NATALIJA UGRINA

Outside the historic Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, one of the most haunted hotels in America. There are some hotels where you sleep peacefully… and then there are the ones where every creaking floorboard suddenly sounds like footsteps in the hallway at 3 a.m. America is filled with historic hotels that are famous not only for luxury and architecture, but also for strange paranormal stories that refuse to disappear. Some hosted celebrities and presidents. Others witnessed t

Me and my new best friend on the Seguin Squirrel Trail — one of 32 painted squirrel statues scattered across town. Yes, she's dressed better than me. I have a rule when I travel through Texas: if I see something on the map that makes me do a double take, I stop. Life is too short to keep driving past the weird stuff, and Texas — more than almost any state I've been to — rewards the people who pull over. (Although Louisiana gives it a run for its money — just ask the frogs of

Standing in front of the original "Drink Dr Pepper" painted wall at the Dr Pepper Museum in Waco, Texas — holding America's oldest soda for the very first time. Waco, Texas was never on my radar for the reasons most people visit it. I wasn't coming for Magnolia Market or Chip and Joanna Gaines. I came because of one of the darkest and most disturbing stories in modern American history — the Branch Davidian siege of 1993, the 51-day standoff at Mount Carmel that ended in fire

Yes, that's a frog baker. Welcome to Rayne, Louisiana — the Frog Capital of the World, where even the murals have personality. I have a rule when I'm on a long road trip: I don't drive past anything weird without stopping. Life is too short for straight lines, and honestly, some of the most interesting things I've ever seen were the ones I almost missed because I was in a hurry to get somewhere else. I was driving from New Orleans to Houston, and somewhere around Lafayette, L