135 Stores Make This Pennsylvania Outlet a Black Friday Shopping Destination for Bargain Hunters
Around 135 stores sit side by side at one open-air outlet center, and many of them post savings of 25 to 65 percent. That's a lot of shopping bags waiting to happen.
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Every Halloween, 230 Acres of Pennsylvania Farmland Become a Haunted Village
A headless rider gallops through a dark field while your wagon full of strangers holds its breath. That's a normal Friday night here each October.
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Three Guinness World Records and More Than a Mile of Halloween Terror Await at This Ohio Attraction
Three Guinness World Records belong to one haunted house in Ohio. Yes, three. Most haunts brag about their biggest scares, but...
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Skip the Black Friday Rush at This Ohio Outlet Where Books Sell for 59 Cents a Pound
Books here are priced by the pound, not by the cover. A stack of paperbacks can cost less than a fancy coffee. That alone makes...
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First a Haunted Barn, Then a Quarter-Mile Cornfield at This Pennsylvania Farm
A man wearing a giant ice cream cone on his head might be the least scary thing you meet here. That should tell you plenty about this haunt.
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Monkey Paws, an Alligator Man and a House Full of Oddities Await Inside This Pennsylvania Shop
A monkey paw sits on display in a small Pennsylvania shop, and nobody seems eager to make a wish on it. Then you learn there's an alligator man in the collection too, which changes...
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Only 39 People Had Finished This Five-Pound Pancake at an Ohio Diner, According to Its Staff
A single pancake here weighs about five pounds, and it arrives on a platter instead of a plate. According to the staff, only 39 people had managed to finish one at one point.
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One Beekeeper’s Friendship Inspired a Pennsylvania Coffee Shop That Now Bears His Name
A beekeeper named John once shared his craft with a Pennsylvania woman, and now a whole coffee shop carries his name. That's the kind of thank-you note most of us would never think...
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Four Floods Washed Away This Pennsylvania Restaurant, So Its Owners Rebuilt It Nine Feet Above the Ground
Floodwater has swamped this little breakfast spot four separate times. After the last flood, the owners rebuilt the whole place nine feet above the ground.
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Since 1980, This Pennsylvania Diner Has Been Serving Pancakes So Thin They Roll Them Instead of Stacking Them
The hotcakes here come out crepe-thin, with crispy, lacy edges. Then they get rolled up like a sleeping bag instead of stacked like a tower.
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What Started With 350 Plastic Pumpkins in South Carolina Now Includes Races With Homemade Coffins
Cheap plastic pumpkin buckets started it all. Three hundred and fifty of them, hung by hopeful folks in a small South Carolina town who just wanted a little holiday spirit.
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Back When Dinner Cost $1.50, This South Carolina Seafood Restaurant Was Already Serving Families
Back when dinner cost a dollar and fifty cents, cars had fins and televisions were brand new. Picture a seafood platter piled high with fried fish, hushpuppies, and coleslaw, served...
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Two Million Gallons of Dangerous Waste Sat Inside This South Carolina Warship Until a $31 Million Cleanup
Aircraft carriers rising out of a harbor look like steel islands, and one in South Carolina grows bigger the closer you get. This floating museum draws crowds for its planes and...
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This 1953 California Motel Sat Empty for Years Before Finding an Unexpected Second Life
Mid-century motor courts once lined California highways, their little rooms rented to road trippers who parked right outside their doors. One such motel, built in 1953, has quietly...
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The World’s Tallest Married Couple Lived in Ohio, and Even Their Baby Weighed Nearly 24 Pounds
Stone woman stands watch over a quiet Ohio cemetery, a giant memorial to a couple who once held the title of world's tallest married couple. She represents a woman who stood nearly...
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Up to 1,400 Giant Biscuits a Day Come Out of This Georgia Breakfast Joint
Biscuits the size of saucers come out of this Georgia kitchen by the hundreds, and the smell of warm buttermilk dough reaches the parking lot before the car door even opens. Sunrise...
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California Put a 32-Foot Donut on a Bakery Roof, and It Became More Famous Than the Building
Giant donuts on rooftops are rare, and one in California has been drawing laughs since 1953. It sits on a roof like a frosted crown, so big that the little bakery underneath almost...
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An Ohio Cemetery Had a Jail Cell for Visitors Who Drove Their Horse and Carriage Too Fast
Speeding carriage drivers once got locked up in a tiny jail inside an Ohio cemetery, which sounds like a tall tale until you see the building for yourself. That quirky detail pulled...
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47 Rooms, 190,000 LED Lights, and Secret Passages Make This Ohio Museum Feel Like Another Universe
Quiet, slightly tired plazas on the east side of an Ohio city can hide something unexpected. Walking through one unassuming door leads to a glowing alien forest, and within seconds...
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Truck Drivers Needed Lunch They Could Eat With One Hand, So This Pennsylvania Sandwich Was Born
Fries inside a sandwich sounds like a mistake until you try it. A chilly morning in a Pennsylvania neighborhood brought me to a counter where the flat-top grill sent its smell...
