After I’d walked about a quarter of a mile on the Trollstigen Trail in Colorado, the next turn stopped me in my tracks. Towering over me was Isak Heartstone, a giant 15-foot wooden troll (named after a volunteer who helped build him) and the heart-shaped stone that the neighborhood children brought him. My family and I stood in awe of the mythical creature tucked in the woods.
Our trek in Breckenridge had one mission: to find the giant troll. I am not one to get excited about a hike, but this was one activity on my agenda that everyone in my group was excited about, from my 75-year-old father to my 3-year-old niece.
For the rest of the day, we talked about how beautiful the troll was, whether there were others, how they were made, the origin story, and why it brought us so much joy.
That sense of joy and discovery is part of the appeal of folklore-inspired art in nature spaces. It seems people “increasingly want immersive experiences that transport them beyond simply seeing something to feeling part of it,” according to Pepper Raper, the PR manager at Rock City, a fantasy-themed park in Tennessee, which has trails leading through glowing caves known as the Fairyland Caverns.
Isak Heartstone watches over the Aspen forest in Breckenridge.
Photo by courtneywaylandphoto/Shutterstock (L); courtesy of GoBreck (R)
Danish artist Thomas Dambo, who creates giant trolls from reclaimed materials, has spread more than 100 of his designs to places around the world. He’s currently on a mission to create a sculpture in every U.S. state. Some of his most recent works include a family of five trolls at Dix Park, a public outdoor recreation space in Raleigh, North Carolina, which opened in October 2025, and Rose Wonders, a 27-foot-tall sculpture that became a permanent fixture at the historic estate Filoli Gardens in Woodside, California, in November 2025. Now, with 27 states that have a troll or are in the process of moving one in, the hunt for these giant art installations is growing.
Travelers can find more than trolls in the woods. At the Sandos Caracol Nature Resort & Water Park in Riviera Maya, Mexican artist Raúl Estudillo used 90 percent natural materials recovered from the jungle to create a 26-foot-tall sculpture called Xi’ Paal Kaabe, reflecting a fairy tale rooted in local Maya traditions. In North Bonneville, Washington, the Bigfoot Discovery trail lets beginner hikers find a family of wooden Sasquatches in the trees. The spirit of discovery appears in smaller forms, too, including tiny fairy doors scattered throughout the South Mountain Conservancy in New Jersey, the Friendswood Fairy Trail in Texas, and the Piscataway Park Fairy Trail in Maryland, where visitors can leave flowers and welcome notes for their miniature residents.
“Being in the presence of these creatures can inspire a deeper appreciation for nature,” Lauren Tagliaferro, Art Historian at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York, wrote to Afar in an email. “Their recycled materials and distinct personalities encourage people to reconsider their relationship with the environment and perhaps see the natural world through the eyes of the trolls (and other fairy-tale art).”
In Breckenridge, I had arrived expecting just another hike, but I left with a wider admiration for the outdoors: It’s something that can really be enjoyed by everyone. Sometimes, the thing that gets us outside isn’t the trail itself; it’s the possibility of a magical world waiting around the next bend.
