10457 Best Sights in USA

A ¾-mile-long ocean beach, Easton's has a boardwalk and playground. Public facilities include restrooms, indoor and outdoor showers, an elevator, and beach wheelchairs. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: swimming; walking.

Philadelphia's only mid-19th-century house-museum is a Victorian Gothic extravaganza of elongated windows and arches that are used to illustrate the way Victorian social mores were reflected through its decoration. The downstairs highlights the Rococo Revival (circa 1860), the upstairs is fashioned after the Renaissance Revival (1880s), and the difference is striking, especially the art deco–like wall details you may not associate with the time. Throughout the year there are a number of special teas and holiday-themed events, and occasionally music and period-appropriate theater productions. Sign up online for tours (noon, 1 pm, and 2 pm) that are available Thursday through Sunday.

Stop here to join a tour (reservations essential) of the huge wine caves beneath the vineyards and to participate in various types of seated tastings. Eberle produces wines from Bordeaux, Rhône, and Italian varietals and makes intriguing blends including Côte-du-Rôbles Blanc and Rouge and Cabernet Sauvignon–Syrah.

Housed in an imposing 1893 Queen Anne mansion with soaring turrets, this vibrant community arts center with a focus on diversity and inclusion presents a permanent collection of works by regional and national artists. There are also rotating shows exhibited throughout the building's public spaces and a sculpture garden with flowers and a stunning fountain. The center also offers a wide range of performing and visual arts classes and special events.

Eight miles south of Hermiston, just off Interstate 84, lies a little town at the intersection of the Oregon Trail and the transcontinental railroad. On the short walking tour of downtown, approximately an hour, mounted plaques tell the story of the town's historic buildings, including the Chinese House/ON&R Railroad Museum (now filled with railroad artifacts) and 10 sites on the National Register of Historic Places. Other draws include a fun pub, the Wheat and Barley, and a small winery, Sno Road, which occasionally offers live music performances.

ECHO is an international Christian nonprofit striving to end world hunger via creative farming. The fascinating 90-minute tour of its working farm takes you through seven simulated tropic-zone gardens and has you tasting leaves, exploring a rain-forest habitat, visiting farm animals, stopping at a simulated Haitian school, seeing urban gardens grown inside tires on rooftops, and learning about ECHO's mission. Although the group is faith based, the guides are far from preachy, and the organization is all-inclusive, equipping and training people regardless of their beliefs.

If you have time, consider also taking the Appropriate Technology Tour. Slightly shorter than the basic farm tour, it's held in a covered facility where you'll see simple but ingenious contraptions that solve everyday problems in the developing world, like pressing seeds and making rope (spoiler alert—one involves a bicycle-powered saw). The ECHO Global Nursery and Gift Shop sells fruit trees and the same seeds ECHO distributes to impoverished farmers in 180 countries. Check the website for tour schedules.

A quiet lake surrounded by woods in the shadow of Beech Mountain, Echo Lake is one of Acadia’s few swimming beaches. The water is considerably warmer, if muckier, than nearby ocean beaches, and dogs are allowed in the off-season. The surrounding trail network ascends the mountain, and the trailhead for the challenging Beech Cliff Trail begins at the parking lot. A sign alerts you when the iron ladders and steep cliffs are ahead; for an easier hike, soak up the view at the overlook before the ladders and head back down. A boat ramp is north of here along Route 102 at Ikes Point. From May to October, parking at Echo Lake requires the purchase of a park entrance pass, but there are no additional lot fees. Amenities: parking (free); toilets. Best for: solitude; sunset; swimming.

You don't have to be a rock climber to enjoy the views from the 700-foot White Horse and Cathedral ledges, which you can reach via a 1.7-mile road. From the top, you'll see the entire valley, including Echo Lake, which offers fishing, swimming, boating, and, on quiet days, an excellent opportunity to shout for echoes.

After a day on the lake, kids and adults can explore what goes on in the lake at the interactive science and nature museum directly on its shores, which details the forces (natural and man-made) that have shaped the Lake Champlain basin through the museum's more than 100 interactive exhibits. Visitors can experiment with lasers through fog mist, step through a steam devil (a small, overwater whirlwind), or even play with a hands-on 3D water projection sandbox, as well as get an up-close look at 70 species of indigenous animals—including a sort of nursery for baby eastern spiny softshell turtles, an endangered species—or immerse digitally in the natural world at the 3D theater, which presents science and nature films every day.

If this charming little park and its lake of swan boats looks a little familiar to you, it’s most likely because you’ve seen it in one movie or another (Chinatown, for instance). After a major overhaul, the park has blossomed into a beautiful urban landscape, set against the backdrop of the Downtown skyline. Weekends are always bustling, as are mornings when joggers and early risers take laps around the lake.

