As GypsyNesters, our quest is to see the world and relate it to you in our own quirky way.
But why should we have all the fun?
To share the wealth, we asked the web’s best independent travel bloggers to send us their best Cheesy Tourist Diversion moments as a part of Travel Photo Roulette.
(Travel Photo Roulette may be followed on Twitter with the hashtag #PhotoRoulette)
We hit a gold mine of the craziest, funniest and just plain weird travel photos in the world!
Here’s what we asked for:
We LOVE cheesy attractions. Everyone who travels has seen them – those quirky, remove-a-buck-or-two-from-the-tourists wonders of ingenuity. Sometimes they are full productions, others are side-of-the-road pit stops. Often, there are amazing people and stories behind the scenes. Moments like that are our favorites. Show us yours!
We’d like to thank everyone who submitted their amazing shots to Travel Photo Roulette. It was unbelievably difficult to chose a winner to host next week’s round on their website!
Cheesy Tourist Diversions – The Runners Up
Any one of these incredible photos could have been chosen as #1. We just have to say it again – WE HAD SUCH A HARD TIME CHOOSING!
Note: Photos are in no particular order
From Josh of Traveling 9-5: In Chiang Rai, Thailand the popular tourist restaurant is called “Cabbages and Condoms”. And, yes, they have mannequins at the door whose attire consists entirely of…condoms.
From Ted of Traveling Ted: Thank you for giving me an opportunity to post some cheesy photos.
From Tom of Travel Past 50: I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t get any cheesier than the “World’s Biggest Ball of Twine” in Darwin, Minnesota. Thousands of people drive out all the way from Dassel, Minnesota, 4.9 miles away, every weekend just to see it and be photographed with it. Eat your heart out all of you who think your photo of you in front of the Eiffel Tower is hot stuff.
From Abigail of 1,000 Miles On My Own Two Feet: In a wax museum, I feel like a somebody either glamming up with Marylyn Monroe, locking arms with Brad Pitt, or even staring down Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector (of course in real life, my knees would be wobbly to see all these celebs!). Here I am with Jack Black in the Hollywood Wax Museum in Branson, Missouri!
From Kris of The World is Our District: Being in one state is soooo boring…especially when you can be in four at once! Four Corners on the Navajo Res in Arizona/Utah/Colorado/New Mexico.
Cheesy Tourist Diversions – The Winner
Congrats to Suzanne of Boomeresque! Congratulations and we can’t wait to see what you choose as your theme next week!
From Suzanne of Boomeresque: Sometimes the tourist contributes to the cheesiness of the moment. Here, a blogger (moi) confers with FDR while Winston Churchill looks on. In self defense, I maintain that this sculpture called “The Allies” on Bond Street in the Mayfair section of London, England is a cheese magnet.
Cheesy Tourist Diversions – Honorable Mentions
Note: These are in no particular order
From Tash of Jouljet: Has to be Larry the Lobster! On a roadtrip in South Australia – a must detour to Kingston to see him, to jump out of the car, and get a photo with him! A must!
From Craig of Flashpacking Around the World: We had this picture taken at the Terracotta Warriors at Xian. You pay to get your photo taken in front of a painting of the warriors in a room to the side of one of the pits. It was tacky, cheese, but we just had to do it.
From Cam of Traveling Canucks: We took this photo yesterday while in Gravenhurst, a small town in the Muskoka region of Ontario. This is the world’s biggest Muskoka chair. I don’t know why anyone would want to take a photo beside a massive wooden chair, but apparently we’ve become the type that pulls over the car in order to do so. My how the times have changed!
From Heather of Ferretting Out the Fun: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is chockablock with cheesy tourist attractions. One of my favorites is an animal park called Alligator Adventure. Billed as “the reptile capital of the world,” advertisements for the place can be found all around town. The star attraction is “Utan,” a gargantuan Siamese crocodile thought to be the largest in the U.S. Meet Utan!
From Adrian of Travel Destination Search: This giant ice cream cone in front of a gelateria in Lisbon looked so tempting, we just had to take this photo!
From Noel of Travel Photo Discovery: Totally cheesy is this princess riding in a pineapple float – its a horsey dung pooper float and her escorts are the horsey pooper scoopers
From Alexandria of Fluent in Frolicking: The tour guide made me do it! 
From Adam of Getting Stamped: The life size statue of Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli,from the TV Show “Happy Days” cast in bronze is worth the trip to Milwaukee alone. I give this attraction two thumbs up!
From Gadi and Tun of Being in Awe: We are getting cheesy and dirty in mud bathes of Moon Water Cave in Yangshuo, China
From Poi of No Place To Be: Think of all the amazing trash you can buy for your friends from this place! Well actually, no. It’s the same as the rest of the stuff on the strip at inflated prices! The world’s biggest gift shop (apparently).
David & Veronica, GypsyNester.com
YOUR TURN: Which one is YOUR favorite?
Shiny…stuff….on the statue…made me chuckle 🙂 Wonder what people are hoping for when it comes to rubbing that one for luck =P
Great stuff!
Yipes! Don’t even want to think about that!
Glad to see cheese is alive and well and that people are recording it for posterity.
So are we!
This looked like a lot of fun despite being cheesy 🙂 I understand your difficulty in choosing the winner, there are some pretty good photos here, in fact I cannot tell which one would be my favourite 🙁
I am the Phil Mickelson of the Travel Photo Roulette.
Hahaha! We usually are too! It’ll happen for you.
That was alot of fun, thanks for letting me participate. How do I know when the next one will take place?
Hi- I’m running the next one. It will run from Wednesday, June 26th through Wednesday, July 3rd. In honor of July 4th, the topic will be “REVOLUTION!”—in all senses of the word. Think outside the box. Contact me via my blog and I’ll send you an email notice when it’s live.