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 West 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
West Virginia gems, most-loved first
- 1Berkeley Springs Roman Bath HouseAmerica's first spa town hides a stone bathhouse from the 1810s where you soak in a private 750-gallon tub of warm mineral water piped straight from the springs, in the Eastern Panhandle.
- 2Green Bank ObservatoryDeep in the mountains of Pocahontas County sits the world's largest steerable radio telescope, inside a federal "quiet zone" where cell signals are banned to keep the cosmos audible.
- 3Hillbilly Hot DogsThis gleefully chaotic shack on the Ohio River in Lesage serves dogs like the 15-inch Homewrecker amid school buses, graffiti, and decades of signed junk covering every surface.
- 4ThurmondOnce a booming coal-and-railroad town, this near-empty hamlet deep in the New River Gorge now counts about five residents and a beautifully preserved depot the Park Service maintains.
- 5The Mystery HoleA bright-painted roadside oddity near Ansted where a short guided tour drops you into chambers that seem to scramble gravity, pure 1970s Appalachian kitsch above the New River Gorge.
- 6Palace of GoldBuilt by hand by Hare Krishna devotees on a Moundsville hilltop, a gilded, mirror-and-marble shrine rising out of the northern panhandle hills like something teleported from another continent, with rose gardens.
- 7Smoke Hole CavernsAlong Route 28 just north of Seneca Rocks, a family-run show cave hiding a "Room of a Million Stalactites" under one of the tallest cavern ceilings in the East, deep in the Monongahela forest.
- 8Trans-Allegheny Lunatic AsylumA sprawling Gothic stone hospital in Weston, one of the largest hand-cut stone buildings in the country, with daytime history tours through its haunting, decaying wards right off I-79.
- 9Beartown State ParkA half-mile boardwalk threads through a maze of house-sized sandstone boulders, deep fissures, and shadowy overhangs atop Droop Mountain — a free, otherworldly little park near Hillsboro that stays cool in summer.
- 10The Coal HouseIn downtown Williamson, deep in the southern coalfields, a 1933 building made from 65 tons of locally mined coal blocks, varnished black and still standing — a quirky monument to Tug Valley mining history.
Not your state’s turn yet?
Want Roamward to map West 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