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There are so many ghost towns in America that we are unaware of. They are off the beaten path and many don’t appear on a map. We are a road-tripping kind of family! I say this because we love to travel (and be able to afford to travel) and it is so much cheaper to pile into the van and transport all 8 of our belongings and ourselves than to buy 8 plane tickets and hope that we can squish all of our necessities into mini suitcases. Plane tickets can add up for a large family, let me tell you!
And guess what, we are not alone. According to the 2017–2018 Portrait of American Travelers Study, 39 percent of U.S. leisure travel in the last year included a road trip.
We make the best of it though!! While on the road, we usually find fun destinations to stop and let the kids run around for a little bit and get a small taste of the area or swing in some fun history or even a monument. During one road trip in 2015, we went off the normal route to follow the path that pioneers took to move out west and stopped at multiple historical sites, drank from some fresh spring water and waved to Chimney Rock as we drove by.
FINDING GHOST TOWNS IN AMERICA
After coming across an informative interactive map that GeoTab created of Ghost Towns in America, we are definitely making a few ghost towns as part of a future road trip!
FIND A GHOST TOWN NEAR YOU
To visit a ghost town near you, a little more research will have to be done, but this map gives a general idea on if there are even any towns to look into.
We wanted to find any around us in Northwest Arkansas. The map shows about 3 to 5 relatively close to us, so I did some research to find out what we could visit.
I found a list of Ghost Towns in Arkansas from wikipedia and then found one listed in Benton County, Monte Ne. This was the location of a health resort in the early 1900’s and after 30 years, was forced to close due to poor financial planning.
I was excited to take my children to see what is left of the area, as it sounds like they had built up a fairly large resort. However, the remainder of the resort and town was almost completely submerged after Beaver Lake was created in 1964. All that remains today are some foundations, a mostly submerged amphitheater and one severely vandalized structure that is now fenced off. Bummer!!
So we don’t have a ghost town within our county, but do you? Let me know in the comments what ghost towns in America we should visit!
Even though we don’t have one super close by, we will definitely be visiting a ghost town or two on our next road trip! Spooky things like this always perk my children’s interests! In fact, in 2013, our oldest son Kayden did a report on ghost towns in Juab County, Utah. The largest one in the area was Eureka, Utah and he was fascinated! Check it out!
Happy Haunting!
SHARE & REPOST: Pin, share and repost for all your friends to get a HUGE hint!
Many pictures on this page courtesy of GeoTab.com
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