Mariana Boardwalk

A classic seaside wooden boardwalk in Mariana County, lined with carnival games, saltwater taffy shops, and a ferris wheel you can see from twenty miles out.

The Mariana Boardwalk is the kind of tourist strip that used to be everywhere in America and now mostly isn't — a mile of weathered wooden planks along the beach, lined with the entire vocabulary of classic seaside tack: a ferris wheel with peeling paint, a tilt-a-whirl, a Whac-a-Mole stand run by the same family for four generations, taffy pulled in a window, funnel cakes turning the air into pure sugar. The fishing pier at the southern end juts a quarter mile into the Gulf and draws a dedicated crowd of regulars who catch a surprising amount of fish. The amusement park is technically well-maintained and legally operated, which puts it in the upper quartile of carnival operations statewide. The boardwalk is at its best at night, when the neon lights turn on, the bass from the arcade speakers reverberates through the planks, and the teenagers and tourists blend into a single indistinguishable crowd chasing the specific kind of fun that only this kind of place produces.