7 Virginia Roadside Stops Locals Pull Over for That Tourists Drive Past

A pickup truck taps its brakes on an old two-lane outside a small Virginia town, then eases onto the gravel shoulder and parks.

The SUV behind it, plates from three states away, never slows down.

These are the roadside stops locals pull over for that tourists drive right past.

Natural Chimneys Park

Natural Chimneys Park occupies a run of back roads outside Mount Solon, tucked away from Interstate 81 and easy to miss unless somebody’s already told you which turn to take.

Seven limestone towers rise as high as 120 feet over the pasture, worn into shapes early travelers compared to a ruined castle.

Locals call it the Chimneys.

Augusta County turns out every third Saturday in August for a jousting tournament that’s run here without a break since 1821, the oldest continuously held sporting event in North America.

It’s outlasted the Kentucky Derby and the World Series both.

A rider gallops a seventy-five-yard track and spears small steel rings off three timber frames, the same contest a Confederate general once rode in before the Civil War.

None of that history shows up on a road sign along Route 11, so drivers on the interstate a few miles east never know it’s there.

Big Walker Lookout

Big Walker Lookout stands on old U.S. 21/52 in Bland County, the two-lane that carried nearly all the north-south traffic through southwest Virginia before the interstates opened.

A 100-foot observation tower rises above the tree line, with mountain ridges rolling out in every direction from the top.

I-77 and I-81 replaced that stretch of road decades ago.

Interstate drivers never take the old exit anymore.

Not locals, though.

They still climb the tower stairs for the view, or stop below for a hand-dipped ice cream cone and the bluegrass pickers who take the porch on weekends from May through October.

A small admission fee covers the climb.

Interstate drivers who’ve never taken that old exit have no way of knowing any of this is just a few miles off their route.

Route 11 Potato Chips

Route 11 Potato Chips runs its factory store one exit off I-81 in Mount Jackson, right on the two-lane truckers used before the interstate came through.

Big windows behind the register show off the whole cooking process, fryers included, minus the room where workers peel the potatoes.

Watching costs nothing.

Locals stop by weekly for the free samples and for bags of “seconds,” chips that missed a branded bag and sell at a discount.

I-81 drivers chasing a Shenandoah Valley itinerary take that exit for gas, not chips.

The viewing window runs Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Bring cash for the seconds bin.

Cyrus McCormick Farm

Cyrus McCormick Farm runs as a free museum a few miles off I-81’s Exit 205 near Raphine, one many interstate drivers between Staunton and Lexington have never heard of.

Virginia Tech operates the site now, on the same ground where McCormick and his father perfected the mechanical reaper in 1831.

Eight of the nine original buildings still stand, including the blacksmith shop where the first working model came together.

Admission is free, every day, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Locals bring out-of-town family here on a whim, the way you’d swing by a park.

Bring a picnic.

Interstate travelers barrel past Exit 205 by the thousands without a clue that a piece of farm-equipment history sits a few miles up the road.

Humpback Bridge Wayside

Humpback Bridge Wayside sits off I-64’s Exit 10 outside Covington, a five-acre park many drivers heading toward West Virginia never leave the interstate to see.

The bridge itself dates to 1857, and it’s the only bridge in Virginia listed as a National Historic Landmark.

Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources also lists it as the oldest covered bridge still standing in the state.

The span gets its name from its shape, four feet higher at the center than at either end.

Locals picnic under those timbers on a Saturday the way other families claim a spot at a state park.

It costs nothing to visit.

A short, steep road off Route 60 leads down to the parking lot, and it’s easy to see why many interstate drivers never bother finding it.

Virginia Diner

Virginia Diner runs out of a converted 1929 railroad car on U.S. 460 in Wakefield, a road that carries a steady run of Petersburg-to-Norfolk traffic past its front door.

Mrs. D’Earcy Davis started serving hot biscuits and vegetable soup out of that railcar in 1929, feeding peanut farmers and rail workers first.

Peanut soup has stayed on the menu the whole time.

So has the Peanut Pie.

Locals treat a stop here the way other towns treat a diner on Main Street, a regular Tuesday lunch, not an occasion.

Many drivers on Route 460 keep rolling toward Suffolk or Norfolk and never brake for it.

They’re missing the peanut soup that put Wakefield on the map for people who’ve never otherwise heard of the town.

Exmore Diner

Exmore Diner has done business out of a railcar directly on U.S. 13 since 1954, the only road onto the Eastern Shore and the only way to reach Chincoteague and Assateague by car.

The Silk City railcar came down from Paterson, New Jersey, the same builder that shipped dining cars up and down the East Coast at midcentury.

Diner registry records show this particular car rolled off the line in 1945, nine years before it reached Exmore.

Beach traffic backs up on Route 13 for miles on summer weekends.

Drivers crawl right past the diner’s front door.

Almost none of them stop.