Bentonville, Arkansas turned Walton money and 130-plus miles of trail into a real downtown. Here is how the mountain biking capital actually works.
Fredericksburg, Texas turned German Hill Country heritage, 150-plus Main Street shops and a 75-winery wine trail into one of the South’s stickiest tourism economies.
Crazy Horse Memorial, South Dakota: the world’s largest mountain carving, 75-plus years in the making, privately funded, fiercely debated, and still unfinished.
Rothsay, Minnesota is home to the World’s Largest Booming Prairie Chicken, a 9,000-pound roadside statue that turned a 498-person town into a brand.
Gerlach, Nevada is a 130-person desert outpost that becomes the last fuel-and-water stop for 70,000 Burning Man pilgrims one week a year.
Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin: how a scenic river gorge made famous by a 19th-century photographer became the self-proclaimed Waterpark Capital of the World.
Anoka, Minnesota, the self-proclaimed Halloween Capital of the World, has run a civic Halloween festival every year since 1920 and now draws crowds topping 60,000.
Lanesboro, Minnesota: a town of 724 that turned a dead rail line and a paved Root River bike trail into a nationally ranked bike and art mecca.
Cuyuna, Minnesota turned flooded iron mines into a 70-mile IMBA Silver mountain bike mecca, drawing hundreds of thousands of riders to the old range.
Leavenworth, Washington faked its way to fame: a dying timber town reborn as a Bavarian village that now pulls 3.4 million visitors a year.