This trail leads to where the cave's best-known underground river, the Echo River, emerges to join the Green River. This trail near Green River Ferry has been designed as fully ADA-accessible, with accessible interpretive exhibits. The trail is mostly level, occupying the river bottom. 0.6 mile. Easy.

One of the largest Mexican free-tailed bat colonies in the world is found in the hills of Mason County. Managed by the Texas Nature Conservancy, Eckert James River Bat Cave, a maternity bat cave, is home to more than 4 million. Only females inhabit the cave, where they bear and rear their young each spring; they depart in mid-October. You can watch in the evening and morning as the entrance to the cave swarms with female bats leaving and returning from an evening hunt to feed their pups. Stand clear of the entrance unless you don't mind bat guano or having thousands of female bats buzz by. The best way to glimpse this phenomenon is from a safe distance a few hundred yards away.

Originally built in the 1800s for textile manufacturing, this refurbished mill is a bustling example of how North Adams has reinvented its industrial past into an arts-focused future. In one building, you can visit a spacious artist-run gallery and several arts-based businesses, including a bookstore, a pottery studio, a movement studio, and an independent gallery. Keep an eye out for open-studio tours held by the individual artists who work there.

Officially named, but rarely referred to as, the Natural Capital Center, this striking building has a handful of organic and environment-friendly businesses and other retail outlets, including Hot Lips Pizza, Laughing Planet Café, and a wonderful little Latinx-owned coffeehouse, Perlita. Built in 1895 and purchased by Ecotrust in 1998, the former warehouse has been adapted to serve as a landmark in "green" building practices. Guided tours are available by appointment and showcase the original "remnant wall" on the west side of the parking lot as well as the "eco-roof," a grassy rooftop, with its great view of the Pearl District.

Summer visitors love to hike, swim, fish, and tour the Hellman-Ehrman Mansion at this park named for a state politician who championed conservation, but it's also popular in winter, when a small campground remains open. Nearly 12 miles of cross-country ski and snowshoe trails allow beginners and experienced enthusiasts alike to whoosh through pine forests and glide past the lake. Rangers lead full-moon snowshoe tours from January to March. With 2,000 densely forested acres and nearly 2 miles of shore frontage, this is Lake Tahoe's largest state park.

South Jersey is rich in fossils (who knew?), and at this fossil park and museum opened in 2025 everyone can travel back to the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and an asteroid struck the planet. Realistic full-scale models of dinosaurs, sea creatures, and reptiles from the area; exhibits with small live creatures; an interactive Discovery Forest; and the opportunity to watch paleontologists at work make this an immersive experience. There's even a paleo-themed playground. Even better, visitors can sign up for a 75-minute slot to dig for fossils in a 4-acre, fossil-rich quarry on-site—and take home up to three fossils (the museum keeps only fossils that are scientifically significant). Although the 44,000-square-foot museum isn't enormous, visitors can spend a half day or so exploring all that's offered.  

If you can tear yourself away from the sand and sea, there's a lovely green alternative just a few miles inland at the restored home of lumber magnate William Henry Wesley. Tours of the mansion are given throughout the day, and furnishings inside the spacious rooms date from as far back as the 17th century. The surrounding grounds—the perfect setting for a picnic—are beautiful year-round, but they're nothing short of spectacular in mid-March, when the azaleas and dogwoods are in full bloom.

Cincinnati is known for its grand and sumptuous parks, and this aptly named green space is the best of them all. Overlooking downtown Cincinnati, it has a brilliant reflecting pool, gardens, and playing fields. The park is also the site of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and Krohn Conservatory.

Southwest of downtown Medford amid a bucolic patch of fruit orchards, this winery and tasting room adjoins a stately 19th-century white-clapboard farmhouse surrounded by flower beds and vegetable gardens. Inside the tasting room you can sample and buy EdenVale's noted reds, a late-harvest dessert Viognier, and a first-rate cider produced with estate-grown pears.

Although American author and poet Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, his final home was a cottage in the village of Fordham—now a neighborhood of the Bronx—where he lived with his young wife Virginia and her mother Maria Clemm. The 19th-century cottage has since been moved to a small green space now known as Poe Park, where it was restored and opened to the public in 2011 for literary and history buffs. You can learn all about the macabre writer who popularized the word \"nevermore\" with an audio tour by the Bronx County Historical Society.

Richmond's oldest residence, the Old Stone House in Shockoe Bottom, just west of Church Hill Historic District, now holds a museum honoring the famous writer. Poe grew up in Richmond, and although he never lived in this early- to mid-18th-century structure, his disciples have made it a monument with some of the writer's possessions on display.

