Places RouteDown Wants to Go

Inside this faux cave, visitors can learn how some of their favorite fantasy characters were created.

These phallic stone spires once served as Tolkien's Paths of the Dead.

This modern New Zealand attraction honors ancient forms of astronomy and scientific understanding.

This 46-foot-tall carving of a legendary Māori navigator can only be visited by boat.

Eat your Big Mac in a DC-3.

Come for the bait, stay for the brioche.

What began as a makeshift lost and found, now exists as a unique art installation.

This mechanical clock performs "Romeo and Juliet" in a Shakespeare-themed New Zealand town.

The largest model carrot in the world.

This bakery sells traditional Māori sourdough.

The "punniest place on Earth” has nearly as many bull-themed puns as it does people.

A New Zealand rubbish dump named after British comedian John Cleese.

You may recognize this beautiful grove within Kaitoke Regional Park as location of the house of Elrond.

Only 68 people per day are allowed to visit this New Zealand bird-watcher’s paradise.

On the Oregon coast is a natural hole that seems to be draining the sea.

Ride a mechanical corn dog at the alleged birthplace of America's favorite deep-fried wiener.

This lake in the Cascades lives up to its name, disappearing down a hole every spring.

A Victorian-style home known as the “Castle on the Hill.”

No one knows how this Pacific Northwest spruce tree came to have so many trunks.

This unassuming cheese empire in rural Oregon churns out more than 150,000 pounds of cheese each day.

This extravagant Art Nouveau rest stop features a million-dollar view of the Columbia River.

This coastal rock formation resembles a churning cauldron at high tide.

Not-so-fearsome tiny trolls live under this wooden train trestle in Portland.

This stoic, if derpy, giant stands as a monument to Oregon's statehood and the novelty culture of yesteryear.