Tacky Tourist Photos

SUBMITTED BY: Erik Paulsen   LOCATION: Times Square, New York City (2012) When posing for a Tacky Tourist Photo, it is usually customary to embrace the quirky statue or mascot as if you are best friends. Yet, there is something rather skeevy about getting intimate with a Naked Cowboy you just met. Enter the brilliance [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Kathie Fife   LOCATION: Hillsborough, NH (2011) Remember when educators carried rulers and would crack your wrists for chewing gum or misspelling a word? Well, in addition to shining the silverware of President Franklin Pierce, the Hillsborough Historical Society loves to romanticize mean old school teachers. (Kathie Fife is a nature photographer and greeting [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Debra Furlong, Mike and Christine     LOCATION: Sedona, Arizona (2011) Dance for me, puppet! In the mystical New Age paradise of Sedona, Arizona, where crystals and “positive energy” is sold at every gas station, there’s a small prancing tribe of gnomes who will perform on command.

SUBMITTED BY: Debby Greenberg  LOCATION: Los Alamos, New Mexico (2011) So uranium yellowcake is a key ingredient for developing nuclear weapons, but you’re not supposed to eat it. That wasn’t the case with this celebratory mushroom cloud cake enjoyed by U.S. military generals after the 1946 nuclear tests at the Bikini Atoll.  A replica of [...]

We’ve previously showcased some great improvisational acting on the Great Wall of China, such as TTP star correspondent Brian Henderson’s “Where Can I Find a Decent Chinese Restaurant?” pose.  But YouTube dance star Nonstop really kicks things up a notch!      

SUBMITTED BY: Jumping Norman  LOCATION: Easter Island, Chile From the same kooks who probably think the 1969 NASA Moon Landing was created in a secret CIA movie studio, we’ve been accused of creating some of our more surreal Tacky Tourist Photos in Adobe Photoshop.  The “Egyptian Cheerleading Tryouts” shot in particular has a few conspiracy [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Lisa and John Sarick   LOCATION: Joshua Tree, California (2008) This airborne antique convertible will never be confused with the Dukes of Hazzard‘s General Lee, but it’s where Lisa and John fell in love: Spin and Margie’s Desert Hideaway, “part boutique Inn, part Mexican hacienda and part artist’s palette.” Not sure any of [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Whitney Matheson    LOCATION: San Francisco, California (2011) Cute pink rabbit or rodent with a deathwish?   There’s lots of Freudian subtext in what may be the World’s Largest Skull Bunny, the brainchild of artist Jeremy Fish. What is it about pink rabbits that make us contemplate our own mortality?  Discuss amongst yourselves. (Whitney [...]

Sorry to go all regional on you, but if you happen to live in New England (or are vacationing there), come on out and meet the Tacky Tourist founders, curators, and administrative staff! TEWKSBURY TACKY TOURIST PHOTOS NIGHT 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7 Tewksbury Public Library 300 Chandler Street Tewksbury, MA 01876 978-640-4490 Join founding [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Noelle Boc   LOCATION: Charlestown, Mass. (2011) When you kiss a fish, it is better with your eyes closed? Rumor has it that smooching with this Fish Sentinel, the official guard of City Square Park near Boston Harbor, will make you grow fins. (Noelle Boc is a hip children’s librarian and movie reviewer [...]

SUBMITTED BY: George Scully  LOCATION: Winchester, Virginia (2011) At Dinosaur Land, the most fearsome place in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, no one is safe. Not even pink little bunnies. (Fascinated by giant mutant insects?  Check out the Tough Guy Butterfly).

SUBMITTED BY: Mark Arsenault and Jennifer Levitz  LOCATION: Mount Vernon, Virginia (2011) Barack Obama won’t come greet you when you tour the White House.  Speaker of the House John Boehner won’t give you the time of day when you visit the Capitol. But George Washington cares about his fans. The Father of Our Country’s PR [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Barrie Mirman   LOCATION: Cannes, France (2011) Once a year, you can find movie stars like Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Lui gallivanting around Cannes during the film festival. The rest of the year you can BE them. (On special assignment from TTP, Barrie Mirman recently crashed a wedding on the riverbanks of [...]

SUBMITTED BY: Aaron Whitehead   LOCATION: New York, NY (2011) Legend has it that rubbing the brass balls of the Wall Street Bull statue, formally known as “Charging Bull,” will bring good luck to your portfolio.  Is it only a matter of time till the Occupy Wall Street mob attempts castration?

SUBMITTED BY: Sharon McHale  LOCATION: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (2011) Any run-of-the-mill rock star can get immortalized at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, but how impressive is it to have a shrine in downtown Ulaanbaatar four decades after last topping the Billboard charts? Mongolia’s Beatles monument is a tribute to the role that [...]