Roadside Attractions

Sometimes the journey is more fun than the destination. That’s often the case with road trips, especially in the United States, where seemingly every highway has something strange and enticing waiting just off the beaten path. If you’re planning on traveling with a charter bus this summer, don’t forget to stop by some of these popular roadside attractions to see the strange and silly side of the United States that only a car or charter bus can provide.

The Cabazon Dinosaurs (Cabazon, California): If you’re headed toward Southern California, plan to make a stop at Carbazon to see the famous Carbazon Dinosaurs, a California landmark since the ’60s. Sculptor Claude Bell created the concrete (and, in one case, life-size) dinosaurs himself, ostensibly to promote his nearby Wheel Inn restaurant. Today the dinosaurs are (ironically) a part of a creationist museum, but stop by to admire Bell’s handiwork even if you pass on the exhibits inside them.

Lucy the Elephant (Margate City, New Jersey): In the 19th century, James V. Lafferty thought he hit on a brilliant idea to sell beachfront properties: build animal-shaped summer homes on them. It didn’t really take off, but it led to the creation of Lucy the Elephant, a beach home shaped like a giant Indian elephant that later became a New Jersey tourist destination and National Historic Landmark. The same can’t be said of Lafferty’s other elephantine buildings in Coney Island and Cape May, which have unfortunately since been torn down.