Travel is changing. People used to visit Paris. Rome. Tokyo. Now, this strange new vacation trend has people heading to places like “East Kansas Gravel Pit #7.” Why? Because no one else is there.
Travel blogs call it “authentic.” Influencers call it “hidden gem hunting.” We call it “desperate.”
Goodbye Eiffel Tower, Hello Water Tower
Crowds are bad, they say. So people are skipping the big stuff. No more Grand Canyon. No more Niagara Falls. Instead, travelers are now flocking to small-town sewage museums. Yes, that’s a real place. No, we don’t know why.
Take Marge and Bob, a retired couple from Florida. Last year they went to Venice. This year? They biked through the drainage ditches of rural Nebraska.
“It’s so peaceful,” said Marge, while dodging a possum.
Bob added, “We only saw three other people the whole week. Two were confused mailmen.”
Instagram Made Me Do It
It started with one person posting a photo of an empty bench in the woods.
Now it’s become a strange new vacation trend.
People are flying halfway across the world to take selfies in front of things like:
- A rock that sort of looks like a bear
- An abandoned payphone with moss on it
- A shed
One woman posted a photo of her standing next to an empty gas station in West Texas. The caption read: “Found this secret spot. No tourists here. Magical.”
She later admitted she had car trouble and just got bored.
“Hidden Gems” Are Now Just… Rocks
Some travelers try too hard. There’s a guy named Chad who runs a YouTube channel called TravelDeeperWithChad. Last month, he camped behind a tire shop in Iowa.
“It’s all about finding places untouched by tourists,” he said, while swatting mosquitoes the size of baseballs.
His vlog episode was titled: The Soul of the Midwest Lives in This Parking Lot.
Spoiler: it did not.
Reviews You Can’t Trust
Online reviews are no help. Someone gave 5 stars to a cornfield for “its raw energy.” Another said a dead-end road in Montana had “life-changing stillness.”
One woman reviewed a ditch as “surprisingly cozy.”
Some people now rate spots based on how boring they are.
- “Nothing to do here. Perfect.”
- “Absolutely nothing around. Couldn’t be happier.”
- “Felt truly alone. Would cry here again.”
Travel Agents Are Losing It
Travel agents have had to adjust. No more booking beach resorts. Now they send people to:
- The world’s only museum of glue
- A 7-foot hill in Ohio nicknamed “Mount Meh”
- A bus stop that hasn’t been used since 1983
One travel agent said, “Last week someone asked if I could get them into a silent retreat for squirrels. I said no. It was booked solid.”
The New Bucket List Is Just… a List
Old bucket lists had big dreams: Climb Everest. Walk the Great Wall. Eat sushi in Tokyo.
Now? It’s stuff like:
- Sit on a rock in silence
- Count ducks in a pond
- Stare at a fence and reflect
One man checked off “Watch paint dry in rural Canada.” He filmed the whole thing. Over 8 hours. It’s on YouTube. It has fans.
Where Does It End?
Will people start vacationing in crawl spaces? Sewer grates? That weird patch of grass behind Arby’s?
Maybe.
The travel industry is already planning tours of “places where absolutely nothing has happened.” They’re working on packages like:
- “Two Nights in a Beige Motel”
- “Fence Staring Weekend”
- “The Sidewalk Nobody Walks On”
Final Thoughts (Before You Book a Trip to a Parking Lot)
Look, we get it. No one wants to wait in line behind a hundred people for one photo. But maybe don’t fly across the country just to sit in a chair that’s “emotionally quiet.”
It’s okay to enjoy real places. Popular doesn’t always mean bad. Crowds aren’t great, but at least they mean something cool is happening.
Or, if you really want to be alone, just stay home. Save the money. Sit in your closet with the lights off. You’ll be very on-trend.