One of America's most original writers, Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49), lived here from 1843 to 1844; it's the only one of his Philadelphia residences still standing. During that time some of his best-known short stories were published: "The Telltale Heart," "The Black Cat," and "The Gold Bug." You can tour the three-story brick house; to evoke the spirit of Poe, the National Park Service displays first-edition manuscripts and other rare books and offers interactive exhibits as well. An adjoining house has exhibits on Poe and his family, his work habits, and his literary contemporaries; there's also an eight-minute film and a small Poe library and reading room. A statue of a raven helps set the mood. The site is five blocks north of Market Street and just a stone's throw away from Spring Garden Street. SEPTA bus 47 travels on 7th Street to Green Street, where you should disembark.

The Impressionist Edgar Degas, whose Creole mother and grandmother were born in New Orleans, stayed with his cousins in this house during an 1872 visit to New Orleans, producing 18 paintings and four drawings while here. "This is a new style of painting," Degas wrote in one of the five known letters he sent from New Orleans, explaining that the breakthrough he experienced here led to "better art." Today, this house museum and bed-and-breakfast offers public tours, given by Degas's great-grandnieces, which include the screening of an award-winning film on Degas's family and their sojourn in New Orleans, plus a walk through the historic neighborhood focusing on details from the artist's letters. In 2019, the site was designated as a French monument by the French ambassador to the United States. Feel free to drop by for a look if you're in the vicinity, but check the website or call ahead for event dates or to make an appointment for a full tour.

Enjoy miles of woodland and shore trails at the Edgar M. Tennis Preserve, donated by him to the Island Heritage Trust in 1972. Keep an eye out for hawks, eagles, and ospreys, and wander among old apple trees, fields of wildflowers, and ocean-polished rocks. Leashed-dogs are welcome.

Surrounded by a public beach, this cast-iron tower was floated by barge from Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1939. It is still an active navigational aid. Renovations from 2005 to 2007 included the installation of a spiral staircase that visitors can ascend for great views. There's a touching memorial to children who have died, in the form of engraved granite cobblestones, surrounding the lighthouse. In 2001, the lighthouse was dedicated as the Children's Memorial. 

Opened in 2020, Edge is the gleaming observation deck at the Hudson Yards development, and at 1,131 feet, it is the highest outdoor sky deck in the western hemisphere. Its angular floor juts out 80 feet from the tower's summit, wrapped in a clear wall, with a section of clear floor to watch the street traffic 100 stories below. The views here are a 360-degree panorama overlooking Central Park, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and beyond. A staircase connects Floors 100 and 101, home to a gift shop and champagne bar (you can take your beverage outside and sit on the observatory's steps). Floor 101's posh Peak restaurant and cocktail bar is spectacular for a magical dining experience, with an outstanding menu; plus deck access is included for dining guests. Weekends bring special lounge DJs nights and live performances. Besides regular adult timed tickets, there are packages with extras, such as the Flex Pass ($60), which includes flexible-arrival-time tickets and a digital souvenir photo. For $185, courageous visitors can harness in and join City Climb, an outdoor aerial-walk experience that leans out over the 1,200-foot-high edge.

This gallery sits alongside picturesque Otter Creek, and the paintings, jewelry, ceramics, and pieces of furniture inside are just as arresting. Exhibitions in the bright, airy space change regularly, demonstrating the owner's ambition to be more gallery than shop, though all pieces are for sale. A second gallery is across the creek in the Battell Building.

Catch the best west-side, land-based view of Cleveland's skyline from upper Edgewater on the bluffs above Lake Erie's shore. Lower Edgewater is where you will find the park's swimming beach and summer sun–bathed playgrounds. A tree-lined path that buzzes with walkers, runners, and rollerbladers in summer connects the upper and lower parks. The lower park has a fishing pier, bait shop, and fitness course. The stiff wind off Lake Erie attracts kite flyers, boomerang enthusiasts, windsurfers, and the occasional hang glider. Picnic facilities are also available.

Edisto's south edge has 4 miles of public beach. At its western end, the beach faces St. Helena Sound and has smaller waves. There is beach access at each intersection along Palmetto Boulevard and free public parking along the road. The beach itself has narrowed due to storm erosion, so you'll have more room to spread out if you time your visit at low tide. These clean coastal waters teem with both fish and shellfish, and it's common to see people throwing cast nets for shrimp. It's a great beach for beachcombing. Alcohol is allowed as long as it is not in glass containers. Amenities: none. Best for: solitude; sunset; swimming.

This fabled attraction, run by a pair of brothers, features an indoor atrium of snakes from around the world, plus a meandering outdoor garden with sprawling habitats for snakes, turtles, and alligators. Educational programs and alligator feedings enrich the experience, and kids love the gift shop.