Given that around 400,000 people visit every year it counts.
Knotts Berry Farm? Arguably, a tourist destination by the 30’s. Definitely, with the addition of a ghost town attraction, by the 40’s.
My point above being that there are many reasons people visit Loch Ness, and it’s mainly for the great outdoors. It’s a vast body of water taking up a sizeable slice of North Scotland, not some abstract little pond you have to make a detour to see.
I don’t think that is the only reason Wallace is a tourist attraction, nor do I think it is one of the more popular reasons. It has a load of mining history (including the seedier sides that come with mining towns), curious about the Great Fire of 1910 or why the Pulaski tool is named the Pulaski?, is at the end of a fantastic biking trail (Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes), nearby another fantastic biking trail (Route of the Hiawatha), is between two great ski hills, and is popular for ATV/SxS riding. And overall, it is a very quirky town, including that manhole cover 
Even more importantly, it’s on the A82, one of the major roads in Scotland. If you’re visiting the Highlands, it’s difficult to avoid unless you take a detour. The Monster isn’t needed to attract tourists; its job is instead to persuade them to stop and spend money.
Speaking of hippies and festivals, I honestly have no idea if many tourists visit Woodstock, NY, but I am certain the only reason most people have heard of that town is because of the music festival.
Thought the festival was actually held in Bethel, NY.
Yeah, but Woodstock gets all the name recognition.
Was The Alamo much of a tourist trap before the Disney “Davy Crockett” series from the 50’s and the John Wayne “The Alamo” movie from the 60’s, both of which were incredibly inaccurate historically?
Speaking of music festivals does anyone have any reason to visit the Black Rock Desert in Nevada aside from Burning Man?
I’ve been to Woodstock many times. It gets a lot of people coming up for the day or weekend from NYC which is 2 hours drive away. It’s in a beautiful area in the foothills of the Catskills with the high peaks 30 minutes further along. There are art galleries, a theater, concert hall, restaurants, a Buddhist monastery.
From its wikipedia page:
The 1903 Byrdcliffe art colony is one of the nation’s oldest Arts & Crafts colonies. . . In 1916, utopian philosopher and poet Hervey White built a “music chapel” in the woods. This became the home of the Maverick music festival, the longest-running summer chamber music festival in the country, still held annually as of 2019.[14] Composers such as Henry Cowell, John Cage, Robert Starrer and Peter Schickele created works that were premiered there. Today, this hand-built concert hall with perfect acoustics is a multi-starred attraction on the National Register of Historic Places with world-class musicians playing there from June to September. . .
The town has long been a mecca for artists, musicians, actors, and writers, even before the music festival made the name “Woodstock” famous. The town has a separate “Artist’s Cemetery”. Film and art festivals attract big names, and hundreds of musicians have come to Woodstock to record.
Bethel NY where the festival was held is an example of a place that became a tourist attraction for 1 reason. The Bethel Woods Art Center and Museum are interesting to people into the festival and music: https://www.bethelwoodscenter.org/
This reminds me of Stockbridge, MA, which I think was fairly unknown until that folk-singer guy got arrested for littering there. The church where Alice lived has apparently morphed into quite an attraction.
(As I’m sure the erudite Denizens of the Dope all know, this was also the home of Norman Rockwell, who used Officer William Obanhein as a model for some of his paintings.)
wow, that’s cool. Wallace has some spunk.
And also tourists who want to explore an honest-to-god medieval castle.
Besides me and my wife, the only other people that I know that have been there stopped just because of the manhole cover. We also found the Red Light Garage, a neat little restaurant stuffed full of odds and ends. And of course, we took pictures of ourselves in the space ship out front.
I live in the area and have stayed there several times for skiing and bike riding weekends. I didn’t realize the manhole cover was advertised as the attraction. 
I was going to say Walden Pond
What amuses me is to the locals its the local swimming & fishing hole. It’s amusing when the locals are annoyed at the tourists for using up the parking while the tourists who come to meditate on Thoreau’s pond are annoyed at the locals corrupting their holy site splashing around in speedos.
Haha, my wife was both of these people over a period of maybe 15 years max. Went from tourist to local and then back again. Seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that she was bitching about herself.
Winslow wasn’t exactly a tourist destination per se, but it’s home to the La Posada, one of Fred Harvey’s grand rail station hotels where many famous people stayed enroute to other southwestern destinations.
Besides Knott’s, there was the Alligator Farm (home of M’kulu, the largest Nile crocodile in captivity) right across the street.
And some sort of Liberty park with a recreation of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence.
One thing I don’t get- why do people visit a town to see a movie landmark?
I mean,. I get Hobbiton, since all the sets are still there, a pub, tours, gift shop, etc- sure, and the set of the Popeye film is apparently fun to visit.
But to drive to a little town just to see a building that happened to be in a popular film?
Historical site I understand, especially if there is a museum, etc.