Weirdest & Coolest Roadside Attractions on the West Coast
One of the great joys of road tripping the West Coast — especially in something like a 1974 VW Bus named Lucy — is what you find when you’re not looking for it. The giant thing by the highway. The inexplicable museum in the middle of nowhere. The Taco Bell with an ocean view.
These are the stops that make the drive. Pull over. Take the photo. Tell the story forever.
Table of Contents
Washington
The Fremont Troll — Seattle
Under the Aurora Bridge in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, an 18-foot concrete troll clutches a real VW Bug in one fist and glares out from beneath the bridge with a hubcap eye. Commissioned in 1990 by four local artists who wanted to reclaim the space from crime. Now it’s one of the most beloved public art installations in the Pacific Northwest.
Free. Open 24 hours. Fremont also has a statue of Lenin, a rocket ship attached to a building, and a solstice parade involving naked cyclists — so while you’re there, lean in.
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The Gum Wall — Pike Place Market, Seattle
A brick wall in Post Alley below Pike Place Market covered in approximately 2,350 pounds of chewed gum pressed into every surface. It started in the early 1990s when theater-goers began sticking gum to the wall while waiting in line. The city cleaned it completely in 2015. It was fully covered again within 24 hours.
Equal parts disgusting and weirdly magnificent.
Palouse Falls — Eastern Washington
Not weird exactly — Palouse Falls is legitimately stunning, a 200-foot waterfall pouring into a basalt canyon in the middle of flat Eastern Washington farmland that has absolutely no business being this dramatic. Washington’s official state waterfall. The surprise of finding it out there in the open desert is half the experience.
Sun Lakes–Dry Falls — Eastern Washington
Dry Falls is a 3.5-mile-wide, 400-foot-tall dry waterfall in the Eastern Washington desert — the remnant of what was once the largest waterfall in Earth’s history, carrying ten times the flow of all the world’s current rivers combined during the Ice Age floods. There’s a visitor center perched above it. The scale doesn’t compute no matter how long you stare.
Pull over every time.
Oregon
The Prehistoric Gardens — Highway 101
Driving down the Oregon Coast between Port Orford and Gold Beach, life-sized concrete dinosaurs suddenly appear in the coastal rainforest alongside Highway 101. Over 20 of them. Just standing there in the ferns. Been there since 1953. It looks like Jurassic Park if Jurassic Park had a very limited budget and tremendous heart.
Worth every second of the stop.
The Octopus Tree — Cape Meares
At Cape Meares State Scenic Viewpoint near Tillamook, a Sitka spruce grew sideways instead of up — its massive branches spreading horizontally like arms from a central trunk, creating a candelabra shape unlike any tree you’ve ever seen. Estimated to be 250–300 years old. Locals call it the Octopus Tree. It’s also called the Council Tree, the Candelabra Tree, and several other names — none of them do it justice.
Right next to the Cape Meares Lighthouse. Free stop on the Three Capes route.
The Vortex — Oregon Vortex, Gold Hill
The Oregon Vortex near Gold Hill is a “mystery spot” where brooms stand upright on their own, people appear to change height depending on where they stand, and balls roll uphill. Is it a genuine gravitational anomaly? An optical illusion? A very good tourist attraction that’s been operating since 1930? The answer is probably the third one, but it’s genuinely disorienting and extremely fun.
Worth the admission.
Taco Bell Pacifica — Pacifica, California
Technically NorCal, but it earned its place on any West Coast roadside list. The Taco Bell in Pacifica sits on a bluff directly above the Pacific Ocean with floor-to-ceiling windows framing one of the most dramatic fast food views in the world. Surf breaks below while you eat a Crunchwrap. Surfers park next to minivans in the lot. It’s completely absurd and somehow perfect.
Northern California
Drive-Through Tree — Chandelier Drive-Through Tree, Leggett
A 315-foot-tall ancient coastal redwood with a tunnel carved through its base wide enough to drive a car through. The Chandelier Drive-Through Tree in Leggett has been a roadside attraction since 1937. The tree is alive and doing fine. You pay a small fee, drive through a 2,000-year-old living organism, and feel both silly and awed simultaneously.
There are actually three drive-through trees in Northern California — Shrine Drive-Thru Tree in Myers Flat and Tour-Thru Tree in Klamath round out the set. Collect all three.
Mystery Spot — Santa Cruz
The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz is the original West Coast mystery attraction — opened in 1940, it’s a circular area in the redwoods where compasses spin, balls roll uphill, and people tilt at weird angles without falling over. Scientists say it’s tilted construction and visual illusions. The Mystery Spot says it’s a gravitational anomaly from a crashed spaceship.
Either way, it’s been confusing people for 85 years and it’s extremely good fun.
The Cabazon Dinosaurs — Cabazon
Two enormous dinosaur sculptures — a 150-foot brontosaurus and a 65-foot T-rex — stand in the Cajon Pass desert east of Los Angeles off I-10. Built by Claude Bell starting in 1964 and completed after his death. The T-rex has a gift shop in its belly. They appeared in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. There’s nothing else around them for miles.
Classic American roadside weirdness at its absolute finest.
The Rule of the Roadside Stop
The best ones are never on your itinerary. They appear around a bend, or you spot a sign 200 feet before the turnoff, and you have approximately three seconds to decide. Always turn.
For more strange and wonderful Oregon stops, check out our strangest Oregon roadside attractions guide and abandoned places on the West Coast.
Safe and weird travels, friend!
