This store is as close as you can get to a real-life Willy Wonka experience without wrangling some umpa lumpas and opening a shop yourself

Travelers with a sweet tooth weakness, do not proceed any further in this post. What follows is Spot Cool Stuff’s selection of the 6 most interesting-looking, diabetes-inducing candy stores. A trip to any one for these shops (well, except for the last one) is likely to result in a sugar overdose. Ye be warned.

Note: These are all primarily candy stores. We’ve reviewed our favorite chocolate stores in a separate post.

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A vacation to Central Florida often leaves people feeling like they need another vacation. That’s especially true after traveling with children to Orlando’s crowded, mayhem-filled, nickle-and-dime squeezing theme parks.

Spot Cool Stuff’s suggested remedy: Spend a day chilling out at Discovery Cove.

At Discovery Cove won’t find yourself standing in line for rides. There are no rides.

You won’t find yourself amongst a mob of other vacationers. There is no mob — Discovery Cove requires reservations and the number of guests allowed in is strictly limited.

And you won’t pay again and again for extra fees, incidentals or even food. Discovery Cove is an all-inclusive park.

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You may before have ordered a vodka on the rocks. Well, how about a vodka in the rocks? That’s on offer at what’s literally the coolest drinking establishment in Orlando: the ICEBAR.

Long time readers of the Spot Cool Stuff travel blog already know of the Orlando ICEBAR—we reviewed this bar with the overly-capitalized name in our article about ice bars located in warm places. Inside the ICEBAR 50 tons of ice are carved into counters, lounge chairs and, yes, even the glasses patrons drink out of.

Before and since our visit there we’ve heard mixed reports about it from readers. And so here’s some advice to those considering knocking back a cold one at the ICEBAR when in Orlando.

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Common wisdom among most members of the Spot Cool Stuff audience is that Orlando is not a cool destination to travel to. While we love defying common wisdom, in this case we think our readers have it mostly right.

Mostly.

Yes, Orlando is full of theme parks and tacky souvenir shops. Yes, its themed hotels are not as elaborate as, say, Vegas. And, yes, Orlando seems to find ways to nickel-and-dime tourists from the moment they drive onto the toll road from the airport. But if you can bring along your inner child there’s fun to be had in Central Florida. And if you are taking along your actual children there are ways of optimizing your own Orlando enjoyment.

With that in mind, our posts for this week:

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Anyone who grew up on The Cat In The Hat and Green Eggs and Ham remembers the illustrations of one Mr. Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. Trees with elongated trucks or with improbable collections of limbs. Stark and scraggly landscapes with oddly balanced rocks and unlikely geometric shapes. Architecture with unusual protrusions and awkward angles where no two windows exactly the same. These were some of the hallmarks of the world Dr. Seuss illustrated in his 60 children’s books.

Here’s a look at some places on Planet Earth—places you can visit on your next vacation—that resemble scenes from a Dr. Seuss illustration. So, in the words of the doctor himself . . .

Facebook has inspired family reunions, renewed friendships, much Scrabble playing—and now a restaurant. Or, a restaurant of sorts.

Almost immediately after Kellogg launched a Facebook fan page dedicated to Pop-Tarts—those thin, frosting-topped, super-sweet, preservative-filled, pasty-like concoctions sold in grocery stores since 1964—company executives became amazed at Pop-Tart Facebook popularity (currently two million fans and counting). So, they decided to open a store dedicated to said pastry-like concoctions.

And where else in the world has enough dignity and class to accommodate the Pop-Tarts brand? New York’s Time Square, of course.

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Trying to categorize the lodgings offered by the Acido Dorado, located on the edge of California’s Joshua Tree National Park, is like trying to solve a Zen koan.

Acido Dorado isn’t a house—it is too open to the elements for that. It isn’t a glamping (glamorous camping) experience and certainly isn’t a cabin—the setup is way too luxurious. The accommodations here aren’t indoors, though nor are they outdoors; rather, it is some ingenious melding of the two.

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Is it possible to walk across the United States, from New York City to San Francisco, in two minutes? It is through the magic of stop-motion photography and the trickery of time-lapse video. There’s even time along the way to snap a few photos of Washington D.C. monuments and to take in Mt Rushmore.

Here’s the video of how such a journey would look . . .

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