68 Fun Facts About US Travel

Which US airport became the world's busiest by passenger numbers in 1998?

Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson led every year from 1998 until 2020, when the pandemic cut its traffic, and took the title back in 2021; in 2015 it became the first airport to handle 100 million passengers in a year.

Which national park, with over 11 million visits in 2025, is America's most visited?

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, on the Tennessee–North Carolina border, is named for the mist that rises like smoke from its slopes, and it draws more than twice as many visits as the Grand Canyon.

Which 1872 park was the first US national park and widely considered the first in the world?

Yellowstone was set aside by Congress in an act Ulysses S. Grant signed on 1 March 1872, though some argue that Mongolia's Bogd Khan Mountain, protected as early as 1778, was the first such park.

Three days a week, Amtrak's Texas Eagle continues beyond San Antonio to which city, forming America's longest rail route?

Los Angeles is reached by coupling the Texas Eagle's through cars to the Sunset Limited at San Antonio, which turns a Chicago-to-Texas train into a run across El Paso and Tucson to the Pacific.

Which president signed the law creating Amtrak to take over America's loss-making passenger trains?

Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act in October 1970; the law set Amtrak up as a for-profit corporation, yet it went on relying on federal subsidies for decades to cover its losses.

Interstate 90, the longest Interstate highway, runs from Boston to which West Coast city?

Seattle is I-90's western end; the route's last stoplight stood in Wallace, Idaho, which had its downtown listed as historic to keep the freeway out, until a viaduct carried I-90 past the town in 1991.

Historic Route 66 ran from Chicago to which California city?

Santa Monica became the highway's western end in 1936; John Steinbeck named it the Mother Road in The Grapes of Wrath, his 1939 novel of Dust Bowl families driving it west to California.

Who first recorded '(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66' in 1946?

Nat King Cole and his trio first recorded Bobby Troup's song in 1946; the highway itself was formally decommissioned in 1985, after the interstates had bypassed the last of it.

Which Florida park was the world's most visited theme park in 2024?

Magic Kingdom drew about 17.8 million visitors in 2024; its streets are really the second storey, because Florida's high water table meant the staff tunnels were built at ground level and the park on top.

Most of the Las Vegas Strip lies in which unincorporated town, not the city itself?

Paradise was created in 1950 at the urging of casino owners, after the mayor of Las Vegas tried to annex the Strip to widen the city's tax base; town status blocked the move.

Which Michigan island resort bans nearly all motor vehicles?

Mackinac Island banned cars in 1898 after carriage drivers complained that automobiles startled their horses, and the 8-mile road around its shore is the only US state highway closed to motor vehicles.

Which 469-mile scenic road runs along the Appalachian crest through Virginia and North Carolina?

The Blue Ridge Parkway took 52 years to finish: work began in 1935 as a Depression-era public works project, and the last gap, the Linn Cove Viaduct around Grandfather Mountain, was dedicated in 1987.

Key West, the southernmost city in the contiguous US, lies roughly 95 miles north of which country?

Cuba lies across the Straits of Florida, about 93 miles wide at their narrowest, which leaves Key West closer to Cuba than to Miami.

Which shopping complex, opened in 1992, stands on a demolished big-league stadium's site?

Mall of America stands in Bloomington, not Minneapolis, on the site of Metropolitan Stadium: the Twins and Vikings left for a downtown dome in the early 1980s, and the mall opened on the old field a decade later.

Which Finnish-American architect designed the 630-foot Gateway Arch in St. Louis?

Eero Saarinen, son of the architect Eliel, won the 1948 design competition but never saw his arch rise: he died in 1961, two years before construction began.

Wall Drug in South Dakota built its 1930s fame by advertising what to travellers?

Ted Hustead's wife Dorothy suggested offering free ice water to hot travellers in 1936, and the roadside signs that followed turned Wall Drug into a famous stop.

Cadillac Ranch, ten Cadillacs buried nose-first, is near which Texas city?

Amarillo's Cadillac Ranch was planted in 1974 by the Ant Farm art collective as a tribute to the tail fin; visitors are welcome to spray-paint the cars, so no paint job lasts more than a few hours.

