My 10 favorite sculpture hunts from our 50 state road trip

Neither my wife nor I are huge art fans, but on our 7 year, 50 state road trip one of the things we enjoyed doing was sculpture hunting.

In many different cities around the country, artists have created and/or decorated multiple sculptures that you can look for. This can be a great way to explore a new city, seeing parts you’d otherwise have missed. Other times, these sculpture hunts are in a wider area than just downtown which means you get to explore even further afield.

We got to experience sculpture hunting numerous times on our road trip, so here are my top 10 sculpture hunting experiences in the US. This list is based purely on sculpture hunts that we actually did; there are lots more around the country that we never had a chance to do.

n.b. We did all these sculpture hunts from 2018-2024. I can’t guarantee that they’re all still publicly available.

1) Anything by Thomas Dambo

Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist who’s created almost 200 (at the time of publishing this) giant troll sculptures all around the world, all using reclaimed wood.

The first time we encountered his trolls was at the Morton Arboretum just outside of Chicago, IL. Those are sadly no longer there, but it sparked a love of his quirky but amazing sculptures. We’ve since found something like 50-60 of them around the world including in Denmark, Singapore, the UK, and Belgium.

Many of his troll sculptures have been built in the US and we got to find lots of them on our road trip. Some locations only have one or two of them, but other places have several that you can hunt down.

For example, in Bernheim Forest, KY there’s his collection called Forest Giants in a Giant Forest. This collection is particularly fun because some of the reclaimed wood used to create the trolls was made from Kentucky bourbon barrels. The Jim Beam distillery tour is in nearby Clermont, so that’s worth a visit too if you go to Bernheim Forest.

Another of my favorite collections of Dambo’s is the set spread out all over Detroit Lakes, MN. This features trolls like Ronny Funny Face…

…and Dambo’s tallest troll so far—Long Leif. To give you a sense of scale, my wife Shae and our dog Truffles and standing beneath him.

If you find yourself in the Pacific Northwest, there’s a collection called Way of the Bird King. Most of these can be found in the general Seattle area (including on Bainbridge Island, so you need to take a ferry), with one of the trolls down in Portland, OR.

On the opposite side of the country, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens has five trolls to search for on its grounds, a collection called Guardians of the Seeds.

2) Storybook sculptures in Abilene, TX

For the first few years of our road trip we tried to see as much of each state as we could by staying within a two hour driving radius of as much of the state as we could. Given its size, that meant we ended up staying in a few random places in Texas, one of which was Abilene.

Abilene is known as the Storybook Capital of America. Creator of The Guardians of Childhood series—William Joyce—has links to Abilene and the city has leaned into that. There were 24 children’s storybook sculptures when we visited in 2018 but they had plans to create even more, so perhaps they’ve been added to since our visit.

Sculptures include characters from Joyce’s books, as well as by authors like Dr Seuss, E.B. White, Jane Yolen, and more.

If you like prairie dogs, be sure to head to Red Bud Park in Abilene as there’s a prairie dog town there.

3) Toto sculptures in Wamego, KS

Although it’s not mentioned as the city in The Wizard of Oz that Dorothy was whisked away from, Wamego, KS has taken on the mantle of having all things Wizard of Oz related. There’s The Wizard of Oz museum, Toto’s TacOz (which has apparently since closed), the Oz Winery, and more.

There are also 15 Toto sculptures dotted around the city, each uniquely decorated by different artists.

4) Mermaids in Norfolk, VA

Before setting off on our road trip, we lived in Portsmouth, VA. Just across the Elizabeth River from there is Norfolk which has many mermaid sculptures placed around the city.

I believe that these were once all displayed downtown, then they were sold off to local businesses which now display them outside. That means that while you’ll still be able to find quite a few mermaids in downtown Norfolk, there are lots more that are spread out around the wider city limits.

5) President sculptures in Rapid City, SD

Due to its proximity to Mount Rushmore, Rapid City in South Dakota has chosen sculptures of presidents as its theme for a sculpture hunt.

