11 Things Idahoans Do That Would Horrify the Rest of America

Idaho is the state that the rest of America knows exactly one thing about — potatoes — and feels quite confident that one thing is sufficient. It is not sufficient. Idaho is 83,000 square miles of mountains, rivers, high desert, ancient lava fields, and some of the most spectacular wilderness on the continent, populated by people who have absolutely no interest in explaining themselves to anyone who couldn’t find the state on a map without the potato clue. The Gem State does what it does, grows what it grows, and has been just fine without your attention. Pull up a fence post and stay awhile.

1. Take potato pride to a level that functions as a full personal identity

Idaho produces roughly one third of all potatoes grown in the United States — more than 13 billion pounds per year — and residents carry this fact like a badge of honor that also happens to be a root vegetable. The Idaho potato is not just an agricultural product. It is a brand, a reputation, a point of honor. Idahoans who catch someone buying a bag of potatoes labeled from another state will experience a genuine emotional response. This is not an exaggeration.

2. Refer to the entire southern part of the state as basically a different country from the north

North Idaho and South Idaho have approximately as much in common as Maine and Miami. North Idaho — forested, mountainous, Pacific Northwest in character — looks toward Spokane, Washington as its cultural and commercial capital. Southern Idaho is high desert, agriculture, and Boise. The two halves of the state regard each other with the polite suspicion of neighbors who share a fence but not much else. Boise might as well be on another planet as far as a Coeur d’Alene resident is concerned.

3. Truck around a rifle in the back window of a pickup like standard vehicle equipment

In rural Idaho, a rifle or shotgun visible in the rear window of a pickup truck is not alarming — it is simply evidence that the driver is prepared for the day’s activities, which may include hunting, pest control, predator management, or just getting from one ranch to another through country where self-sufficiency is a practical requirement. This is not a political statement. It is logistics.

4. Eat finger steaks and defend them as a legitimate culinary achievement

Finger steaks — strips of beef tenderloin battered and deep fried, served with a side of fry sauce — are a genuine Idaho regional specialty invented in Boise in the 1950s and beloved by locals with a ferocity that their national anonymity does not justify. The rest of America has never heard of them. Idahoans consider this the rest of America’s loss, which it objectively is.

5. Dip everything in fry sauce instead of ketchup and regard ketchup alone as incomplete

Fry sauce — a simple, perfect mixture of mayonnaise and ketchup, sometimes with a splash of pickle juice or hot sauce — is the condiment of Idaho and much of the Mountain West, and Idahoans regard plain ketchup the way a Texan regards a unseasoned piece of chicken: technically food, but why would you. Arctic Circle restaurants popularized it. Idaho adopted it permanently. It goes on fries, on finger steaks, on burgers, on anything that benefits from something creamy and tangy, which is most things.

6. Float the Boise River through the city on an inner tube every summer like clockwork

Every summer, Boiseans drag inner tubes to the Boise River Greenbelt, float through the city for a few lazy miles, and emerge sunburned, sandy, and deeply satisfied with their life choices. This is not a fringe activity — it is a municipal tradition practiced by what appears to be the entire population of the city on any given hot Saturday. The river is cold. Nobody cares. The float happens regardless.

7. Plan vacations around hunting and fishing seasons with the logistical precision of a military operation

Deer season. Elk season. Steelhead season. Chinook salmon season. Pheasant season. Idaho’s hunting and fishing calendar is a second annual calendar that serious outdoorsmen maintain alongside the regular one, planning time off work, booking outfitters, scouting locations, and preparing equipment months in advance. The opening day of deer season in Idaho has the cultural weight of a national holiday. Businesses quietly acknowledge this.

8. Drive an hour to the nearest town for groceries and consider it a short trip

Rural Idaho operates on distances that recalibrate a person’s sense of what “nearby” means. An hour each way for groceries is simply the drive. Two hours to a hospital is a medical calculation made in advance of any potential emergency. Idahoans who move to a city are briefly disoriented by the proximity of everything — a grocery store three miles away feels almost suspiciously convenient after a lifetime of the alternative.

9. Soak in a hot spring in the middle of nowhere like it’s a perfectly ordinary Tuesday

Idaho has more natural hot springs than any other state in the contiguous United States — hundreds of them, scattered across mountains and deserts and river canyons, many accessible only by dirt road or foot trail. Idahoans pull off on unnamed forest roads, hike twenty minutes, and lower themselves into geothermally heated water surrounded by wilderness with the casual ease of someone running a bath. The rest of America books spa weekends. Idaho just knows where to go.

10. Have strong opinions about the Snake River Plain that nobody outside the state can locate

The Snake River Plain — a vast crescent of volcanic rock, irrigated farmland, and high desert cutting across southern Idaho — is the geographic and agricultural heart of the state, and Idahoans who grew up along it have opinions about its towns, its farming communities, and its landscapes that are expressed with great specificity and passion to audiences who are nodding politely while quietly trying to remember if the Snake River is the one in Idaho or Wyoming. It is both. The nodding continues.

11. Move to Boise from California, drive up property prices, and immediately advocate for keeping Idaho the way it was

Boise has been one of the fastest-growing cities in America for the better part of a decade, fueled in significant part by Californians and other West Coast transplants seeking lower costs, more space, and a different pace. They arrive, purchase a home at a price that shocks the locals, and within approximately one year begin expressing concern about too many people moving to Boise and changing what makes it special. The irony is noted. It is not acknowledged.

Idaho is not going to explain itself to you, advertise itself at you, or make any particular effort to be understood by people who are satisfied knowing it grows a lot of potatoes. It has 3,000 miles of rivers, more wilderness than any state outside Alaska, hot springs around every other bend, steelhead runs that serious anglers plan their lives around, and a quality of life that people who discover it tend to guard with the possessiveness of someone who found something valuable and would prefer it stayed a secret. The potato thing is true, and the potatoes are genuinely excellent, and also Idaho is one of the wildest, most beautiful, most stubbornly itself places in the country. You’re welcome to visit. Just don’t go telling everyone about it.