Take This Quirky Road Trip To Visit North Dakota's Most Unique Roadside Attractions
By Leah|Published June 04, 2018
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Leah
Author
Leah moved to North Dakota when she was 12 years old and has traveled from the Red River Valley to the badlands and many places in between. She loves small-town life and currently enjoys living on a small farm in the ND prairie. She's always had a passion for writing and has participated in novel writing challenges such as NaNoWriMo multiple times. Her favorite part about this job is recognizing small businesses that deserve a boost and seeing the positive affect her articles can have on their traffic, especially in rural areas that might have otherwise gone overlooked.
There’s nothing more classic Americana than stopping at a quirky roadside attraction while you’re on a road trip. No matter how many “world’s largest somethings” you stop for or annoyed groans from the kids in the backseat when you pull off to see a museum dedicated to something totally mundane, it’s still whole-hearted fun. Naturally, a road trip where the roadside attractions aren’t a nice bonus but the entire purpose of the trip is set to be a blast! If you’re looking for a unique adventure to take in North Dakota this summer, here is the one for you:
This road trip will take you through central North Dakota to some of the most unique roadside attractions in the state.
This trip is about 400 miles long and should take 6 hours and 45 minutes. With a few minutes to stop at each attraction and time to grab a bite to eat for lunch, you could squeeze this all into one day or you could split it up over multiple days. You could take this trip in either direction, starting from the top and going down and around, or starting at the bottom and going up and around. In this article we will be starting from the top.
Click here for driving directions.
Your first stop is in Rugby, North Dakota, where you will find the geographical center of North America. That's right, the center to the entire continent is here in North Dakota!
After that you'll head a little ways north towards the Canadian border where you'll reach the town of Dunseith and will be greeted by this W'eel Turtle, made of tire rims. You can also stop by the International Peace Garden here.
Now you'll start heading southbound until you reach Minot, North Dakota. Here you can take a tour of the Scandinavian Heritage Park and its beautiful Gol Stave Church, unique buildings and statues, and this huge dala horse.
Next up is Garrison, North Dakota and its mascot: Wally the Walleye. The dam that forms Lake Sakakawea is near Garrison and in that lake you can fish walleye, of course!
Further south is the town of New Salem, North Dakota, and the World's Largest Holstein Cow, Salem Sue. You'll want to take a drive up onto her hill and get the view she sees from there - it's fantastic!
Now we're switching directions back east along I-94. In North Dakota's capitol city, Bismarck, you can stop by Keelboat Park and see unusual things like this thunderbird statue or huge figures depicting Lewis, Clark, and Sakakawea.
As you continue east, you'll reach the town of Steele, North Dakota, and its claim to fame is having the World's Largest Sandhill Crane. This long-legged fellow is fun to see when it's towering over you in person.
Finally, Jamestown, North Dakota has one of the most well known and fun roadside attractions in North Dakota. The World's Largest Buffalo, Dakota Thunder, stands over a field of real bison including rare white ones. It is also next to the old west town attraction, Frontier Village.
