The Gem Hunt
America decides what makes the map.
Every state has a spot the algorithms miss — the one locals send strangers to. Name it. Vote on the finalists. The winners get built into Roamward, the scenic road-trip app that proves you actually went. No download required to play.
Nominate
What does California do better than anywhere?
One hidden gem — a place a chatbot would never know. The most-named spots become finalists, and the crowd votes the winner into Roamward.
Vote
California gems, most-loved first
- 1Bombay BeachA near-ghost town on the dried, salty shore of the Salton Sea that artists have turned into an open-air gallery of installations — post-apocalyptic and oddly beautiful in the Colorado Desert.
- 2Bodie State Historic ParkA genuine gold-rush ghost town east of the Sierra near Bridgeport, preserved in "arrested decay" — hundreds of weathered buildings left just as residents abandoned them.
- 3Glass BeachA Fort Bragg shoreline on the Mendocino coast where decades of old dumped glass have tumbled into smooth, colorful pebbles among the tide pools.
- 4Pinnacles National ParkCalifornia's least-crowded national park, east of Soledad, with talus caves you can scramble through and towering volcanic spires where endangered condors soar.
- 5Salvation MountainA hand-built hill of adobe and paint near Niland on the edge of Slab City, covered in folk-art scripture and flowers by the late Leonard Knight — wonderfully strange in the desert.
- 6Elmer's Bottle Tree RanchA glittering forest of metal trees hung with thousands of colored glass bottles along old Route 66 in Oro Grande — pull over in the high desert and wander one of the route's most photogenic folk-art stops.
- 7Chandelier Drive-Thru TreeA 2,400-year-old coast redwood in Leggett with a tunnel carved wide enough to drive your car straight through its trunk — kitschy, but standing beneath a tree that old is a northern-California rite of passage.
- 8Trona PinnaclesMore than 500 eerie tufa spires rising from a dry lakebed near Trona, so otherworldly they've stood in for alien planets on film — a free, surreal desert detour off Highway 178 best at sunset.
- 9Tuolumne MeadowsA high, grassy expanse along Tioga Road in Yosemite's quieter back country, ringed by granite domes with the Tuolumne River winding through — a serene alternative to the valley crowds.
- 10Monarch Butterfly GroveA eucalyptus grove just off the Pacific Coast Highway in Pismo Beach where tens of thousands of monarchs cluster from late fall into winter — an easy, free coastal spectacle.
Not your state’s turn yet?
Want Roamward to map California next?
Add your vote — the loudest state gets mapped first.
How it works
Nominate
Drop the most underrated spot in your state — the gem an itinerary generator would never surface.
The crowd ranks it
Name a place someone already nominated and it rises. The most-loved gems become the state’s finalists.
Vote the winner in
Finalists go to a public vote. Winners get built into Roamward — credited to the people who found them.
Go verify it
Drive it, GPS-verify the stop, earn the badge, and share the map that proves you were first.
Don’t miss the winners
Be the first to find what the crowd picks.
Join early access and we’ll tell you when your state’s gem wins — and when Roamward opens for iOS testing.
Get early access