Are you looking for lost treasure? Want to experience the great outdoors? Trying to find proof of the afterlife? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then this is the motel for you. Of course, you better not be afraid of clowns.
The Clown Motel is, hands down, the cheapest motel you'll find in Tonopah. Don't lt that worry you though, the rooms are clean, the service is great, and they've got 30 premium cable channels and free wifi. No, it's the hundreds of clowns you should be worried about. Seriously, they're in every room, watching your every move.
Oh, did I mention that the place shares a lot with an old cemetery filled with dead gold miners? Yeah, it's literally right at the end of the driveway. On the upside, Tonopah is supposed to be the site of lost treasure, and motel owner, Bob Perchetti, is happy to share his knowledge of the area with eager treasure hunters, so long as you let him in on the find.
The place has become a desert icon with some travelers swearing that it's haunted, and others saying that the scariest thing about the place is the interior design.
All jokes aside, Bob must have a pretty wild sense of humor to have run a clown-themed motel for the past few decades, but he ensures that it's clean and welcoming.. well, as welcoming as clowns can be.
Another one of the Bradford County Arts Council's restored theaters, the Rialto is a great place to catch a new movie for five bucks (so long as you don't expect to see an R-rated flick).
If you're a fan of cemeteries, Woodlawn is a great place to visit. Not only is the cemetery beautiful, but it's the final resting place of none other than Mark Twain!
This is one of the last drive-in theaters that you're bound to find, but thankfully it's one of the nicest. The biggest issue with drive-ins is usually the sound - it always ends up sounding like AM talk radio, which can really take the punch out of the experience. This place, on the other hand, has way, way better transmitters than usual. If you've got a good sound system, you'll probably even enjoy the experience more than a regular theater.
Ok, sure, the Space Needle is pretty cool - it's instantly recognizable and is so well-balanced that a lawn mower motor can spin the restaurant at the top. That said, DO NOT eat here. The food is half as good as fast food and ten times as expensive. If you decide to dine at the SkyCity restaurant, you're just paying (a lot) for the view. In a city with so many great dining options, there's no excuse to pay for novelty.
Let's be honest, no one calls it the Willis Tower, it will always be the Sears Tower... at least until an entire couple generations die off. If you simply must get a good view of Chicago, this is the place to do it. I won't lie, the price of admission is just as intimidating as standing on the glass floor.
If you have even the slightest interest in the occult and/or the home remedies of the Pennsylvania Dutch, you owe it to yourself to visit "Hex Hollow", a place so richly tied to "pow-wow" medicine. Seeing the hole where Rheymeyer was burned is something particularly chilling, but fortunately his book lives on. The building isn't always open for tours, so if you ever have the chance, GO!
If you're in the area and looking for an eerie place to blow off some stream (pun intended), Centralia is certainly worth a look. Not much of the original town remains, but if you show up at the right time, particularly in the fall and winter), you won't have any problem seeing the steam billowing out from the huge cracks in the old road. It's crazy to stand there and realize that there's a fire under your feet that will probably continue burning long after you're gone. If you check it out, just remember not to stick your face in the steam - it's toxic!
As a bit of personal insight in Spanish Hill, it's worth noting that there's not an official way to visit. You can speak to the land owners about getting a tour, but they're notoriously antisocial, something that has led to even more rumors that these people have actually discovered the Spanish gold said to be hidden on the hill. It doesn't help that they won't let any archaeologists come to Spanish Hill to conduct any kind of historical digs. If you can manage to visit, you're either REALLY lucky, or you're sneaking in.
This is a great local legend, and visiting it provides some fun insight into the stories of "dog men" terrorizing the Midwest. The road is definitely more populated than you might have been led to believe, but it's a neat photo op nonetheless. Do be cautious if you visit after dark - we did and the police were there in less than ten minutes to ask us what we were up to. It didn't help that I was wearing a full-body fur suit.