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 Montana 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
Montana gems, most-loved first
- 1Makoshika State ParkMontana's biggest state park hides out by Glendive in the far eastern badlands — pine-studded rock spires, real dinosaur fossils in the visitor center, and almost none of the western crowds.
- 2Bannack State ParkA genuine gold-rush ghost town near Dillon with over 50 weathered buildings you can actually walk through — hotel, jail, schoolhouse, all standing empty off the beaten path in southwest Montana.
- 3Ringing RocksDown a rough gravel road between Butte and Whitehall sits a boulder field that chimes like bells when you tap it with a hammer — one of only a handful of spots on Earth that does this.
- 4Garden of One Thousand BuddhasA serene Buddhist peace garden in tiny Arlee north of Missoula, where a thousand white Buddha statues radiate out in a giant wheel against the Jocko Valley, free and open year-round.
- 5Quake LakeA lake born in seconds during the deadly 1959 earthquake near West Yellowstone, still studded with the bleached ghost trees it drowned, with a little visitor center telling the eerie story.
- 6Garnet Ghost TownMontana's best-preserved ghost town sits at the end of a gravel back-country byway east of Missoula, where a dozen-plus weathered cabins, a saloon, and a hotel still stand mostly as miners left them.
- 7Miracle of America MuseumThis gloriously cluttered roadside museum south of Polson on the Flathead packs aisle after aisle of Americana, vintage motorcycles, and genuinely strange oddities into a sprawl of buildings.
- 8Sip 'n Dip LoungeTucked inside a vintage motor inn in downtown Great Falls, this 1962 tiki bar is famous for the live mermaids who swim in a pool behind the bar's picture window most evenings — a kitschy detour for a drink.
- 9Pictograph Cave State ParkJust southeast of Billings, a short loop trail leads to sandstone caves where rock paintings up to 2,000 years old still mark the walls, with a small visitor center off I-90.
- 10Carter County MuseumWay out in tiny Ekalaka in the far southeast, this 1936 museum hides a Smithsonian-worthy fossil trove, including a mounted duckbill skeleton and a complete Triceratops skull from the surrounding badlands.
Not your state’s turn yet?
Want Roamward to map Montana 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