Dinosaur Land Guide

Dinosaur Land has stood at the Double Tollgate crossroads near Front Royal since 1963, when Joseph Geraci saw fiberglass dinosaurs at a Florida mini-golf course and decided the Shenandoah Valley needed its own prehistoric jungle. What he built is a walk-through park of more than 50 giant creatures — a 70-foot purple octopus, a 60-foot shark, a 20-foot cobra, a 14-foot praying mantis, and a climbable King Kong you can stand inside and wave out of. Half of it isn’t even from the Mesozoic, which is the whole charm: this is roadside Americana at its purest, unbothered by accuracy, built to be photographed. Sixty-plus years in, it’s still open March through December and still exactly what it was.