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 Virginia 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
Virginia gems, most-loved first
- 1Kiptopeke Concrete ShipsNine WWII-era ships built from concrete instead of steel were sunk here in 1948 to make a breakwater, and they still loom just off the beach like a half-sunk ghost fleet near Cape Charles.
- 2Grand CavernsThe oldest continuously operating show cave in the country, open since 1806, where Civil War soldiers scrawled their names between towering "shield" formations, in the Shenandoah Valley near Grottoes.
- 3Breaks Interstate ParkLocals call it the Grand Canyon of the South, a thousand-foot gorge where the Russell Fork River carves clean through Pine Mountain, tucked in Virginia's far southwestern corner on the Kentucky line.
- 4The Big PencilA 30-foot No. 2 pencil juts off the side of an old office-supply store in Wytheville, a 1960s stunt that outlived the business — the perfect goofy photo stop where I-77 and I-81 cross.
- 5Crozet PizzaA tiny two-room pizzeria on a railroad-town backroad that's hand-made the same dough since 1977 and once got crowned best pizza in the world by a travel guide, eleven miles west of Charlottesville.
- 6Natural Tunnel State ParkAn 850-foot limestone tunnel that Appalachian trains still rumble through, with a chairlift dropping you 250 feet into Stock Creek Gorge, in the far southwest corner near Duffield.
- 7Route 11 Potato Chip FactoryA tiny kettle-chip factory behind the high school in Mount Jackson, where a free tour walks you from 100-pound potato batches to warm bags you taste on the way out, off I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley.
- 8Falling Spring FallsAn 80-foot waterfall that free-falls over a travertine cliff into a hemlock hollow, viewable from a paved roadside overlook Thomas Jefferson name-checked in 1781, north of Covington.
- 9Texas InnLynchburg's oldest diner, slinging the legendary "Cheesy Western" burger since 1935 at a tiny counter locals just call the T-Room, open absurdly late in Virginia's Piedmont.
- 10Tangier IslandA vanishing crab-fishing island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay where residents speak a centuries-old dialect and golf carts outnumber cars, reached by the seasonal Onancock ferry.
Not your state’s turn yet?
Want Roamward to map Virginia 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