Most small towns are content with a historic plaza and maybe a respectable roadside diner, but New Mexico’s towns took a stranger route. One built an entire identity around a possible UFO crash. One turned pie into a civic calling. One offers holy dirt to pilgrims, another greets travelers with a 30-foot pistachio, and another lets visitors sleep beside a 5,000-year-old lava flow. Add in Route 66 neon signs, off-grid Earthships, and a museum full of antique gas pumps, and it is clear that there is plenty to enchant visitors in 2026 in the offbeat towns across the state.
Roswell got its reputation as a destination for UFOs from an incident in July of 1947. Many people believe a flying saucer crashed on a rancher’s property in northwest Roswell on that day. That conspiracy theory and alleged cover-up of the incident continues to fuel visitors’ interest in Roswell, and the town has plenty of attractions for alien-curious tourists. The International UFO Museum and Research Center has an exhibit on the 1947 UFO crash, plus an archive of information on UFOs and aliens. The Roswell UFO Spacewalk and Gallery showcases an immersive blacklight art exhibit that takes visitors into space. Plus, each year in July, the town celebrates the anniversary of the 1947 incident with its annual UFO Festival. The festival includes a drone light show, art installations, an alien costume contest, a UFO parade, and more.