US Route 20, America's longest road, runs west from Boston to end in which state?

Oregon is where US 20 ends, at the coastal town of Newport; it became America's longest road only in the 1960s, when California cut US 6, the previous record holder, back to Bishop.

Which airport's code, ORD, is a leftover from its 1940s name, Orchard Field?

Chicago O'Hare kept the code ORD when Orchard Field was renamed in 1949 for Edward 'Butch' O'Hare, the Navy's first flying ace of the Second World War and a Medal of Honor recipient.

Which landmark began as a doodle by the 1962 World's Fair's chief organiser?

The Space Needle started as a sketch by hotel executive Edward Carlson, inspired by a restaurant-topped broadcast tower he had seen in Stuttgart; its plot was secured only about a year before the fair opened.

Which freestanding arch near Moab, Utah, appears on the state's license plates?

Delicate Arch owes its name to a 1934 article that called it 'the most delicately chiseled arch in the entire area'; before that, locals knew it as Cowboy's Chaps and Old Maid's Bloomers.

Which lake is the deepest in the United States, at nearly 2,000 feet?

Crater Lake fills the caldera left when Mount Mazama collapsed about 7,700 years ago; no rivers or streams feed it, so all of its water arrived as rain and snow.

Death Valley's record 134 °F in July 1913 was measured at which spot?

Furnace Creek logged the world-record reading on 10 July 1913; oddly, the same weather station had also recorded Death Valley's coldest temperature, 15 °F, that January.

Which Florida city, founded by Spain in 1565, is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the lower 48?

St. Augustine was founded on 8 September 1565 by the Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who named it for the saint on whose feast day he first sighted land, 42 years before the English reached Jamestown.

Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world, is in which state?

Kentucky's Mammoth Cave was opened up by Stephen Bishop, an enslaved guide who in 1838 became the first person to cross its Bottomless Pit and later drew a map of the passages beyond.

Going-to-the-Sun Road crosses the Continental Divide in which national park?

Glacier National Park's 50-mile road tops out at Logan Pass, where snow lies so deep that ploughing it is a monumental job every spring and the full route opens only for the summer.

What marks the route of Boston's 2.5-mile Freedom Trail?

A red line, mostly brick, was a later addition: when the trail was dedicated in 1951, after a newspaper columnist urged the city to help tourists find its landmarks, only signs marked the way.

Who owns the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a glass walkway over the rim?

The Hualapai Tribe commissioned the Skywalk on its own land at the canyon's far western end, outside the national park and about a five-hour drive from the South Rim.

Which state capital has no roads to the rest of its state, so visitors come by air or ferry?

Juneau is hemmed in by steep mountains topped by an icefield, terrain too rugged for a road out, so cars reach Alaska's capital only by ferry.

Hawaii shares its time zone with part of which Alaskan island chain?

The Aleutian Islands' western end keeps Hawaii's standard time, yet the clocks match for only part of the year: the Aleutians move to daylight time, while Hawaii stays on standard time all year.

Which four states meet at the Four Corners Monument, the only such point in the US?

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet at a marker that sits about 1,800 feet east of the spot Congress specified, yet the law treats the marker itself, not the map line, as the true corner.

What is the official name of the Golden Gate Bridge's colour?

Consulting architect Irving Morrow chose International Orange for the Golden Gate Bridge, rejecting the US Navy's suggestion of black and yellow stripes for visibility; the bridge opened in 1937.

Waikiki Beach is on which Hawaiian island?

Waikiki is a beachfront neighbourhood of Honolulu on Oahu's south shore; much of its sand was shipped in from other beaches from the 1920s onward.

The Statue of Liberty's iron skeleton was engineered by the man behind which later landmark?

The Eiffel Tower's builder, Gustave Eiffel, was hired after the statue's first engineer died in 1879, and replaced the planned masonry core with a light iron skeleton that lets the copper skin flex.

Which New York station has 44 platforms, more than any other railroad station in the world?

