10450 Best Sights in USA

More than 400 rare and unique bicycles and related antiques and memorabilia are on display at one of the largest bicycle museums in the world.

A sixth-generation family-run boutique winery, Pedernales Cellars offers sustainably grown, 100 percent Texas grapes and specializes in Spanish- and Rhone-style wines. The winery sits on 145 acres with bucolic views of the Pedernales River Valley, and tastings and cellar tours are offered.

With cool aquamarine pools created from the picturesque Pedernales River shaded by towering cypress trees, this park brings a respite from the glaring sun on hot summer days, especially if you're here to partake of its water-based activities, like swimming or tubing. If you're here to burn calories with a long trek, you've also come to the right place. Hikers and mountain bikers can embark on 19.8 miles of trails, with an additional 14 miles of backpacking trails (hiking only). Fishing, bird-watching, picnicking, geocaching, and camping are also popular here. Park facilities include picnic sites, restrooms (some with showers), a trailer dump station, and campsites (some with water and electricity, others that are primitive and must be hiked to, with a 2-mile or longer hike). No pets are allowed within the park. Reservations are strongly recommended.

The reward of this steep trail is the Three Wise Men and Wall of Windows formations. Start at Bryce, Sunrise, or Sunset Point and allow four to five hours to hike the 5½-mile trail or 7-mile double-loop. Horses use this trail spring–fall and have the right-of-way. Difficult.

Walk among over 1,000 tropical butterflies and learn about the impact of rivers and lakes on daily life at this modern, light-washed museum. Like Chicago's other science museums, this one is perfect for kids, but even jaded adults may be excited when bright yellow butterflies land on their shoulders. The idea is to connect with nature inside without forgetting graceful Lincoln Park outside. Interesting temporary exhibits round out the offerings.

Jutting out into the Piscataqua River off the historic South End of the city, an easy walk over a short bridge from Strawbery Banke Museum and Prescott Park, this 27-acre island offers a welcoming patch of nature and maritime views. It's laced with shaded walking trails and has a huge kids' playground, a municipal swimming pool, and a boat ramp. You can also stroll across a narrow causeway to tiny Four Tree Island, which has picnic shelters, art installations, and benches, and even greater views of the river and passing ships.

The Bronx certainly has a reputation of being relentlessly urban, but there are parks in abundance, including the largest city park across the five boroughs (in terms of land area): Pelham Bay Park, a sprawling landscape of marshland and woods laced with nature trails for both human and horse feet. (There's horseback riding at the Bronx Equestrian Center on Shore Road.) The Bronx's only public beach, the 1.1-mile-long Orchard Beach offers views of Long Island Sound, along with a pavilion and snack bars. The incongruous Bartow-Pell Mansion ( www.bartowpellmansionmuseum.org), built in the Greek Revival style in the 1830s, has exhibits of period furniture and historic Bronx memorabilia, plus manicured gardens and a carriage house. The park also holds two golf courses, miniature golf, sports fields, playgrounds, and miles of paved biking paths.

Founded in 1903 by then-president Theodore Roosevelt as the country's first national wildlife refuge, the park encompasses the historic Pelican Island rookery itself—a small island in the Indian River lagoon and important nesting place for 16 species of birds such as endangered wood storks and, of course, brown pelicans—and the land surrounding it overlooking Sebastian. The rookery is a closed wilderness area, so there's no roaming alongside animal kingdom friends; however, there is an 18-foot observation tower across from it with direct views and more than 6 miles of nature trails in the refuge. Another way to explore is via guided kayak tours from the Florida Outdoor Center. Make sure to bring a camera—it's a photographer's dream.

With a tower over the tasting room and an interior courtyard, this winery is an architectural standout and provides a beautiful envoronment for a wine tasting. Unlike the many wineries these days that are augmenting their attraction with music, fun, and games, at Pellegrini it's all about the wine. Coupling old world traditional methods—like growing and harvesting the healthiest and ripest grapes and employing the best winemakers—with new winemaking technology, Pellegrini is known for producing some of the finest wines, including the limited reserve Petite Verdot, Encore, Vintner's Pride Chardonnay, and Finale. Weddings are held here almost every weekend in warm-weather months, so call ahead before visiting, as hours many change.

Offering views down Johns Bay, this sandy beach is very popular with families. You can rent beach chairs, umbrellas, and boogie boards. A snack stand sells beverages, burgers, fish sandwiches, tacos, and salads, and there are picnic tables. There are no lifeguards, however, and no watercraft are allowed. Amenities: food and drink; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: swimming.

The museum's collection spans the rodeo's history since 1910, with photographs—including glamorous glossies of prior Rodeo Queens and the Happy Canyon Princesses (all Native American)—as well as saddles, guns, and costumes. A taxidermied championship bronco named War Paint is the museum's cool, if slightly creepy, prize artifact.

