In the middle of Pennsylvania farmland and Amish country is a factory emitting the sweet aroma of chocolate. The town of Hershey is known as Chocolatetown, USA. Right smack dab in the center of town is Hershey’s Chocolate World, a visitor center immersing you in all things chocolate, as in all things Hershey.
Create Your Own Candy Bar
Entrance
Chocolate wonks, or “Wonkas”, rejoice! Milton Hershey’s famed chocolate company opened in 1900. An entire community developed around the factory that produces the iconic Hershey’s Chocolate Bar and other confections.
Still, the Hershey Bar is king here, and you get to see the process of making one up close. Not just any chocolate bar, but one reflecting your personality, where you choose the ingredients and design your own chocolate wrapper. The Create Your Own Candy Bar experience is $26.95 per person, free for children under age 2. It’s fun, interactive, entertaining, and, of course, sweet tasting. The final product comes in a keepsake tin box with personalized wrapper. Your bar is thicker and bigger than the traditional Hershey Bar sold in stores.
Follow The Production Line
The journey begins at the entrance where you put on a sanitary apron, hair net, and face mask. Then you proceed to a computer screen. Type your name and choose your bar, milk or dark chocolate. Plus, add any two of seven choices of ingredients. I chose dark with pretzel bits and sprinkles. Or, you can go with a chocolate-only bar, but what fun would that be? Then follow your bar on the production line through every step of creation. The entire experience takes about 45-minutes. However, if you spend too much time at a second computer kiosk to design your bar’s wrapper, you can miss the final stages of production. There are so many design choices and layouts to choose from!
Candy Bar Start To Finish
I ate my chocolate bar, but I can see making another to give as a gift to a special person with their favorite ingredients. That would be cool. In fact, you can order personalized chocolate bars from Hershey if you can’t make it to any of the Chocolate World locations. If you do go to the Hershey location for Create Your Own Candy Bar, an advanced reservation is required. There are a limited number of spaces available every day.
Chocolate World ConcourseTicket Booth
Chocolate World has several attractions. Each priced separately, or can be bundled together to save some money. Create Your Own Candy Bar is the most popular and the sweetest of all.
Step-By-Step Candy Bar Making Video
Susan and Steve Geiger (The Mellow Wanderer)
Steve and Susan Geiger visited Hershey, PA in August 2021. The retired couple live in Tampa, FL. They travel the USA and the world in search of interesting and fun destinations.
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Spring is my favorite time of year. Confession: I live in Florida, so I don’t suffer the common winter blues as many northerners do. My world is green and blossomy year round.
Yet, there is something about spring that rejuvenates my soul and fills me with general glee. Spring also marks the annual observance of Earth Day on April 22, which began in 1970, the day the so-called “environmental movement” was born. Earth Day is always a welcome and noble ritual to remind us to protect our planet and discover its natural beauty.
Geiger Gardens: Mellow Wanderer’s Home
For me, Earth Day is every day. I wander in my home garden observing the wonders of nature; fluttering butterflies, scampering lizards, or a black garden snake (I named him Stanley) resting wrapped inside a podacarpus. Then there are the glorious parks and botanical gardens I visit on a regular basis near my home, or on vacation in whatever region or country I visit.
Cape Cod National Seashore
So, in the spirit of “Earth Day is everyday,” here is a list of my favorite gardens and parks. Each is special and inspires wonder and excitement. In that respect, each deserves a number one ranking.
My Top 7 (Updated April 22, 2024)
Yellowstone National Park
Diversity is the first thing that pops into mind when I think of Yellowstone: Bubbling brown mud pots, rambling green meadows dotted with multi-colored wild flowers, geysers exploding skyward, and rumbling rainbow waterfalls. Even the simple beauty of a roadside weed makes me giddy. This is the place where buffalo roam freely, bear scamper, elk lope along, and countless other wildlife species call home. Yellowstone is a national treasure and a place people visit from around the world.
The Butchard Gardens
This must be the home address for Wonderland, that magical place in your mind where natural beauty overwhelms the senses. Butchard Gardens is an experience like no other. It’s 55 acres of breathtaking scenery on the island of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. There are five themed areas, each designed to reflect a specific garden style or culture, such as Japanese, Italian, and Mediterranean, as well as sunken and rose gardens. I have no doubt you’ll remember the magnificent Butchard Gardens long after your first visit.
Point Reyes National Seashore
The stunning Northern California coastline of Point Reyes has the wild Pacific Ocean on one side and the serene Tomales Bay on the other. The peninsula’s ecosystem supports an abundance of flora and fauna, including a variety of marine life. Seasonal sea fog is also a rich source of moisture to sustain a natural rain forest.
Acadia National Park
Acadia is the East Coast sister park to Point Reyes in terms of a wild Atlantic Ocean and quiet interior bays, coves, and lakes. Mount Desert Island in Maine is the home of Acadia. Thuya Gardens is a gem of a place to visit. It’s called the garden on a hill. You can hike a meandering trail from the roadside parking area up to the garden. Stop along the way at several viewing spots to lookout to Northeast Harbor. If hiking is not your thing, you can drive your vehicle to the top and use the main parking area. The garden is spectacular!
