Fodor's Expert Review North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

With seven floors of immersive exhibits spread across two buildings connected via sky bridge, this museum is the largest of its kind in the Southeast. Exhibits and dioramas celebrate the incredible diversity of species in the state's various regions. There are enough live animals and insects—including butterflies, snakes, and a two-toed sloth—to qualify as a midsize zoo. Massive and rare whale skeletons hang from the ceiling. The pièce de résistance, however, is the Terror of the South exhibit, featuring the dinosaur skeleton of "Acro," a giant carnivore that lived in the region 110 million years ago. The impressive bones are the world's most complete Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur skeleton. In the Nature Research Center, visitors can have live conversations with scientists.