Economy minded travelers have long known that one secret to staying within your travel budget is to limit your souvenirs to free rocks.
“In addition to the financial savings, the great thing about free rocks is that you can collect them almost anywhere, except of course Plymouth Rock and Ayres Rock, and probably Mount Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon, and the Petrified Forest, and Stonehenge” said Bob Payne, a spokesperson for the rock group Arthur Frommer Rocks.
“Adding to the popularity of collecting free rocks is that unless you employ a jack hammer the environmental impact is relatively small, and it is a low-risk activity, just as long as you don’t fill your pockets and then immediately take an over-water journey,” Payne said.
But recently a problem has arisen for rock-collecting travelers, the Arthur Frommer Rocks spokesperson said. “Unscrupulous tourism promoters have been bringing in rocks from China and trying to pass them off as local.
“Often, the only way you can tell a counterfeit rock is if it has the words ‘For Foreign Tourists’ stamped on it in Chinese characters,” Payne said. “And most vacation travelers are just not interested in exercising that level of scrutiny.”
So for several years now, Arthur Frommer Rocks has been helping those travelers by producing a Top Ten list of places where free rocks are not likely to be the genuine article. Here’s the list for 2013:
Rock City, Tennessee
Warning enough should be that the claim made that seven states can be seen from atop this natural tourist attraction’s well-known lookout point, Lover’s Leap, has been amended to read “seven states and the Great Wall of China.”
Hard Rock Café
Even if you do find a local rock here it is likely to have been chiseled into an arrowhead, which the entertainment chain’s current owner, Florida’s Seminole Indians, may well put a curse on you for removing.
Rocking Horse Ranch
The sight of rocks wearing saddles tells you all you need to know.
Rocky Mountains
Now that recreational use of marijuana has been legalized in Colorado many, visitors to the Rocky Mountains often have trouble distinguishing free rocks from a bag of Jalapeno Cheetos, to the delight of local dentists.
Rock of Gibraltar
The problem here is that there is only one rock, and it is 1,400 feet high, making it much too big to slip inconspicuously into a tote bag.
Rockefeller Plaza
The television comedy series 30 Rock, named after a Rockefeller Plaza address, is scheduled to air its final episode on January 31, 2013, so any authentic rocks that may have been lying around were long ago used as skit material by the show’s head writer, Tina Fey, who is said to be working now on a similar show for the Chinese, tentatively named 30 Lock.
Rock Resorts
Be careful at this group of seven luxury resorts because it’s the old story of the room rates being so high that the free rocks hardly matter
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
When rocks have their own hall of fame, expect poseurs, wannabes, and Chinese counterfeit artists to be everywhere. That said, even a fake Neil Diamond can sometimes make a nice collectible.
When not heading the budget travel group Arthur Frommer Rocks, travel humor writer Bob Payne is the editor in chief of BobCarriesOn.com
Dean Franklin/Wikipedia photo.