Unlike some sculpture hunts where they’re spread out so far around a city or area that you need a car to find all of them, the 40+ presidential statues in Rapid City can all be found along half mile stretches of two roads downtown—Main St and St Joseph St—usually at all four corners of an intersection.

As a result, they’re very easy to find, although be aware that they’re not in numerical order.

Side note: if you like the Food Network, Justin Warner’s restaurant Bokujō Ramen is on the corner of Mount Rushmore Rd and St Joseph St along the sculpture route.

6) The Enchanted Highway in Dickinson, ND

From South Dakota to North Dakota. North Dakota gets a bad rap, but we enjoyed our three weeks there—particularly on the western side of the state. Theodore Roosevelt National Park ended up being one of my favorite National Parks that we visited, the Badlands Dinosaur Museum was surprisingly great considering it was relatively small, and the Maah Daah Hey trail looks like some amazing hiking (it was too hot for us the day we could’ve gone).

The other activity we enjoyed while staying in Dickinson was driving The Enchanted Highway, a ~30 mile stretch starting at exit 72 on I-94 and going all the way down to Regent.

The sculptures aren’t hard to find as they tower over the otherwise relatively flat nearby fields. They were all created by local artist Gary Greff.

Despite it being a rural area, we had decent cell signal the entire time (I believe we were on Google Fi when visiting in September 2024). That came in handy because there’s a phone number you can call at each spot to hear more about the story behind each sculpture.

The sculptures are kinda quirky, but it made for a unique way to see a little bit more of North Dakota that wasn’t right along I-94.

7) Light Bulbs in Spartanburg, SC

Now from North (Dakota) to South (Carolina). South Carolina was the very first state that we visited on our road trip when we set off on January 1, 20218 and it was the site of two of the sculpture hunts we did.

One of those was in Spartanburg as they have a collection of giant light bulbs around the city which, like the Toto sculptures in Wamego, KS, were decorated by local artists.

The Light Bulbs sculptures are dotted around all over Spartanburg. You’ll be able to see quite a few downtown, but you’ll need to hop in your car if you want to see more of them.

If you need refreshment while wandering around, I loved Rockers Brewing Co. (formerly RJ Rockers). I particularly liked their Son of a Peach.

8) Mice on Main in Greenville, SC

The other sculpture hunt we did in South Carolina was in nearby Greenville. This was a true hunt because it’s a collection of nine tiny bronze sculptures that make up a collection called Mice on Main.

They were created in 2000 by Jimmy Ryan and can be discovered along Main St downtown, with the inspiration for the mice coming from the children’s book Goodnight Moon.

9) Lincoln Hats in Springfield, IL

Sprinfield, IL was once home to Abraham Lincoln and his influence can be found throughout the city.

Lincoln Home National Historic Site is there and is free to visit, the Old Capitol Goods building was once owned by his brother-in-law and it’s where he wrote his first Presidential inaugural address, his former law office is there, and there are statues of Lincoln all over the city.

Another Lincoln-inspired thing to see when we were there in 2018 was a collection of hats, uniquely decorated by different artists.

10) Bucky Badgers in Madison, WI

Before visiting Illinois in 2018, we’d been in Wisconsin. We stayed in seven different cities there, the last of which was the state capital—Madison.

I’m not sure if they’re still there now, but there were lots of sculptures downtown that were, like several other sculpture hunts on this list, uniquely decorated by local artists. They were all Bucky Badgers, the mascot of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

If you enjoy quirky things, may I also recommend visiting the National Mustard Museum in nearby Middleton, WI. It’s open every day, it’s free to visit, and they have more than 5,000 different types of mustard on display.

What makes it even better is that there are various mustards you can sample, plus there’s the Ultimate Mustard Tasting Bar. Here, you can pick pretty much any jar of mustard off a shelf from around the museum and try it and you can buy a pretzel to go with it.

Question

Have you done any fun sculpture hunts in the US or overseas? Tell us about them in the comments.

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