Grand Central Terminal nearly had an office tower built on top of it: its owner fought the landmark status that blocked the plan all the way to the Supreme Court, which sided with the city in 1978.

Disneyland opened in 1955 in which California city?

Walt Disney chose a 160-acre orange grove in Anaheim after a 1953 Stanford Research Institute site study; the July 1955 opening was televised live on ABC.

The 113-mile Overseas Highway through the Florida Keys carries which US highway to Key West?

US Route 1 ends at Key West after the 113-mile Overseas Highway, much of it built on the right-of-way of Henry Flagler's Overseas Railroad after the 1935 hurricane wrecked the line.

A South Dakota town redecorates its famous palace each year with murals made from which crop?

Corn, split lengthwise and nailed up ear by ear, covers the Corn Palace in Mitchell with new murals every year; the first palace went up in 1892 to show off South Dakota's rich soil and attract settlers.

Visitors to Cawker City, Kansas, add to a giant ball of what at a yearly festival?

Twine keeps coming because Cawker City lets anyone add to the ball that farmer Frank Stoeber began; its rival in Darwin, Minnesota, was rolled by one man.

To which Nashville venue did the Grand Ole Opry move in 1943, its home for three decades?

Ryman Auditorium began as a house of worship, the Union Gospel Tabernacle, built by steamboat captain Tom Ryman for the revivalist Sam Jones, which is why it is known as the Mother Church of Country Music.

Cloud Gate, the mirror-polished sculpture in Chicago's Millennium Park, is better known by what nickname?

The Bean is officially Cloud Gate: Anish Kapoor, inspired by liquid mercury, had its steel plates polished until no seam showed, so it mirrors Chicago's skyline and the clouds overhead.

Southwest Airlines is headquartered in the neighbourhood of which Dallas airport?

Love Field gave Southwest its 'LUV' branding and stock ticker; when the other airlines moved to the new DFW airport in 1974, Southwest refused to follow and won in court the right to stay.

At 14,505 feet, which peak is the highest point in the contiguous United States?

Mount Whitney towers over the finish of a 135-mile ultramarathon run each July, which starts at Badwater Basin in Death Valley, the lowest point in North America, and ends at the trailhead on its flank.

Bourbon Street runs through the heart of which historic neighbourhood?

Bourbon Street crosses the French Quarter and was named by the engineer who drew up its street grid, in honour of France's ruling House of Bourbon, not the whiskey.

Antelope Canyon, the photogenic slot canyon near Page, Arizona, lies on the land of which Native nation?

Navajo guides lead every visit to Antelope Canyon, the main attraction of Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park; tours are required partly because rain falling miles away can flood the slot with little warning.

At the 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting, a Cabernet from which California valley outscored top Bordeaux reds?

Napa Valley's Stag's Leap Wine Cellars won the red-wine round, scored blind by French judges; the only journalist who bothered to attend, Time's George Taber, turned the upset into world news.

Which naturalist led the 1890 campaign that persuaded Congress to make Yosemite a national park?

John Muir kept campaigning after 1890: in 1903 he took President Theodore Roosevelt camping in Yosemite and persuaded him that the valley, still run by California, should join the national park, as it did in 1906.

Hoover Dam, on the border of Nevada and Arizona, holds back which reservoir?

Lake Mead swallowed the Nevada town of St. Thomas as it filled in the 1930s: one of the last residents paddled away from his front door in 1938, and the ruins reappear whenever drought lowers the water.

Which of Niagara's three waterfalls is the largest, straddling the US–Canada border?

Horseshoe Falls carries about nine-tenths of the Niagara River's flow; in 1901 a schoolteacher, Annie Edson Taylor, became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Which is the only one of the Great Lakes that lies entirely within the United States?

Lake Michigan supplies Chicago's drinking water, which is why engineers reversed the Chicago River in 1900: the city's sewage now drains inland, away from the lake, instead of into it.

The Cooper Hewitt, the only Smithsonian museum that charges admission, is in which city?

New York's Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian's design museum, was founded in 1897 by Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt, granddaughters of industrialist Peter Cooper, and now fills Andrew Carnegie's Manhattan mansion.

