Happy Trails

With the recession hitting vacation budgets, many are ditching airplane flights and hitting the open road instead. To cash in on drivers passing through their towns, many local tourism bureaus are learning to market what their region can offer.

USA Today highlights four road trips for the fall, including a tour of the waterfalls on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington; a visit to historic civil rights landmarks in Alabama; a loop through Indiana’s Amish country; and a trip through Pennsylvania’s Civil War trails. All we’re sure are scenic, quaint and educational. But we’re interested in the quirky ones.

In Vermont, they’re touting their Cheese Trail. Arizona has a Salsa Trail. When it comes marketing your product, it seems the more specific you can be, the better – as evidenced by the best tourism gimmick we’ve heard of yet: New Mexico’s Green Chili Cheeseburger Trail. We’re guessing the regular cheeseburger trail was taken up by some other city?

Photo courtesy Ken Lund, via Flickr.