Saratoga Springs, New York concentrated its identity on a short summer racing meet that began in 1863. The 2024 meet topped one million in paid attendance.

In Erdene, Mongolia, a tour company raised a stainless steel Genghis Khan on horseback at Tsonjin Boldog in 2008, using 250 tonnes of steel.

Crestone, Colorado: a stalled subdivision’s owners granted land to spiritual orders from 1979, and 14 named centers sit mostly in the adjacent Baca Grande.

Stettler, Alberta is home to Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions, in operation since 1990, which runs steam trips on the 34.1 km line to Big Valley.

Solvang, California rebuilt its downtown in Danish style from the 1940s and now draws well over a million visitors a year.

Opishnia (Opishne), Ukraine, grew its national pottery museum from two factory rooms in 1986 to a site of about 60,000 items on 17 hectares.

Moynaq, Uzbekistan sits 150 kilometers from the vanished Aral Sea, and in 2018 the Stihia music festival launched on its dry seabed.

In 1936 the sports association of Ponoka, Alberta ran a two-day stampede over the July 1 holiday, and by 2021 it drew as many as 80,000 fans.

Telluride, Colorado sits in a box canyon with one road in. Its festivals, including a film festival founded in 1974, turned that isolation into the draw.

Hortobágy, Hungary, saw its bridge fair renewed in 1960 without livestock, seven years after the state’s forced labour camps on this plain closed.