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California Built Restaurants Shaped Like Giant Chili Bowls, and One Survived by Becoming a Sushi Restaurant
Giant chili bowls were once a common sight on California streets, built to look like the food they sold. Most are gone now, but one round white building survived by changing its...
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Ohio Factory Workers Used a Network of Tunnels to Move Between 41 Buildings Without Going Outside
Brick towers on a main street in Ohio hold more than offices and apartments. Beneath them runs a honeycomb of tunnels that workers once used to move materials across a campus of...
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Workers Renovating a California Hotel Broke Through Plaster and Found 10 Stained-Glass Windows Hidden for Decades
Construction crews pulling back old plaster usually find wires and dust. In California, one crew found ten glowing stained-glass windows hidden for decades.
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You Can Drive a 17-Ton Tank Through a Georgia Field, Then Use It to Crush a Car
I still remember the first rumble that shook through my seat when the tank engine woke up in a quiet Georgia field. Only a few miles outside a small mountain town, hidden in the...
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South Carolina’s Last Remaining Covered Bridge Has Stood Since 1909
Laughter comes easily when a red wooden roof appears through the trees and a creek rushes softly beneath it. That reaction happened on a quiet road in South Carolina, where the...
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One South Carolina Collection Has More Than 150 Classic American Cars, Including Machines Rarely Seen on the Road Anymore
I went to the South Carolina coast expecting sand, sunshine, and a mini golf rematch with my family. What I did not expect was to lose a whole afternoon staring at a gleaming classic...
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A 460,000-Pound Bucket Is All That Remains of Ohio’s Largest Dragline Ever Built
Steel buckets so big that two school buses could park inside are not something you see every day, and spotting one along an Ohio road is enough to make anyone pull over. This bucket...
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This South Carolina Restaurant Has Sold More Than 600,000 Crab Cakes Since 1997
More than 600,000 crab cakes have walked out of one South Carolina kitchen, a number that is hard to picture until you imagine a stack taller than any building in the state. I...
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A Pennsylvania Archaeologist Poured His 44-Room Home Almost Entirely From Concrete, Then Covered the Inside With Tiles
Gray concrete towers rising from the trees in Pennsylvania look like a sandcastle that grew up and moved inland. Rooflines argue with each other, and every corner seems to have...
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One South Carolina Family Built a Business Empire Across an Entire City Block After Buying Their Freedom
For nearly 130 years, one family held onto a single downtown block in South Carolina. The story begins with a woman born enslaved in 1799 who later became a free midwife, and it...
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An Ohio Inn Has Hosted 12 U.S. Presidents, but Guests Still Talk About the Little Girl Said to Wander Its Halls
Creaking wooden stairs whisper stories with every step, and this Ohio inn has been welcoming travelers since 1803. It holds the title of oldest continuously operating business...
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A Giant Mining Machine That Once Tore Through Georgia Earth Now Sits Outside a Museum
Massive mining machines on the lawn make you hit the brakes before you even find a parking spot. Steel teeth the size of dinner plates.
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Britain Built Its Southernmost North American Outpost on This Georgia River More Than 300 Years Ago
Salty, green marsh air drifts up from a river while cicadas buzz in the pines behind, and that was the first thing noticed at this Georgia site. The highway promised a quiet historical...
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This North Carolina Steakhouse Serves More Than 20,000 Steaks a Month Inside a Giant Red Barn
North Carolina knows how to do dinner with personality, but this place takes the idea of a steakhouse and supersizes nearly everything. I expected a busy dining room and a serious...
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Presidents and Old Hollywood Stars Ate at This California Cafe That Has Been Feeding Travelers Since the 1800s
California roadside history does not always come with velvet ropes or polished exhibits. Sometimes it arrives with a mug of coffee, a stack of pancakes, and a booth that might...
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9 California Places Built by People Who Refused to Keep Their Ideas Small
Beaches and theme parks are the usual road trip destinations, but the best drives often lead somewhere else. I love these stops because they were never planned by committees or...
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This Ohio Burger Counter Opened in 1928, Long Before Fast-Food Chains Took Over America
I pulled into Lima on a gray Thursday with no real plan except lunch, and a friend told me I had to find the place with the little cherub on the sign. That turned out to be Kewpee...
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More Than 50 Buildings Once Filled This North Carolina Estate, but Only Seven Originals Remain
A road that feels like it is running out of world can suddenly open into a wide lawn and cypress trees so big they make you feel like a kid again. That is what happened on a drive...
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This Ohio Factory Once Made Ammunition for Two World Wars Before Sitting Abandoned for Decades
A giant letter P painted near the top of an old brick tower pokes above the treeline like a signature nobody bothered to erase. The tower made ammunition for two world wars, then...
