8 Quirkiest Towns In The Poconos To Visit In 2026
Most people come to the Poconos for the ski slopes and the waterparks. The small towns are where it gets interesting. In one you can stand in the cell where the Molly Maguires were hanged. In another you can walk a boulder field the last Ice Age left behind or order a cocktail mixed by the Mad Hatter. These eight towns trade the resort crowds for coal mines, uranium glass, and a holiday star that never came down. This is where to go when you want the Poconos at their strangest.
Bangor
Bangor sits on the southern rim of the Poconos, and its strangest attraction hides in the woods just north of town. Columcille Megalith Park is a 19-acre sanctuary of stone circles, towering monoliths, and Celtic shrines that invite the obvious comparison to Stonehenge, all built last century as a private homage to the Scottish isle of Iona. About a 40-minute drive west, the No. 9 Coal Mine in Lansford is billed as the world's oldest continuously operated deep anthracite mine, and a battery-powered train hauls visitors 1,600 feet into the mountain for a walking tour of the tunnels. Back near town, Hickory Run State Park protects the Boulder Field, a flat 400-by-1,800-foot sea of rock scraped bare when the last glaciers melted.
East Stroudsburg
East Stroudsburg throws its whole personality into a pickle. Every fall, Crystal Street shuts down for the Pickle Me Poconos Festival, a free street party with pickle-themed food, a beer garden, and more than a hundred vendors, all unfolding around the restored Dansbury Depot. The town's other claim is the Frank Frazetta Museum, home to the largest single collection of work by the fantasy painter whose muscular barbarians and dragons shaped decades of album covers and paperback art. For something odder, the Pocono Snake and Animal Farm on Seven Bridge Road lets you hand-feed pot-bellied pigs and monkeys next to a deep bench of reptiles. And Bushkill Falls, the private attraction nicknamed the Niagara of Pennsylvania, sits a short drive out of town, its eight cascades strung together by a maze of bridges and boardwalks.
Jim Thorpe
Jim Thorpe earned its "Switzerland of America" nickname with steep streets and Victorian storefronts, but the building people remember is the Old Jail. Four Molly Maguires, the Irish mineworkers swept up in the coalfield labor wars, were hanged inside on June 21, 1877, and the handprint one of them pressed into the wall of Cell 17 has shrugged off every attempt to scrub it away. When you have had your fill of the ghost stories, the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway runs a 70-minute, 16-mile round trip out of the downtown station and into the gorge. The Asa Packer Mansion caps the visit, an 1861 Italianate villa built by the railroad baron who founded Lehigh University and still furnished with his original Gilded Age excess.
Hawley
Hawley's oddest museum glows in the dark. In the basement of the Hawley Antique Exchange, the Vaseline Glass Museum keeps a huge collection of uranium glass that lights up an eerie yellow-green under black light, best seen on weekends when the lamps come on. Above ground, the Hawley Silk Mill, a hulking 1880s factory, has been reborn as galleries, boutiques, and a coffee roaster. For a stranger way to see the countryside, a local rail-bike outfit lets you pedal a converted railcar along old tracks beside the Lackawaxen River. And Lake Wallenpaupack, one of Pennsylvania's largest lakes with about 52 miles of shoreline, is close enough for an afternoon pontoon or a guided cruise.
Tannersville
Tannersville is where the Poconos get playful. At the Pocono Premium Outlets, Wonderland Madhouse runs an Alice in Wonderland escape room staffed by live actors, plus a themed mini-golf course and a cocktail bar where the Mad Hatter mixes the drinks. Up on Camelback Mountain, a mountain coaster threads riders down through the trees, and the resort piles on a zip line, a ropes course, and an indoor waterpark for the days the weather turns. The mountain's summit sits inside Big Pocono State Park, 1,306 acres of hiking trails and a rocky overlook that takes in three states on a clear day. It is a lot of manufactured fun on one hillside, and that is precisely the point.
Milford
Milford keeps its history in grand estates and one very macabre artifact. Grey Towers, the French chateau-style mansion of Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service and a two-time Pennsylvania governor, opens its grounds and gardens for tours. A few blocks away, the Columns Museum holds the Lincoln Flag, the 36-star flag placed under the president's head after he was shot at Ford's Theatre, still stained from that night. Three miles south, Raymondskill Falls drops through three tiers to become the tallest waterfall in the state, coming up just a few feet short of Niagara once you add the tiers together.
Honesdale
Honesdale calls itself the Birthplace of the American Railroad, and it earned the title: in 1829, the Stourbridge Lion became the first commercial steam locomotive to run on a track in the country, right here. You can still ride the rails on the Stourbridge Line, a heritage train that follows the Lackawaxen River through the hills. The town's quirkiest landmark, though, is the giant illuminated star on Irving Cliff, a hike above downtown; it went up as a temporary holiday decoration in 1946 and never came back down. Main Street rewards a slow walk, and the Wooden Nickel is the place for oddball vintage finds like 1960s ashtrays and old lodge paraphernalia.
Stroudsburg
Stroudsburg is the Poconos' downtown, and it leans hard into art and appetite. Main Street runs on independent shops, antique stores, breweries, and murals, with the Sherman Theater, a restored 1920s movie house, booking concerts loud enough to fill the block. The Stroud Mansion anchors the history: built in 1795 for town founder Colonel Jacob Stroud, it now holds the Monroe County Historical Association's collection across four floors. The food is half the reason to come, with Thai, Puerto Rican, Portuguese, and Mexican kitchens packed into a few walkable blocks. It is the least eccentric town on this list, which is exactly why it makes a good base for the rest.
The Weirder Side of the Poconos
The resorts and waterparks will always be the region's headline act, but the small towns are where the Poconos keep their odd, specific character. A coal mine you can ride into, a jail cell that will not release its handprint, uranium glass glowing in a basement, an Alice in Wonderland cocktail bar, a holiday star that went up in 1946 and stayed: these are the details that linger long after the ski lift closes. Base yourself in walkable Jim Thorpe or Stroudsburg, and the strangest corners of the mountains are an easy drive in any direction.
