Meet Siobhan M. Sullivan

She is the editor of Off the Beaten Path, which spotlights more than 1,000 overlooked yet must-see destinations across the United States.

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Off the Beaten Path is available everywhere books are sold.
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Siobhan Sullivan is an editor for the Adult Trade division of Reader's Digest. She has worked on a variety of books for Reader's Digest and was previously an editor for Pearson Education where she helped to develop award-winning, best-selling English language learning materials. Siobhan has traveled extensively throughout Europe, studying at the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares in Spain, as well as throughout the U.S. She is originally from New York City.

What is the most off-the-beaten-path destination in the book?
The Spiral Jetty in Utah. This "earthwork" is only visible when the sea level is low enough to allow it to emerge.

What are some of the oldest sites in the book?
Joshua Tree National Park in California has a 900 year old Joshua tree Native American reservations and museums -many throughout the book Dinosaur Journey in Colorado

Did you visit the sites in doing your research?
I wish! We reached out to state tourist bureaus and travel researchers and writers across the country for their expertise and personal recommendations. We also leaned on our own experiences for the areas local to us. I have personally been to many of the destinations in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.

What are some of the oddest suggested places to visit?
  • The Insectarium in New Orleans, Louisiana
  • The Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota
  • The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, PA.--highlights medical anomalies and includes displays such as a plaster cast of Siamese twins, a giant colon removed from a man, random objects swallowed and removed, and a tumor of Grover Cleveland


    • What are some of the most intriguing places to visit?
  • The UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico
  • The Barbed Wire Museum in La Crosse, Kansas
  • Kotzebue, Alaska--33 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where Inupiat Eskimos live


    • Which destination has the most romantic history?
    Boldt Castle is a rare jewel from the Gilded Age in upstate New York. Located on a heart-shaped island, over 700 couples have exchanged wedding vows here.

    How do sites remain off-the-beaten-path destinations if they are highlighted in books such as yours?
    This book certainly has generated enthusiasm and greater traffic for many of the sites chosen to be in it. This was taken into consideration as the second and third editions were developed and the sites to be dropped were chosen for each. We had representatives from each state tourist bureau verify that the sites we chose to keep as well as the new sites we chose to add were indeed off then beaten at the time.

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