Wyoming Great American Road Trip

When the weather warms up and schools close for the summer, Americans hit the highways. Our great country has so many sights to see that the automobile is still the simplest way for many Americans to vacation; and with 50 states to see boasting over 400 amusement parks, 58 national parks, three coast lines and major mountain ranges, a grand canyon and a slew of islands, the competition is fierce.  Tourism boards around the United States are constantly working new ad campaigns to attract travelers to their states. 

The Wyoming Office of Tourism is upping their game with a program started in 2013 titled the Wyoming Great American Road Trip which provides tourists with a map with routes across the state highlighting features where geographical stickers can be collected. Some stickers represent the state as a whole, while other stickers feature a landmark which can only be collected at a certain location.

With six new colorful stickers and an interactive map, the Wyoming Great American Road Trip program is starting 2015 off with a bang.  The road trip program highlights four routes across the state. The first route named the Park to Park Route (which takes tourists through Thermopolis) is a 489-mile road trip with 25 stops starting in Cheyenne and continuing through Douglas, Casper, Cody, and ending in Yellowstone National Park.   The second route, Rockies to Tetons, is a similar route that starts in Pine Bluffs and continues through Rawlins, Riverton, Jackson Hole, and ends in Yellowstone.  The third and fourth routes travel along the western and northern edges of the state, respectively, and both end in Yellowstone as well. All of the mapped routes highlight state parks, landmarks, and visitor centers and entice tourists to stop for a chance to pick up their next collectable sticker – similar to a treasure hunt. The hope is that while they're there, these treasure seekers will also stop and explore the locations they have been led to.  

Wyoming Office of Tourism Media and Public Relations Manager, Chris Mickey described the program as going incredibly well and growing. Every year more and more Wyoming towns are getting involved, more stickers are being designed by artist John Bell, and even more stickers are being printed and given out to the masses.

Not only can tourists collect stickers, but they can also show them off on social media by taking a picture and sharing it using #WY125 or #Foreverwest. The state tourism board has seen sticker pictures on water bottles and car bumpers as well as kids showing off their sticker stash – highlighting the overall goal of the program which is to get tourists to travel to all corners of the state.

"[The program] gives people a different way to go and a different reason to go through those towns. People will reroute themselves to get a sticker they haven't yet collected," said Mickey who is planning his own route through the state to collect stickers he doesn't have access to in Cheyenne.

To be a part of the road trip program the state required town's visitor's centers to be open seven days a week from Memorial Day through Labor day. To extend the hours for Thermopolis' Visitor's Center, the Travel and Tourism Board and the Chamber of Commerce have worked together to fund the hours for the required staffing. 2015 is the first year Thermopolis has participated in the program and the chamber is already seeing excellent results.

Chamber Director Meri Ann Rush has seen an increase in traffic through the Visitor's Center with tourists seeking collector stickers - even locals have been bringing in their out-of-town guests to get their collector stickers. The best part about it, she noted, is that every single person who comes in for a sticker also gets an education about Hot Springs County.  The majority of them leave with brochures and flyers in addition to their collectable stickers.

"Thermopolis may not be these people's main destination, but the program encourages them to explore the town and maybe it will be a destination for them in the future," said Rush.  

There is no doubt the program has grown in popularity in the last three years. In 2013, Mickey reported 90,834 stickers were distributed. These numbers more than doubled with 231,200 stickers distributed in 2014. The Wyoming Office of Tourism anticipates these numbers to continue to climb as more and more towns join the program and more and more travelers explore the state.

To add to the collectability status of the state stickers, the Wyoming Great American Road Trip is scheduled to be a limited time program. How limited is yet to be determined, but as the stickers are not especially easy for people to get their hands on without some significant road time the state hopes to keep the program going for a while longer to generate circulation but not so long as to keep the stickers from being a special keepsake item.