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Dec 16, 2014 05:01
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Some goon will know this. What the heck is the Wisconsin Dells?
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Dec 16, 2014 05:16
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KiteAuraan posted:Tombstone, Arizona. The entire town. Badly recreated Old West towns make me thing of this thing from Knot's Berry Farm. No unfortunate implications here. 
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Dec 16, 2014 05:20
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angelfisher posted:
Can someone tell me what in gods name that's supposed to be?
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Dec 16, 2014 06:41
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Davfff posted:Can someone tell me what in gods name that's supposed to be? I believe it is the saddest plate of frijoles refritos on the entire planet.
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Dec 16, 2014 06:46
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Khazar-khum posted:Some goon will know this. Wisconsin Dells is a town in south-central WI that's home to a ton of things that exist mostly between Memorial Day and Labor Day: water parks, roller coasters, go kart tracks, mini golf, shops selling any number of stupid tourist souvenirs and experiences, duck (amphibious boat) rides, and gently caress knows what else these days. I haven't been there since I was a teenager. A large portion of the hotels have attached indoor waterparks, the highway between it and nearby town Baraboo (itself a bit of a tourist town since it's the home of the Ringling Brothers) has Ho-Chunk casino in case you wanted another way to blow money during your visit. Going there was something I looked forward to as a kid and teen but I don't know how well the experience would hold up now that I'm nearly 30.
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Dec 16, 2014 10:28
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KiteAuraan posted:Tombstone, Arizona. The entire town. So like a shittier version of Virginia City? Cool. I guess these count as tourist traps in a way: On the Oregon/Idaho border (which is an empty high desert) located a bunch of miles from the highway in the middle of a field is, uh, this.  The grave of Pomp, the only person born during the Corps of Discovery. He died by random chance and so now there is a historical marker and shiz. A couple hundred miles away is Roundbarn. It's a barn that is round, the gift shop is awesome and sells stick candy. It's part of the local hero worship of a man named Pete French who was a famous cowboy land baron who died in a gunfight making him the single most interesting thing to happen to southern Oregon in a hundred years. 
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Dec 16, 2014 10:41
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King Vidiot posted:I really need to go there someday, even if just the footage from it makes me nauseous and claustrophobic. I mean look at this poo poo: You should definitely go, at least for one day. Videos don't do the place justice. It transcends kitsch and becomes this otherworldly autonomous zone of eccentric tackiness. It's also an attraction who concept was born out of belligerence and spite- two of our nation's defining characteristics- so it's basically a pilgrimage every American & persons hoping to understand America should undertake. wikipedia posted:Both of Jordan's biographers relate a story told by Sid Boyum, which places the inspiration for the house in a meeting between Alex Jordan, Jr. and Frank Lloyd Wright, at some unspecified time between 1914 and 1923. Jordan Sr. drove with Boyum to Taliesin to show Wright the plans for a building, the Villa Maria in Madison. Jordan worshiped the famous architect and hoped for his approval. Wright looked at the plans and told Jordan: "I wouldn't hire you to design a cheese crate or a chicken coop. You're not capable." Fuming, on the drive back on Highway 23, Jordan pointed to a spire of rock and told Boyum: "I'm going to put up a Japanese house on one of those pinnacle rocks and advertise it." Balousek says Wright "apparently didn't forget the incident", noting that Wright "complained publicly to Iowa County officials about the house the Jordans were building" and bought a nearby piece of property, "perhaps as a way to get back at Jordan." "gently caress you, Wright; I can too design a living space." *constructs wacky shack witch house*
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Dec 16, 2014 16:23
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I also like the bit of trivia that most of the stuff on display at House on the Rock was probably built on-site by people working for Jordan. So all of the "amazing artifacts" from around the world are actually just poo poo that was handcrafted in a nearby warehouse building. In Wisconsin Dells news, I was sad to hear that Tommy Bartlett's Robot World was shut down, it was probably my favorite part of my trip there since I've always loved dated and tacky poo poo. Robot World was filled with robots straight out of a 70's sci-fi series:  Every robot was just a variation on that C3PO knock-off or else a spherical face with with bendy straws for a body and arms. The "people" in the space station were all Pirates of the Caribbean rejects.
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Dec 16, 2014 17:17
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KiteAuraan posted:Tombstone, Arizona. The entire town. Well, now I don't feel bad about having lived in AZ for so long and never going there.
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Dec 16, 2014 17:31
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canyoneer posted:Well, now I don't feel bad about having lived in AZ for so long and never going there. Jerome is pretty similar, but actually has historic buildings still and a nice state park. It's far superior. We also have a nice stretch on the I-40 from Williams to the border with New Mexico that has all sorts of fun stuff. Starting with Williams itself, which is basically Route 66: The Town. Then the ruins of Twin Arrows. Ending with Geronimo's Trading Post out by Holbrook. Which is great because it's named for a Bedonkohe who never visited the region, with Plains tee-pees decorated with Zuni and Hopi symbols. It's essentially peak tourist trap in the state of Arizona. All along the stretch you can see the ruins of other, far less notable trading posts and tourists traps from when it was Route 66 connecting Williams and Gallup.
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Dec 16, 2014 18:15
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Gasmask posted:
I've actually been there, in a fit of boredom a few years ago. They don't even sell all varieties of M&M.