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This Pennsylvania Sandwich Shop Has Been Roasting Pork Since 1930, and It Still Sells Out Before the Day Is Over
Blue awnings and a small shack near railroad tracks in Pennsylvania look nothing like a food destination, and driving past would be easy. A line at the window told the whole story...
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A Cherokee Leader Built This Georgia Mansion in 1804, Then Lost It During the Removal Era
Finished in 1804, a brick mansion completely rearranged what I thought I knew about this part of Georgia. A Cherokee leader and businessman built the home, and it was the first...
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9 Pennsylvania Hiking Trails Where Abandoned Ruins Are Still Hiding in the Woods
Mossy stone walls in the middle of a Pennsylvania forest keep secrets, and tripping over one is the fastest way to learn that. Old chimneys, quarry sheds, twisted steel, and foundations...
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This California Restaurant Combines a 1797 Home With an 1812 Courthouse and Old Jail Cells
Two old buildings stitched together over a century ago, with thick adobe walls that have been standing since California was still part of Mexico, hide behind a heavy wooden door....
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10 North Carolina Places Where the Building Had a Completely Different Life Before Visitors Started Coming
Verdicts were once waited for in a courthouse, bunks still bolted to the wall in a jail, corn ground in a mill until the machinery went quiet. These buildings did not begin as...
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This South Carolina Opera House Survived More Than a Century While the World Around Its Stage Completely Changed
Clock tower rising above a row of small-town storefronts like a piece of another country is not what I expected on a quiet afternoon drive. The brick landmark has arched windows,...
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An Ohio Quarry Once Supplied Stone for a Growing City, and Its Abandoned Kilns Still Stand in the Woods
A gravel road in Ohio led to a sandstone wall taller than a house, and I pulled in expecting a quick walk in the woods. I...
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11 Ohio Places Where Entire Communities Rose Around One Industry, Belief, or Big Idea and Nearly Disappeared
Bold experiments hide in plain sight at the end of county roads, and I have spent a lot of weekends chasing them across Ohio. Towns grew fast around a single mine, mill, canal,...
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11 Ohio Restaurants Serving Recipes With Stories Older Than the Dining Rooms
Recipes written down long before the current tables and chairs ever existed are still simmering in small brick buildings across Ohio.
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Thirty Thousand Coffee Mugs Cover a North Carolina Cabin, Its Fences, and Even the Trees
Handles hooked on nails and ceramic glinting in the afternoon light, that is what I found at the end of a gravel road in North Carolina. I had heard about a cabin covered in coffee...
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Dozens of Giant Whirligigs Spin Above This North Carolina Park, and One Man Built Nearly All of Them
Wheels turning, small metal figures pedaling bicycles in midair, and a soft clatter that followed me across the grass, that is what I found when I turned a corner in a North Carolina...
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The Furnace Went Cold in 1894, but This Ohio Iron-Making Town Never Completely Disappeared
That gravel road winding through hayfields and thick stands of oak in Ohio did not look like the kind of road that ends at anything important, and that is exactly why I loved the...
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10 South Carolina Places Where Entire Towns, Mills, and Settlements Nearly Disappeared
Piles of old bricks never seemed like much until I started finding them in South Carolina's lowcountry marshes and upstate foothills, scattered across places where thousands of...
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A North Carolina Bakery Still Rolls Every Paper-Thin Moravian Cookie by Hand
Warm spice and sugar drifted across a parking lot surrounded by farmland, and the smell hit me before I even reached the door of that North Carolina bakery. I had driven out on...
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Bigfoot Clues and Haunted Objects Share the Same Rooms at a Tiny North Carolina Museum
A small museum on a North Carolina main street holds a mix of strange clues, local stories, and objects that seem to stare back.
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10 Ohio Restaurants Serving Local Foods That Barely Exist Outside the State
Barberton chicken, Cincinnati chili, Toledo coneys, Brier Hill pizza, and Lake Erie perch, each one belongs to a specific stretch of highway and a specific kitchen that never bothered...
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After Dark, Paranormal Investigators Search This 1840s Georgia Mansion for Unexplained Activity
A street in Savannah, Georgia gets quiet once the sun drops behind the live oaks, and that silence made the big stucco mansion look like a completely different building than the...
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An Old Pennsylvania Poor Farm Opens Its Doors After Dark for Paranormal Investigations
Long halls go quiet after sunset in that old Pennsylvania building, a place that once cared for people who had nowhere else to go. That history still seems to sit in the walls,...
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Georgia Rebuilt Its Oldest English Fort, Right Down to the Saw Mill and Blockhouse
Walking through the reconstructed blockhouse and barracks of an 18th-century frontier fort in Georgia, the same humid breeze that greeted British soldiers over 300 years ago still...
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More Than 11 Spirits Are Said to Linger Inside an 1869 Illinois Mansion
A roofline poking through the trees made me slow the car down and stare, and I almost missed the turn because of it. The mansion sits on one of the highest points in its Illinois...
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