6 Quirkiest Arkansas Towns To Visit In 2025

It is easy to find quirky attractions in Arkansas. The state has rugged topography, a unique history, and an offbeat culture, making it a wonderful destination for oddity-seekers. A bit harder, however, is picking Arkansas oddities specifically for a 2025 vacation, especially as the year hits its halfway point. Yet in certain small communities, the back half of 2025 shall bring out the best and most bizarre sights. Behold the quirkiest Arkansas towns to visit this year.

Gurdon

While traveling between forestry conferences in January 1892, several lumbermen got stuck in Gurdon, Arkansas, and passed their time by founding a semi-ironic group that survives as the "oldest industrial fraternal organization in the United States." Named with nonsense words inspired by Lewis Carroll, the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo is headquartered on Main Street Gurdon in a former WPA log cabin. It is decorated with black cats, another ironic choice since they are considered unlucky, and doubles as a museum of Hoo-Hoo relics. Tops among cat-topped relics is the Hoo-Hoo Monument, an Egyptian-style megalith that stands about a block away from HQ near the depot where Hoo-Hoo was conceived.

Have a Hoo-Hoo holiday in Gurdon, especially on the last Saturday of October during the Gurdon Forest Festival. Hoo-Hoo-backed activities include a car show, log loader competition, and Forest Festival Parade. At night, investigate a piece of non-Hoo-Hoo woo-woo: the Gurdon Light. This strange luminance occurs just north of town along abandoned train tracks. It is said to be the lantern of an undead brakeman looking for his head.

Mountain View

As the "Folk Music Capital of the World," Mountain View literally blares with offbeat attractions. Some, like March's Mountain View Bluegrass Festival and April's Arkansas Folk Festival, have already passed, but you can still catch Mountains, Music & Motorcycles from August 15 to 17, the Bluegrass & Fried Chicken Festival from August 22 to 23, and the fall repeat of the Mountain View Bluegrass Festival from November 6 to 8.

October boasts Mountain View's most offbeat event, which, ironically, has little to do with music—unless you count toots. The Bean Fest and Championship Outhouse Races are to run from October 24 to 25 and feature ~1,000 pounds of cooked beans served free with cornbread. They will have you running into outhouses, or behind outhouses, to vie for the fastest potty-pusher in the Ozarks. There is even a Parade of Outhouses, where competitors display their decorative potties before the tournament.

Perryville

Perryville's annual festival is the GOAT. Set to have its 8th edition on Saturday, October 4, 2025, the Arkansas Goat Festival draws thousands of goats/goat appreciators to this 1,300ish-person city. Goatfest does not want to get your goat or your goat's goat. It genuinely honors that underrated animal with goat-themed vendors, a goat costume contest, a goat lingerie contest, and a goat au naturel parade. The Arkansas Goat Festival has been so successful (going from about 1,200 spectators in 2016 to roughly 10,000 in 2024) that Perryville City Park built a "Goat Park" where the other kids can play year-round. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Perryville "became the only town in the United States with a designated municipal goat park where one can take a goat to roam at leisure."

Walnut Ridge

Arkansas may be the last state you associate with The Beatles. In fact, the Fab Four never played Arkansas. Yet they did stop twice in the state while flying to and from a Missouri retreat during their 1964 North American Tour. Walnut Ridge had a large enough airport to accommodate their layovers, making this little-known city the sole Arkansas destination for the world's most famous band. That fact is not lost on city officials, who maintain Walnut Ridge as a Beatles shrine. It has an Abbey Road, a Beatles Park, a 115-foot-long Guitar Walk at Cavenaugh Park, numerous Beatles art pieces like murals and statues, and an annual Beatles music festival. Called Beatles at the Ridge, the fest's 2025 edition is set for Saturday, September 20. Stay tuned for the lineup.

Hope

We hope you know nothing about Hope so we can surprise you with its top two attractions: Bill Clinton and watermelon. Sure, Bill Clinton does not live in Hope, but he was born there and has periodically returned, notably for the 1980 Hope Watermelon Festival. Clinton was not yet president during that celebration of Hope's watermelon farming, but he was Arkansas' governor. As he grew in political stature, Hope's watermelons grew in actual stature, culminating in a 268.8-pound record-breaker grown in 2005 after Clinton left the Oval Office. Similarly-sized melons still grace the Hope Watermelon Festival, whose 2025 edition is to run from August 7 to 9 and feature watermelon Olympics, watermelon eating contests, and a watermelon seed spitting competition. Contrast those grubby games with presidential relics at the Hope Visitor Center and the President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home.

Eureka Springs

By far the quirkiest community in Arkansas, Eureka Springs has so many oddities to see in 2025 that not all can be listed. A few highlights are Christ of the Ozarks, a seven-story statue of Jesus that evokes Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer; the 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, a sprawling Victorian estate dubbed America's most haunted hotel; and the Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge, which provides sanctuary for abused or neglected big cats and other exotic animals.

Those sights are static and thus not specific to the latter half of 2025. If looking to pair them with annual summer and fall events, visit from September 4 to 6 for the Original Ozark Folk Festival, whose 78th edition is to comprise regional art, crafts, dance, and performers like The Ozark Mountain Daredevils; or come from October 22 to 25 to attend the Nightmare in the Ozarks Film Festival and cap it off with the Eureka Springs Zombie Crawl.

Though Arkansas is quirky year-round, certain Arkansas towns are set to be extra quirky in upcoming months. Six of them are Gurdon, Mountain View, Perryville, Walnut Ridge, Hope, and Eureka Springs. Start in early August at Hope's Watermelon Festival, cross into September at Eureka Springs's Original Ozark Folk Festival and then hear much different music at Walnut Ridge's Beatles at the Ridge, spend October at Perryville's Arkansas Goat Festival and Gurdon's Forest Festival, and finish in November at Mountain View's Bluegrass Festival for a bizArkanas vacay perfectly calibrated for 2025.