Magnolia Plantation and Gardens
Spring is prime time for this southern garden on the outskirts of historic Charleston, South Carolina. Predicting the peak bloom of annual azaleas is a local obsession. When azaleas pop, they pop big here! Magnolia calls itself America’s last large-scale romantic garden. The garden is designed to give the visitor “a surprise around every corner” to create an emotional connection. You will fall in love with this place. Magnolia Plantation and Gardens is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Bok Tower Gardens
The vast flatlands of Florida give way to a majestic sight at one of this state’s highest points. Bok Tower sits on a hill in Central Florida overlooking gorgeous rural landscape and citrus groves. Surrounding the Tower below are massive meandering gardens. Bok Tower is a National Historic Landmark in Lake Wales. Wealthy industrialist Edward Bok founded the gardens in 1929 as a place of inspiration and conservation. The non-profit contributes to a national coalition to preserve and protect rare native plants, and also conducts rare plant rescues in sensitive or disturbed environments.
Zagreb Botanical Garden
This sprawling garden and park in the middle of the urban capital of Croatia has a wide array of plants and flowers. It’s a national treasure, established in 1889, and is open free to the public from spring until winter. Zagreb Botanical Garden is recognised primarily for its collection of wild plants indigenous to Croatia, most of which grow on phytogeographic vegetation beds, popularly known as rockeries.(Source).
My Honorable Mentions
Florida Botanical Gardens
This is a wonderful community investment by local government to elevate the quality of life. Located in Largo on the west coast of Florida, this wonderland of flowers, tropical, and native plants is a free to the public. Supported by Pinellas County taxpayers and community donations, the gardens provide a sanctuary for people to decompress and surround themselves in a peaceful setting. The themed garden areas rise to the level of commercial gardens which charge high admission fees. Definitely worth a visit. Parking is also free.
Sunken Gardens
One of America’s oldest roadside attractions is still going strong after opening almost 100 years ago. Sunken Gardens in St. Petersburg, Florida is 15 feet below street level in the middle of the city. It used to be a shallow lake that filled a sinkhole. Back in 1903 the owner of the four acre property drained the sinkhole and planted a sprawling garden in it, which contains some of the richest, fertile soil to grow fruits and plants from around the world.
Cape Cod National Seashore
This is an ecological wonder of protected plant and marine life, natural sand dunes and beaches. There is a wonderful bike trail that winds through the park so you can get close to nature.
Morikami Japanese Gardens
East meets West in a blended landscape of Japanese bonsai, Florida scrub brush, Asian bamboo, tropical Ixora and more. The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens is in Boca Raton, Florida. Understated and unpretentious, the main welcome center has subtle earth tones with meditative Japanese music playing in the background. Once inside, the museum is off to the left and the gardens are straight ahead. Actually, there’s a series of gardens, each with a specific theme, feel and atmosphere.
I am sure my favorites list will expand as I discover and explore new and interesting places. Tell me about your favorite gardens and parks in the comments section.
(Mellow Wanderer) Spring-summer wildflower season is here, painting highway medians, meadows and parks in a collage of color. Bloom schedules vary according to climate and location, but every region of the U.S. pops in a spectrum of splendor, giving new meaning to road tripping.
So grab your favorite tie-dye, highway ahead, windows down, crank-up Joe Cocker and get a natural high as a visual botanical display blurs by.
The U.S. Forest Service has an extensive and impressive list of what blooms, when and where in every region of the country. Also, the National Park Service issues daily reports based on park ranger and scientist observations.
In fact, wildflowers are such a bloom’n big deal there’s a law to beautify our nation’s highways and roads with federally funded seeding programs. Bird seed, you might call it. As in Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady of President Lyndon Johnson, who in 1973 supported and helped establish Operation Wildflower. Garden clubs and other community groups participate with states in receiving federal grants to purchase native American wildflower seed. Volunteers plant seed, according to the guidelines of each state.
Wildflower watch groups have sprouted. Wild About Wildflowers, an internet club for fanatics, is on a mission to “develop the most extensive and comprehensive wildflower database in the world!”
(Boca Raton, FL- Mellow Wanderer) On the other side of ritzy, swanky Boca Raton is a quaint, peaceful hideaway for spiritual awareness and renourishment. No fancy pants mansion with brick paved driveway leading to Shangri-La. Quite the opposite. The road leading to Morikami Museum and Gardens is almost rustic and all luxury is left in the parking lot.
Understated and unpretentious, the main welcome center has subtle earth tones with meditative Japanese music playing in the background. Once inside, the museum is off to the left and the gardens are straight ahead. Actually, there’s a series of gardens, each with a specific theme, feel and atmosphere.
East meets West in a blended landscape of Japanese bonsai, Florida scrub brush, Asian bamboo, tropical Ixora and more.
Turn on the self guided tour inside the Morikami smartphone app and immerse yourself in another world seemingly far from the rat race. You’ll leave with a smile brimming as wide as the one on the face of Hotei, regarded as Morikami’s resident God of Happiness.
HOTEI
Watch out along your walk for something that looks a lot like dog droppings. It’s actually scat left behind by free roaming wild iguanas!
If you run into one, have no fear. They scamper away before you can get too close. Round out your visit with lunch at the Cornell Cafe with a variety of Japanese cuisine to choose from, including sushi. Morikami is a fun daylong respite from the real world for yourself, couples, and families.
Click on the video below to take a tour of the Morikami gardens.
