The Most Unique State Festivals

New York may claim bagel supremacy in America, but does it crown a Little Miss Bagelfest or Bagel Baby every year? They do not, and therefore bagel-lovers may want to consider Mattoon, Illinois for their next vacation—at least during July when the annual Mattoon Bagelfest is held.

When a bagel factory opened in Mattoon many years ago, the factory owner hosted a free bagel breakfast for the city. The residents loved it so much that the free breakfast evolved into an annual, multi-day festival celebrating bagels and community. You’ll come for the free bagels and stay for the Bagel Bow Wow dog contest (which includes awards for the best bagel costume, “good old dog”, and owner-pet look-alike).

Wabasha, Minnesota, has remained grumpy (and proud of it) for decades after serving as the setting for the movie Grumpy Old Men. Every year since the movie's release, the town has hosted a Grumpy Old Men Festival, featuring activities inspired by the film—such as ice fishing, curling, and more.

The small town of Yale, Michigan, has a population of around 2,000 people—until bologna is involved. Over 20,000 people descend on Yale every July for the annual Yale Bologna Festival, a three-day celebration of the beloved lunchmeat that started in 1989.

In addition to plenty of bologna tasting opportunities (including fried bologna sandwiches and bologna hot dogs), the festival features a bologna-themed cardboard boat race, a crowning of the King and Queen of Bolognaville, and custom-built outhouse races.

At the Florida Keys’ Underwater Music Festival, you’ll find sandbars instead of drink-slinging bars, fins instead of high heels, and tanks of air instead of the other inhaled substances you might find at a typical concert.

At this annual under-the-sea event, ocean-themed songs are piped underwater using speakers suspended beneath boats to participants dressed in seaworthy swimming costumes. Hopefully, the local neighbors (the sealife) don’t complain about the noise, since the event is held to encourage coral reef preservation and environmentally responsible diving.

While other places curse pesky mosquitoes, Clute, Texas has decided to celebrate the blood-sucking creatures with The Great Texas Mosquito Festival (we’re itchy just writing about it). This three-day festival has been an annual event since 1981, and the mascot, a 26-foot inflatable mosquito named Willie Man Chew, is the star of the show.

Try your luck at the mosquito calling competition, described as “open season for those pros that can call the largest, fastest, and most bloodsucking mosquitoes around”, or put on your shortest shorts and enter the mosquito legs beauty contest.

There are a few things you need to know about the annual Flora-Bama Mullet Toss: It’s held on the state line between Florida and Alabama (hence the name), and a mullet is a type of fish (not just a bold hairstyle statement).

Each year, crowds pack the beach to watch contenders vie to throw their (dead) mullets the furthest across Florida and into Alabama.

In case you thought this event couldn’t get any more Florida, know that the tossed mullets are donated to Alligator Alley or the Gulf Coast Zoo for alligator food after the festival.

The Frozen Dead Guy Festival inspires a lot of questions—but the short story is, for more than 30 years, a corpse was kept on dry ice in a shed in Nederland, Colorado, and every year the town threw a festival to celebrate it—while also restocking the ice.

In 2023, the body was moved to the ice house at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park—the same historic hotel that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining. There, it was submerged head-first in liquid nitrogen, adding an even frostier twist to the legend. The festival itself also relocated to Estes Park.

Festival events are what you’d expect for an event centered around a frozen body: coffin racing, a polar plunge, and a bar crawl.