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Dec 16, 2014 20:22
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:The Gobbler! Hell yeah (pretty sure those rooms/interior design existed until it closed in 1995)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gobbler http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2005/3/24/114146/111/hotels/The_Mystery_Of_The_Gobbler_Motel http://foodtoons.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html I'm trying to find the menu online but yeah almost every item had turkey in some form or another (Apparently the owner had a turkey farm or something)
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Dec 17, 2014 00:36
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angelfisher posted:Casa Bonita is in Lakewood, CO I read this post while that episode of South Park was on in the background. It's kind of horrifying to find out that it's a real place.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:30
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Hey kids lets all go to the Pancake Man~ Its a breakfast joint in Cape Cod that has been around since the 60s. My family went on vacations to Cape Cod all the time, and we always stopped here. The food is actually pretty good and reasonably priced so its a really nice place to go for a meal. I mainly bring it up because of the creepy chef they use as their logo. They sell tons of merchandise and almost all of it has that face leering at you. I have no idea why you would ever look at that and think you needed it on your coffee mug. It must work though, since every time I've gone here the restaurant has been packed with plenty of tourists scooping up their novelty gifts.
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Dec 17, 2014 03:50
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This place: Defined summers for me during my childhood. Every road trip out of LA meant stopping at this kitchy little restaurant on the way up or the way down. I think I still have a souvenir plate somewhere.
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Dec 17, 2014 08:05
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Haha I was going to post that. It's also near Solvang I believe which has already been posted. (The "Danish" city in central-ish coastal CA)
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Dec 17, 2014 08:17
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Desperado Bones posted:I request help from Mexican Goons. Do we have tourist traps in Mexico? Do we meven have them? Or has a foreign goon stumbled with one during their trips to Mexico? You do! La Bufadora is definitely a tourist trap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Bufadora
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Dec 17, 2014 08:55
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King Vidiot posted:In Wisconsin Dells news, I was sad to hear that Tommy Bartlett's Robot World was shut down
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Dec 18, 2014 19:20
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Faux-European towns in America are pretty common apparently. Leavenworth in Washington state is all dolled up to look like a Bavarian town I guess, cause that's what you to see when driving to Seattle. It's a weird thing when you're a small child that's never been outside of the USA and your parents explain it away by going "this is what Europe looks like!" Europe looks like Christmas and ice cream parlors, apparently.
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Dec 18, 2014 20:11
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Speaking of Old West theme parks, my favorite childhood theme park was "Ghost Town in the Sky". Sitting on top of the lovely Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. My parents had a vacation house right down the street so I went there a lot. You either had to ride a chairlift or a train to get to the top and then back down again.  At the top was an western themed ghost town.  At noon there was always a gun show  With lots of creepy mannequins doing things around town. Most of the rides were carnival rides, with the exception of a single roller coaster which broke down a lot, also didn't have shoulder restraints.  Bonus: There was a Christmas theme park named "Santa's Land" not too far down the road in Cherokee, NC.  All I know about it is that it's not open in the winter despite it being Santa's Land, and I'm pretty sure you can/could feed baby bears.
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Dec 18, 2014 21:01
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Dzhay posted:I've actually been there, in a fit of boredom a few years ago. They don't even sell all varieties of M&M. They have one in Vegas too, it's overshadowed by being next to the totally awesome Coke store which has a tasting thing where you can try samplers of foreign types of Coke.
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Dec 18, 2014 23:09
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angelfisher posted:Casa Bonita is in Lakewood, CO. I didn't think it actually existed when I first saw the South Park episode, but it's real and horrible according to a friend of mine from Denver. It was also a LOT cheaper before the South Park episode. It was basically just slightly better, sorta Mexican themed Chuck E Cheese or whatever pizza place kids have birthday parties at. Also they got in trouble for serving horse meat while claiming it was beef way back.
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Dec 18, 2014 23:26
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Dead Pikachu posted:Speaking of Old West theme parks, my favorite childhood theme park was "Ghost Town in the Sky". Sitting on top of the lovely Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. My parents had a vacation house right down the street so I went there a lot. I remember my parents have a plastic "Ghost Town in the Sky" cup, vanished around 2003. I never visited the place. I rode my first "roller coaster" at Santa's Land. I was 4 and was horrified the whole time, even tried climbing out of it. However, you've missed the tourist traps of all tourist traps: Gatlinburg Tennessee.      Bill Bryson wrote quote:Gatlinburg is a shock to the system from whichever angle you survey it, but never more so than when you descend upon it from a spell of moist, grubby isolation in the woods. It sits just outside the main entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and specializes in providing all those things that the park does not-- principally, slurpy food, motels, gift shops, and sidewalks on which to waddle and dawdle--nearly all of it strewn along a single, astoundingly ugly main street. For years it has prospered on the confident understanding that when Americans load up their cars and drive enormous distances to a setting of rare natural splendor what most of them want when they get there is to play a little miniature golf and eat dribbly food. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most popular national park in America, but Gatlinburg--this is so unbelievable--is more popular than the park. First off: Gatlinburg is tacky, it's trashy, it's kitschy, and it's mildly racist. Despite all that I love it. Some of that is sentimental value; my grandparents (poor factory workers) never were able to travel much and since Gatlinburg was only a state away it became the typical "vacation-with-the-Grandparents" place and I love those memories. The other, genuine reason to like Gatlinburg is it's location; so close to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, it's near some of the most beautiful scenery in the US.     
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Dec 19, 2014 01:29
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