Dedicated to preserving the legacy of innovative industrialist Allen Penfield, this museum has exhibits explaining his work using electricity in the process of iron-ore separation. This was the first industrial application of electricity. The museum, 3 mi southwest of Crown Point, also houses many Civil War artifacts and equipment on its 550-acre site.

The "City of Roses" moniker started here, at this park that harks back to another time. The city's oldest (1913) public rose garden (and the only sunken one) houses about 5,000 plantings of roses. The daunting task of deadheading all these flowers is covered in classes taught to volunteers. The bandstand is a historic landmark, and the last of its kind in the city. This 16-acre North Portland park also contains an ornate historic fountain, Italian villa–inspired community center, playground, wading pool, tennis and volleyball courts, and picnic tables.

Marrying the great outdoors with fine theater, this venue is within Peninsula State Park along the shores of Green Bay and is America's oldest professional resident summer theater. Actors relocate from around the country each summer to reside in a 16-acre campus tucked into a quaint vacation community. Theater lovers gather under a covered amphitheater for the shows.

Spanning 3,776 wooded acres along Green Bay, Peninsula State Park is a half-mile north of Fish Creek off Highway 42. Nearby bicycle-rental facilities make it easy to schedule an afternoon ride. A variety of activities within the park keep the most restless of outdoors enthusiasts happy, including an 18-hole golf course, bicycling and hiking trails, a beach, a lighthouse, White Cedar Nature Center, and Peninsula Players Theater. Spots at the 468-site campground book up quickly during the summer.

This 24-acre park stretches along the western side of the Schuylkill River and is managed by the University of Pennsylvania. The park has natural grass and turf playing fields, 12 tennis courts for public use, and bike and walking trails; its most striking feature is an elevated walk offering pedestrians panoramic views of the Philadelphia skyline. A friendly culture of pickup soccer exists here on the weekends, with small nets to accommodate games.

Lynn Penner-Ash brought a wealth of experience working in Napa and as Rex Hill's winemaker to this winery that she and her husband Ron started in 1998. Although focused primarily on silky Pinot Noir, Penner-Ash also produces very good Syrah, Viognier, and Riesling. From its hilltop perch in the middle of the Dussin vineyard, this state-of-the-art gravity-flow winery and tasting room offers commanding views of the valley below.

A family-run business founded in 2001, this winery produces award-winning wines from Pennsylvania-grown grapes that range from sweet and floral Moscato to bold Bordeaux-style wines. It's one of the state's more than 400 wineries, and part of a cluster around the Brandywine Valley. The 30-acre property is a great place to bring a picnic, a dog, and the family, but dogs and those under 21 cannot enter the tasting room and pavilion, and outside food is not permitted in those areas. About 100 outdoor tables on the pretty grounds overlook the vineyard, and you can also bring your own chairs and blanket. An outdoor wine bar is open on weekends April through October. A short menu of cheeses, crackers, and charcuterie is offered.  Check the website, as there's live music and other events many weekends.

On a gentle rise 150 yards from the Delaware River, Pennsbury Manor is a 1939 reconstruction of the Georgian-style mansion William Penn built in the 1680s. Living-history demonstrations on 43 of the estate's original 8,400 acres provide a glimpse of everyday life in 17th-century America. The property, including formal gardens, an icehouse, a smokehouse, and a bake-and-brew house, helps paint a picture of the life of an English gentleman 300 years ago. The plantation also shows that although history portrays Penn as a dour Quaker, as governor of the colony he enjoyed the good life by importing the finest provisions and keeping a vast retinue of servants. These extravagances led to financial difficulties that resulted in Penn's spending nine months in a debtor's prison. Though you can wander about the grounds on your own, the house can be seen only on a tour. On Sundays from April to October there are special programs, including those devoted to historic trades, living history theater and open-hearth cooking, to name a few. To get here, follow the blue-and-yellow historical markers.

Covering 20 acres of central Philadelphia, the convention center is big, and it's beautiful. The 2.3 million square feet of space is punctuated by the largest permanent collection of contemporary art in a building of its kind. Many city and state artists are represented in the niches, nooks, and galleries built to house their multimedia works. To see the architectural highlight of the building—the Reading Terminal's magnificently restored four-story-high Victorian train shed, which has been transformed into the Convention Center's Grand Hall—enter the building through the century-old Italian Renaissance Headhouse structure on Market Street between 11th and 12th streets and ride up the escalator.

