8 Playfully Peculiar Towns In Idaho

Peculiar need not mean bad. In Idaho, which is mostly associated with a starchy vegetable, peculiar has a mostly lighthearted meaning. Rather than oddities that will scare or unsettle you, Idaho is full of sights that, while offbeat, are also upbeat. They range from a potato museum to a trailing of the sheep festival to a lava ice cave. Here are the towns where you can find such playfully peculiar attractions in playfully peculiar Idaho.

Blackfoot

You should expect to find potatoes in Idaho, AKA the Potato State, but not the kinds of potatoes you can find in the Idaho city of Blackfoot, AKA the Potato Capital of the World. On Main Street, Blackfoot sits the Idaho Potato Museum, whose contents include the 7-pound "biggest potato grown in Idaho," the 25-inch-by-14-inch "world's largest potato crisp," and tons of potatophernalia from mashers to Mr. Potato Heads. It also contains the Potato Station Cafe, where you can order fries and/or baked potatoes and add toppings at a potato bar. After overfilling on offbeat taters, walk them off at Hell's Half Acre, a nearby trail system created by historic lava flows. Hot potatoes, anyone?

Cottonwood

Cottonwood has a lot of bark, especially at the Dog Bark Park Inn. Built in 2003, this roadside attraction comprises wood carvings of dogs, the largest of which is called "Sweet Willy" by locals and the "World’s Biggest Beagle" by its sculptors. Willy is so big that he once housed a bed & breakfast. Although he no longer welcomes overnighters, the Dog Bark Park welcomes day trippers. Its defunct gift shop is now a free museum that displays much smaller carvings. It is open sporadically or by appointment, so if it happens to be closed when you visit, see Willy from afar and then hang out at The Hangout, "Idaho County's favorite burger joint."

Wallace

Wallace was a mining town with wild clientele. Catering to those cads were brothels, one of which still exists but has a vastly different purpose. The Oasis Bordello Museum preserves a historic brothel and trades fornication for education via PG-13 tours. After seeing (mostly) what clients could see as recently as 1988, tour our older Wallace oddities like the Sierra Silver Mine, which was dug around 1900 but proved largely unproductive. It became a lab for high school students learning mining skills before transitioning into a tourist attraction. From there, check out the Center of the Universe Manhole, which commemorates an unprovable and thus not necessarily untrue proclamation made by Wallace's then-mayor in 2004. Ready to visit the "Center of the Universe"?

Melba

Let us toast Melba, a tiny Idaho city near a sprawling riverside spectacle. Just a few miles from Melba proper sits Cleo’s Ferry Museum and Nature Trail, which is the preserved and quirkified site of a historic ferry crossing on the Snake River. Nineteenth-century ferry service buildings join statues of everything from basketball players to African animals to Albert Einstein in a whimsical preserve overlooking the river. Peacocks walk and briefly fly between the sculptures, adding even more color to Cleo's. After hiking the mile-long trail, refuel back in Melba at Buck's Saloon & Steakhouse and/or Cook's Two Hole Bar & Grill.

Ketchum

Some playfully peculiar attractions exist for just a few days a year. Case in point: the Trailing of the Sheep Festival in Ketchum, Idaho. Each fall, some 1,200 sheep fill Main Street Ketchum to honor the area's sheep herding history, particularly the annual pilgrimage of sheep from high mountain summer pastures to low valley winter havens. 2025's edition is set to run from October 8 to 12 and, besides the climactic Main Street Sheep Parade, should feature the Sheep Folklife Fair, Sheep Tales Gathering, National Qualifying Sheepdog Trials, and various other events. Non-sheepy oddities can be found in Ketchum's many art galleries, ranging from Gilman Contemporary to the Sun Valley Museum of Art.

Driggs

A quirky festival beautifies the skies around Driggs, Idaho. It is called the Teton Valley Balloon Rally, and it comprises dozens of hot air balloons launched across four July mornings. Gates open in the wee hours, and the big balloons take flight shortly after. Although 2025's edition has passed, you can see other unique events hosted by Driggs' Teton County Fairgrounds. These include the 102 Year Fair, which just passed in early August, and the Big Hole Brawlers Roller Derby, which is scheduled for Tuesdays throughout the fall and winter.

Lava Hot Springs

Lava Hot Springs has an odd enough name that it does not need any odd attractions. Yet this super-small city was not named in vain. It overflows with volcanic springs, which fuel the Lava Hot Springs World Famous Hot Pools. After soaking in the 102- to 112-degree water, soak up the sights at the South Bannock Historical Museum, whose exhibit on Ligertown tells how an offbeat big cat preserve came to a shocking end. If visiting in February, hit up the Fire & Ice Winterfest, which celebrates hot and cold temperatures with events like a swimsuit run down Main Street and a plunge in the geothermal pools.

Shoshone

More strange temperature cocktails can be had in Shoshone, home of the Shoshone Ice Caves. Set inside a collapsed lava tube, this tourable site is about 1,700 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 100 feet underground. No matter how hot it is on the outside, the ice caves stay 23 to 29 degrees year-round. But they are not the only crazy caverns in the Shoshone area. Pair a stroll through a lava ice cave with a jaunt in the Mammoth Cave, which was used as an alleged Indigenous hideout, a mushroom farm, and a Cold War bunker before becoming a tourist attraction alongside the Shoshone Bird Museum of Natural History. It is literally for the birds.

As you can tell from its nickname, Idaho is playfully peculiar. Instead of scaring you, the Potato State will delight you with oddities, especially the ones in small communities. Start at the Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot and make your way through offbeat sites all the way to the Shoshone Ice Caves. Sure, not all Idaho oddities are upbeat, but if you stick to the aforementioned towns, you can have a wonderfully weird vacation.