Which Manhattan skyscraper has 102 stories?

The Empire State Building rose at about four and a half stories a week and opened on 1 May 1931, a year and 45 days after work began; two years later King Kong climbed it on screen.

Mount Rushmore's four presidential heads are carved into a granite peak in which mountain range?

The Black Hills were recognised as Sioux land by an 1868 treaty, then overrun by miners once gold was found; in 1980 the Supreme Court ruled that the land had been taken without just compensation.

A 1998 Supreme Court ruling gave most of Ellis Island to which state?

New Jersey won the landfill: the court ruled that the original island stays with New York, while the land the government added around it belongs to New Jersey.

Which river carved the Grand Canyon?

The Colorado River was explored through the canyon in 1869 by John Wesley Powell, a one-armed Civil War veteran whose crew set out in four boats and emerged about three months later.

Which Utah national park is famous for its hoodoos, spindly rock pillars formed by frost and erosion?

Bryce Canyon's hoodoos formed as frost wedging and rain eroded the Claron Formation limestone into pillars; the park is not a true canyon but a series of amphitheatres.

The Virgin River carved the main canyon of which national park, home of the Narrows hike?

Zion's Narrows is the tightest stretch of the canyon the Virgin River cut: the walls close to 20 or 30 feet apart, so the river itself is the trail and hikers wade upstream.

The largest US national park, covering over 13 million acres, lies in which state?

Alaska's Wrangell–St. Elias is as big as Yellowstone, Yosemite and Switzerland combined, yet only two rough gravel roads lead into it.

Lake Tahoe straddles the border between which two states?

California and Nevada split Lake Tahoe, and on the south shore the line is hard to miss: the casino resorts of Stateline, Nevada, stand right at the border beside South Lake Tahoe, California.

The Times Square ball drop began in 1907 after city officials banned which New Year's Eve spectacle?

Fireworks had crowned publisher Adolph Ochs's New Year's Eve parties at his newspaper's tower since 1904; when the city banned them, he had a 700-pound iron-and-wood ball lowered down the flagpole instead.

Which public market is famous for its fish-throwing vendors and the oldest Starbucks store?

Pike Place Market was created in 1907 so that farmers could sell straight to shoppers, cutting out the middlemen who had been reselling their crops to grocers at a generous markup.

Which city did the French governor Bienville found in 1718 on high ground near the mouth of the Mississippi?

New Orleans began on the first crescent of high ground above the Mississippi's mouth, the site Bienville chose as governor of French Louisiana; that curve of the river is why it is called the Crescent City.

At about 7,000 feet, which is the highest-altitude state capital in the United States?

Santa Fe has been a capital since 1610, longer than any other in the US, though not without a break: the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 drove the Spanish out, and Pueblo people held the city until 1692.

Since 1960, stars honouring entertainers have been set into the sidewalk of which Los Angeles boulevard?

Hollywood Boulevard got its first permanent star in March 1960, for director Stanley Kramer, although Joanne Woodward is often called the first honoree because she was the first to pose with hers.

Since 1914, most of Cape Cod has been cut off from mainland Massachusetts by what?

A man-made canal, bankrolled by financier August Belmont, spared ships the long and dangerous trip around the Cape and, in effect, turned Cape Cod into an island.

Centuries of shipwrecks off North Carolina's Outer Banks earned the surrounding seas what nickname?

Graveyard of the Atlantic is a name earned off Cape Hatteras, where the cold Labrador Current meets the warm Gulf Stream over the shifting sandbars of Diamond Shoals, and ships riding those currents had to pass close inshore.

Which Arizona town was named in 1902 after the wife of its first postmaster?

Sedona takes its name from Sedona Schnebly: when Washington turned down her husband's suggestions, Oak Creek Crossing and Schnebly Station, his brother proposed naming the post office after her.

Graceland, Elvis Presley's mansion and now a house museum, stands in which city?

Memphis's Graceland became a museum out of necessity: with upkeep draining Lisa Marie's inheritance, Priscilla Presley opened the house to paying visitors in June 1982.