Inside the fine 18th-century original buildings of the oldest hospital in the United States are the nation's first medical library and first surgical amphitheater (an 1804 innovation, with a skylight). The hospital also has a portrait gallery, early medical instruments, art objects, and a rare-book library with items dating from 1762. The artwork includes the 1817 Benjamin West painting Christ Healing the Sick in the Temple. Today Pennsylvania Hospital is a full-service modern medical center four blocks southwest of the Athenaeum. Guided tours are available on weekdays and by appointment (via phone) 48 hours in advance only.

The seasonal Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire, on the grounds of the Mount Hope Estate and Winery, transforms the property into a 16th-century English village ruled by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I. The lively action includes street performers, human chess matches, jousting and fencing tournaments, knighthood ceremonies, street performances, craft demonstrations, battling pirates, jesters, medieval food, and Shakespearean plays performed on outdoor stages. Fun for all ages, but definitely more A Kid in King Arthur's Court than Game of Thrones.

This is the imaginary home of Professor Phineas Pennypickle, where kids accompanied by parents enter a time machine that carries them through 11 rooms of interactive exhibits demonstrating perception and illusion, music making, flight and aviation, chemistry and physics, plus power and electricity. The shop stocks an array of educational toys, games, and books. Reservations are not taken, so be sure to get their early, especially during school vacations.

If you have the kids along, check out the fictional 7,500-square-foot workshop of Professor Phineas T. Pennypickle, PhD. This elaborately decorated children's museum is filled with secret passageways, machines, wacky contraptions, and time-travel inventions.

Take one of the two-hour tours offered daily to get the most out of your visit.

Strangely eroded limestone banks give way to hollows that creep into hillsides; grassy prairie-like fields yield to woodlands; sinkholes interrupt the forested landscape. You have begun climbing into the Pennyroyal Plateau from the Sinkhole Plain, but the margin between the two is . . . complicated. The compromises made between rock and water, between grass and tree, between high and low, have resulted in a twisted patchwork landscape. It's covered over with a quilt of green, but as you look beneath, there's plenty to wonder at all the way to the visitor center. If you're entering the park from the south via Park City, be sure to observe the transitions in the geology along the roadside as you ascend. As you approach the top of the plateau, you'll see outcroppings of the Dripping Springs Escarpment. Once on top, you may spy what seem to be boggy places in the woods—spots where the sandstone and shale caprock is holding water in defiance of the sinkholes that draw all other water underground.

A New York philanthropist was so taken with the Mt. Katahdin region he spurred creation of 16 miles of free public recreation trails along the East Branch of the Penobscot River, conveniently off Route 11. Opened in 2019, the "crusher dust" paths are akin to the famed carriage trails at coastal Maine's Acadia National Park. Used for mountain biking (Class 1 e-bikes are allowed) and hiking, they're groomed for cross-country skiing after the snow flies. Folks also fat-tire bike (Tote Road only) and snowshoe here. You can chill after a workout or eat your lunch in the woodsy chic visitor center. Come winter, wood stoves heat up two warming huts with Katahdin views. Courtesy (donation requested) bikes, snowshoes, and cross-country skis are available, as are strollers. Paddlers head to the hand-carry boat launch. About 40 miles north of here above Shin Pond, the organization's 7.2-mile hiking and snowshoeing Seboeis Riverside Trail leads to Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument and includes a small campground and snowshoe lodge with a woodstove and cots for overnight stays (one night only).

The newest museum in the University of West Florida Historic Trust complex offers a variety of programs for children of all ages, including story time; art projects; and a plethora of interactive historical exhibits with maritime, multicultural, and other themes.

If you're heading out to Perdido Key, consider making prior arrangements to stop along the way for a visit to the Pensacola Lighthouse, which offers gorgeous views of the bay and Gulf. As the lighthouse is on the Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, access for civilians might only be available via a shuttle-bus tour that requires advance reservations and proper identification. Entry requirements are subject to change, however, so check ahead. Wear supportive shoes; it’s 177 steps to the top. Note, too, that climbers must be at least seven years old and 44 inches tall. Museum exhibits here highlight things such as lighthouse keeping and the Coast Guard.

Pensacola's city jail once occupied the 1906 Spanish Revival–style building that is now the secure home for the museum's permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 20th- and 21st-century artists. And we do mean secure: you can still see the actual cells with their huge iron doors. Traveling exhibits have focused on photography (William Wegman, Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams), Dutch masters, regional artists, and the occasional art-world icon, such as Andy Warhol and Salvador Dalí.

Even if you're not a fan of museums, this one is worth a look. Housed in the elaborate, Renaissance Revival–style former city hall, it has an interesting mix of exhibits illustrating life in the Florida Panhandle over the centuries. One of these, The City of Five Flags, provides a good introduction to Pensacola's history. Displays include an exhibit that showcases the infamous Trader Jon's bar, where young flight students mingled with celebrities and local politicians, and a child-size interactive area with a ship and fort where kids can play and pretend to be colonial Pensacolians.