Yes, These Places Are Real (12 Photos)

Real town signs people stop to photograph

Somebody had to order a road sign that says Dull, and somebody in Arizona had to put up one that just says Why. Every place below is real, and so is the story behind its name.

More: These Signs Got Personal (10 Photos)

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😐 “Welcome to Dull” — Dull, Scotland 🇬🇧

The sign outside Dull, a small village near Aberfeldy, gets straight to the point. The pairing began when a cyclist passed through Boring, Oregon, and phoned a friend who lived in Dull, and the two became sister communities in 2012.

💡 Name Fact: Dull’s name is thought to come from the Gaelic word for meadow. In 2017 Bland Shire in Australia joined them in the League of Extraordinary Communities.

📂Artwork File · Seen Aug 2021 — Dull’s welcome sign names its partner across the Atlantic: Boring, Oregon The full story, with every source

📷 Photo and cover crop: Peter Mercator / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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😴 “Welcome to Boring” — Boring, Oregon, USA 🇺🇸

Boring answers from the other side of the Atlantic, with Dull, Scotland on its welcome sign and “Boring & Dull” on a store sign below it. The community is named after William Boring, who donated land for the first school, not after the mood.

💡 Holiday Fact: Oregon lawmakers made August 9 Boring and Dull Day in 2013.

📷 Photo: David Prasad / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🤷 “Uncertain” — Uncertain, Texas, USA 🇺🇸

Population 94, says the sign, and even the name comes with doubts. Uncertain sits in East Texas, and one story says steamboat captains had trouble mooring there, so the spot became Uncertain Landing.

💡 Name Fact: Another story, told in Texas Highways, says residents were uncertain about their citizenship before the border between the United States and the Republic of Texas was settled.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-highsm-29175 (public domain)

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❓ “Why” — Why, Arizona, USA 🇺🇸

One word on a green sign, no question mark, and then gas, food and lodging. Why grew up at a fork in the road that locals simply called the Y.

💡 Spelling Fact: The name had to be at least three letters long, so Y became Why: same sound, enough letters.

📷 Photo: Ken Lund / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🔥 “Official U.S. Weather Bureau” — Hell, Michigan, USA 🇺🇸

A painted sign in Hell, Michigan points to something real: in 1962 Hell got an official U.S. Weather Bureau measuring station.

💡 Weather Fact: In the January 2014 cold snap, NPR reported that Hell had frozen over, at minus 13 degrees.

📷 Photo: Sswonk / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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🎙️ “Truth or Consequences” — Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, USA 🇺🇸

This New Mexico town used to be Hot Springs. Then radio host Ralph Edwards wanted a town to rename itself after his game show, the residents voted yes, and on March 31, 1950, the city got the name on this sign.

💡 Radio Fact: Edwards came back for 50 straight years, and the town still holds its fiesta on the first weekend in May.

📷 Photo: SportsGuy789 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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❗ “Westward Ho!” — Westward Ho!, England 🇬🇧

The exclamation mark is part of the name. Westward Ho! in North Devon was named after Charles Kingsley’s 1855 novel, and it grew up around a grand hotel built there in the 1860s.

💡 Punctuation Fact: It is the only place in the UK with an exclamation mark in its name.

📷 Photo: Ronmore at English Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

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😂 “Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!” — Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, Quebec, Canada 🇨🇦

Even the post office uses both exclamation marks. In Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, “haha” is not a laugh: it is an archaic French word for an unexpected obstacle or abruptly ending path.

💡 Record Fact: Guinness World Records lists it as the only town with two exclamation marks in its name.

📷 Photo: Rob Schmidt / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🧭 “Nowhere Else 2” — Nowhere Else, Tasmania, Australia 🇦🇺

One arrow, two choices: Nowhere Else in two kilometers, or Barrington in nine. The sign stands at a rural junction in northern Tasmania, with farmland on every side.

📷 Photo: Mx. Granger / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)

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💤 “Gt. Snoring” — Great Snoring, England 🇬🇧

The village sign in Great Snoring, Norfolk, shows a church tower, reeds and birds, and nobody asleep. The name probably means settlement of the people of Snear.

💡 Size Fact: Great Snoring now has fewer people than its neighbor Little Snoring, but the names show that Great Snoring was once the larger village.

📂Artwork File · Seen Nov 2015 — A round sign dated 2009 replaced an older one on the crossroads green The full story, with every source

📷 Photo: Adrian S Pye / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🎲 “Come By Chance Welcomes You” — Come By Chance, Newfoundland, Canada 🇨🇦

Come By Chance sits at the head of Placentia Bay, and its name was first recorded in 1706, possibly because the harbor was found by chance. The welcome sign adds a few photos of the place, so you can see what you stumbled on.

💡 Refinery Fact: The town’s oil refinery was sold for $1 in 1986 and reopened the next year.

📷 Photo: Derek Blackadder / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🚉 “Llanfair PG” station sign — Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey, Wales 🇬🇧

Fifty-eight characters across one station building in Llanfairpwllgwyngyll. A local pushed for the longer name in the 1860s to bring in tourists and give the station the longest name in Britain.

💡 Translation Fact: The name means “St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave”.

📷 Photo: Rémih / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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