In 1962 four Wilber, Nebraska citizens made a tourist festival one of their founding goals. A governor named the town Nebraska’s Czech Capital in 1963.

Lindsborg, Kansas started teaching Swedish dances and food to its own children in 1941, after leaders saw the traditions fading. It is Little Sweden USA.

Liberal, Kansas has raced Olney, England at pancake flipping every year since 1950, after a Jaycee president saw a photo and challenged the English town.

Groom, Texas is known for a water tower a truck stop owner set leaning on purpose around 1980, and for a 190 foot cross erected near town in 1995.

San Antonio de Areco, 113 km from Buenos Aires, has a gaucho museum for a novelist’s story and, under a 1984 law, the Día de la Tradición’s seat.

Holambra, Brazil, was founded in 1948 by Catholic Dutch immigrants whose cattle died. The colony turned to flowers, then to a national flower show.

Ficksburg, in South Africa’s Free State, has held a Cherry Festival every November since 1968 that still draws nearly 30,000 visitors a year.

Zalipie, Poland is a farm village where women have painted flowers on their houses since the late nineteenth century, in a contest held since 1948.

Whittlesey, England banned its straw bear custom by 1909. A volunteer society revived it in 1980, and the January festival now draws over 250 performers.

Kalkar, Germany hosted a fast breeder reactor that three countries built and never switched on; a Dutch investor made its site a theme park in 1995.