America's Quirkiest Events Are Calling. Is Your RV Ready?

We Came Back. And We Brought Our Husbands.

Season 2 of Learn to RV The Podcast kicked off exactly the way it should — with Jennifer, Tasha, and their husbands Frank and Matthew around the virtual campfire, playing a game that somehow turned into the most accidentally useful travel planning session we've ever done.

The premise was simple: quirky American festivals, a little friendly competition, and a whole lot of "wait, that's a REAL thing?" energy. What came out of it was something better ... a legitimate 2026 RV travel bucket list built entirely around events most people have never heard of but absolutely need to experience.

Deep fried asparagus. The National Hollering Contest. UFOs in Roswell. Butterfly migrations. Salmon runs. Bologna. Yes, bologna. & Mike.

America is a LOT. And we are so glad it is.

Quirky Festivals Are the Best Reason to Point Your RV Somewhere New

Here's what nobody tells you about quirky festivals: they are some of the most genuinely community-driven, affordable, and flat-out memorable experiences the road has to offer. While everyone else is fighting for a campsite near a national park, you could be rolling into a small town that transforms completely for one weekend a year &  where the locals are fiercely proud, the food is sometimes ridiculous, and the stories you bring home are the ones you're still telling a decade later.

They also solve one of the most common problems RVers face: where do we go next?

Most travel planning starts with geography  "we want to see the Southwest" or "let's do the coast." But festival planning starts with an experience and lets the map figure itself out. You find out the National Hollering Contest is in Spivey's Corner, North Carolina, and suddenly you have a destination, a date, a route, and a reason. That's how the best RV trips actually happen ... not from a spreadsheet, but from a moment where someone says "we HAVE to go to THAT."



A Few Favorites From the Episode

We covered a wild range in this one — and we're not going to spoil all of it because you really need to hear the game format for yourself. But here's a taste of what made the list:

🌿 Asparagus Festival — Stockton, California Deep fried asparagus is everything you think it is and more. This is a legitimate California institution and the perfect excuse to route through the Central Valley in spring. Come hungry.

👽 Roswell UFO Festival — Roswell, New Mexico If you haven't been, put it on the list right now. The entire town leans completely into the mythology and the result is one of the most enthusiastically weird weekends in the American Southwest. Camp nearby, come in for the chaos, leave with stories and probably an alien-themed souvenir you didn't need but absolutely bought.

📣 National Hollering Contest — Spivey's Corner, North Carolina This is real. People train for this. There are categories. The dedication of the competitors is something to behold & we are not exaggerating when we say this might be the most uniquely American event on the entire list.

🦋 Butterfly Migrations & Salmon Runs Nature puts on its own festivals — and they run on a schedule. Timing your travel around a monarch butterfly migration or a salmon run adds something to a trip that no theme park can replicate. Free, spectacular, and completely unforgettable.

🥩 Bologna Festival We're not going to say too much here. You need to listen to the episode. Just know that bologna is more serious than you think & someone in this country has dedicated an entire festival to proving it.

🐔 Mike the Headless Chicken Festival — Fruita, Colorado Let's talk about Mike. In 1945, a Colorado farmer named Lloyd Olsen went out to chop a chicken's head off for dinner. The chicken — Mike — did not cooperate with this plan. Mike survived. For eighteen months. Without a head. He toured the country. He was featured in Life magazine. He became a legend.

And now every May, the town of Fruita, Colorado throws a full festival in his honor. There are games. There are activities. There is a 5K run called the "Run Like a Headless Chicken Race." There is a competition to see who can keep a live chicken under control the longest. The entire town shows up to celebrate a rooster who simply refused to accept his fate.

Does Mike deserve his own festival? We would argue Mike deserves a national holiday. The sheer audacity of that chicken is the most American thing we have ever heard and Fruita, Colorado, absolutely understood the assignment.

How to Use This Episode to Plan Your 2026 Routes

Pull up a map. Pull up this episode. Hit play. Every time something sounds interesting, drop a pin. By the time the episode wraps, you'll have a scattering of pins across the country that tell you exactly where the road wants to take you this year.

The best part? Most of these festivals happen in smaller towns,  which means less crowded campgrounds, lower nightly rates, friendlier locals, and the kind of off-the-beaten-path experience that makes you feel like you actually found something instead of just following the tourist trail.

And honestly? Some of the best RV trips we've ever heard about from this community didn't start with a grand plan. They started with someone saying "you know what, let's just go see the thing."

Go see all the things.

🎧 You Need to Hear This Episode. Like, Right Now.

2026 Festival Frenzy: A Wild Ride Through America's Quirkiest Events

Season 2 Premiere | Learn to RV The Podcast

We haven't even told you half of what's in this episode. Jennifer, Tasha, Frank, and Matthew play a game that gets progressively more chaotic, more competitive, and more hilarious with every round... and somewhere in the middle of the side-splitting laughs and the absolutely unhinged festival discoveries, you're going to realize you're also building your entire 2026 travel calendar.

That's the magic of this one. You'll laugh until you cry.

You'll pause it to Google something.

You'll text someone "YOU HAVE TO HEAR THIS."

Find out who won the sasquatches that round.

And then you'll open your map app and start dropping pins.

The Season 2 premiere of Learn to RV The Podcast did not disappoint. Pure fun, completely unscripted, and exactly the kind of real community energy that makes this show different from everything else in your podcast feed. The laughs are genuine, the competition gets surprisingly intense, and the travel bucket list that comes out of it is so weird and so wonderful it could only have been born inside the Learn to RV universe. Oh & let's just say this episode gives a whole new meaning to winner winner chicken dinner. 🐔

If you miss this one, you'll know it. Your RV friends will be talking about it. Your travel plans will be missing something incredible. And you will spend the rest of 2026 wishing you had dropped those pins when you had the chance. Hit play.

👉 learntorvthepodcast.com

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