Maybe you love exploring cemeteries on your RV travels, but maybe you find them sad, or creepy. However you feel about them, there’s no denying that visiting cemeteries can be a great place to learn about local histories. Read this essay by Chuck Woodbury about why he enjoys visiting cemeteries while he travels.
So, on your RV travels, do you like to walk around random cemeteries? Do you have a favorite cemetery that comes to mind that you discovered on your RV travels? If you don’t mind sharing, please tell us about it in the comments.
And lastly, here’s a list from TimeOut sharing the most beautiful cemeteries in the U.S. And yes, they sure are beautiful!
Never have, but it is a great idea. Thank you!
We are geocachers & some are hidden in cemeteries. Some caches are also memorials hidden for friends & family.
In grade school age I helped my dad mow the local cemetery – I trimmed around stones on my hands and knees. Summers in college I dug graves by hand. Later in life I walked cemeteries gathering family history.
We went to Amana Iowa cemetery, when you pass you are buried by date. Not by family, but by date. So we now go and look at different cemeteries.
We find cemeteries in historical locations very interesting. I visited many in Europe, and, recently, in Cade’s Cove in Smokey Mountain NP.
I love old cemeteries and love to not only wander around them, but to photograph them. Whenever we are in a town for any length of time I will look into their cemetery; but I have found some wonderful ones just by driving by and noticing small ones just tucked into the sides of churches or what once was someone’s family plot or farm. I find different nationalities especially interesting like the Buddhist Cemetery founded in 1844 in Oahu, or the German one in Fredericksburg TX also from the 1800s. Each place tells a story…
Only in ghost towns
I love cemeteries!! Especially very old or pioneer ones. I have visited long dead relatives in Ireland as well as here in the USA. Visiting a cemetery in St. Augustine, FL was really special. The headstones so old that the writing was indecipherable. And I always pay tribute to our fallen heroes at national cemeteries.
We thought we were the only “weirdos” then when we toured a large Chicago cemetery we learned that prior to the automobile era people picnicked and played in the cemeteries as it was the only green space in dense neighborhoods. In Sicily we found the graves of my husbands ancestors. To this day, many a summer Sunday afternoon is spent decorating graves of long long dead family members. His great great grandfather’s grave was decorated with fresh flowers. We have found this to be true in Poland and other eastern European countries where many graveyards were destroyed in WW2 and the communist era. During Icelandic winters plots are lit up like a beacon under the northern lights.
The only time we visited one was when we camped near Harpers Ferry and while looking for places to visit in the area, realized we were only an hour away from Arlington National Cemetery. Spent the whole entire day there completely awestruck with the surroundings and being humbled to be among so many who had given their all for their, and our, country.
Thank you all for your service !
No but I have made planned stops for famous/infamous people that I’ve read in history books or locate town websites and through genealogy. But not just random visits.
+1 Same with my wife.
A lot of history is in a graveyard. You can see when the big flu outbreak was . In Wisconsin if you’re near Pestigo you ‘ll see evidences of the great fire that happened the same day as the Chicago fire.You’ll find graves of babys, middle age and not a lot of old people.
Take time to contemplate. Someday you’ll be there.
Yep; Someday I’ll be there!! it’s a given!!
Wife loves the history associated with old Cemeteries. We now live in MO and we found some roadside burial sites for just one family. In Springfield National Cemetery there is a wall separating the Union and Confederate soldiers. The hatred went on even after death.
I like quiet neighborhoods but they are too quiet for me.
Nope! I prefer to spend my time with the living. There will be plenty of time for that latter.
Plenty of time to be a resident after I am gone…will avoid the cemeteries until that time
As a 3rd year university student cemetery visits were a source for historic geography studies. Source countries, nationalities, disease, demographics, local history etc can be learned from cemeteries especially old ones. European cemeteries would be fascinating.
Yes, They contain interesting history, We once came upon a Cholera cemetery in Sandusky, OH, and stumbled upon a Civil War cemetery for Confederates near Cedar Point, OH. Cemeteries can have a GeoCache, which is another way to learn about a person or local history.
It’s not quite a hobby of ours but I will say last year while we were in Richmond VA for a wedding we looked up the most popular things to do, and one was visiting Hollywood Cemetery. We went because I wanted to see the few presidents grave sites. We parked and started walking. It was one of the best times my wife and I have had in a long time. Beautiful cemetery overlooking the James River. Spent hours walking and reading the stories. I carry a painted stone in my truck that was painted by the parents or family of a young kid who died a few years ago. They had different stones painted for people to take in memory of their kid. I think of how fragile life is everyday when I see that stone.
Nope, don’t like hanging around dead people! They are very boring!
I see many tombstones in cemeteries each year. While walking and putting flags on Veterans graves for Memorial Day. It is very interesting reading some of the tombstones.
Thank you for that patriotic service!
When I was a child, about 9 years old, my Mom and I used to explore a local cemetery. We did tomb stone rubbings, and recorded epitaphs and other interesting tidbits. The most interesting epitaph was one from 1868.
Behold me now, as you walk by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, soon you may be
Prepare for Death, and follow me