In the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania sits a town that looks like it belongs in the Alps. Jim Thorpe, formerly called Mauch Chunk (meaning ‘Sleeping Bear’ in the Lenni Lenape language), got its new ...

Three gunboats slipped up the dark Combahee River on June 2, 1863. Commanding one of them was Harriet Tubman. During that night, she guided 150 Black soldiers through dangerous waters filled with ...

Creationist Ken Ham dreamed big in 2010: build the world’s biggest timber-frame structure, make it look exactly like Noah’s Ark, and stick it in Kentucky farm country. Fast forward through $100 ...

Ohio: the Buckeye State, where college football is a religion, the weather can’t make up its mind, and the legal code is just as unpredictable. From outlawed fish intoxication to a genuine fear of ...

Pennsylvania runs from the skyscrapers of Philadelphia to the quiet farms of Lancaster County, with mountains, gorges, and small towns filling in everything between. The state has 124 parks spread ...

Tennessee: where the barbecue is smoky, the music never stops, and the laws? Let’s just say some of them could use a remix. While the Volunteer State gave us Elvis, Dollywood, and the Grand Ole Opry, ...

1. It’s Illegal to Tap Your Foot to Music in a Tavern Yes, really. A long-standing law bans patrons from keeping time to music in restaurants and bars—so don’t even think about bobbing your head to ...

Northeastern California does not get the attention it deserves. Out in Lassen County, a 25.4-mile trail follows the Susan River through a canyon lined with rock outcrops, pine forests, and mountain ...

Count John Polereczky went from Hungarian nobility to Maine lighthouse keeper in one lifetime. Born in France, he fought for America as a Hussar during the Revolution, then settled in Dresden, Maine.

Kentucky has a waterfall that makes rainbows at night. Not a trick, not a light show, just water and moonlight doing something that happens in only one other place on earth. Cumberland Falls drops 68 ...

Huntington Beach has been a surf town for more than a century, and the pier at the end of Main Street is where it all comes together. The concrete deck reaches 1,850 feet into the Pacific, one of the ...

Texas slang is a mash-up of freeway code, food orders shouted over a pit of oak-smoked brisket, and rally cries that can be heard from El Paso to Port A. If these feel second nature, you didn’t just ...