71 Best Sights in USA

Established in the late 18th century, this is the last active Shaker community in the world. The farmstead’s many structures include the 1794 Meetinghouse and 1839 Ministry’s Shop, where the elders and eldresses lived until the early 1900s. Guided tours are limited to these two buildings, but this admission includes "Creating Chosen Land," an exhibit on the village's history and evolution (Chosen Land is its "spiritual name") in the 1816 Granary. Admission to the exhibit is also sold separately, and the one on Shaker childhood in the 1850 Boys’ Shop, now the visitor center, is free. Pick up a free self-guided walking tour with information about all of Sabbathday Lake's buildings. Visitors are also welcome to walk the gardens. The visitor center shop sells books, Shaker-related items, and handcrafts by area artisans. More await at the longtime roadside Shaker Store in the Trustees' Office, an 1816 building. Shaker-made products like jams, candles, and soap are also sold; in the antique section you may happen upon “fancy goods” like the poplar boxes and dolls made here years ago for sale to tourists. Check the website for events, including one-day workshops. The village's Wabanaki Arts Market in late August and Harvest Festival on Indigenous Peoples Day/Columbus Day are free and open to the public.

Seeley Stable, next door to the Cosmopolitan Hotel, became San Diego's stagecoach stop in 1867, and was the transportation hub of Old Town until 1887, when trains became the favored mode of travel. The stable houses a collection of horse-drawn vehicles, some so elaborate that you can see where the term "carriage trade" came from. Also inside are Western memorabilia, including an exhibit on the California vaquero, the original American cowboy, and a collection of Native American artifacts.

This 180-acre complex defies traditional categories, combining botanical gardens, hiking trails, live animal exhibits, an ultramodern interactive museum, and a playground. The overarching theme of the facility is the rich diversity and delicate balance of nature in southern Nevada's deserts. Kids love the simulations of the flash-flood ravine, the re-created Southern Paiute Indian village (complete with grass huts!), and the trackless train, aboard which an engineer explains the role trains played in settling the West. The NV Energy Foundation Sustainability Gallery teaches about eco-friendly living, and a 2016 addition, Boomtown 1905, re-creates a streetscape designed to evoke turn-of-the-20th-century Vegas. There are also a few miles of walking trails that swing you by archaeological sites and may—if you're lucky—bring you face-to-face with some of the local fauna, such as bats, peregrine falcons, and Gila monsters.

The Springs Café provides famished eco-explorers with sustainable choices, like ethically raised cheeseburgers and environmentally mindful salads. The Nevada State Museum, with its famous fossil Ichthyosaur and a number of exhibits on local mining, is on the site (and included with admission) as well.

The history and craftsmanship of Upper Appalachia are exhibited at this rustic village where spinners, weavers, potters, stained-glass workers, wood sculptors, and bird carvers demonstrate their artistry and skills. The Winterberg House, a log stagecoach stop, is the last remaining log tavern along the Old National Pike. It's now used as a crafts store and restaurant.

St. Mary's Mission, established by Father Pierre DeSmet in 1841, was the first Catholic mission in the Northwest and the site of the first permanent non–Native American settlement in Montana. This historic site is run by a nonsectarian, nonprofit organization that encourages tour groups, school groups, and individuals to explore the home of Father Anthony Ravalli, an Italian priest recruited to the mission by Father DeSmet in 1845. Ravalli was also Montana's first physician and pharmacist. On the site are a photogenic chapel, a priest's quarters, a pharmacy, Father Ravalli's log house, and the cabin of Chief Victor, a Salish Indian who refused to sign the Hell Gate Treaty and move his people onto the Flathead Reservation. A burial plot has headstones bearing the names of both Native Americans and white settlers.

Oxen, sheep, pigs, and other animals roam this 118-acre New England farmstead. Once the estate of Henri Bendel, the property includes a Tudor Revival stone mansion housing exhibits on natural history, art, and Americana. Nature trails wind through 80 acres of woods—perfect for a daytime hike year-round or on a summer evening. Special experiences include maple sugaring in February, a farm market on summer Sundays, and apple cidering on fall weekends.

Nearby office buildings tower over Sacramento's earliest Euro-American settlement, founded in 1839 by German-born Swiss immigrant John Augustus Sutter. A self-guided tour includes a blacksmith's shop, bakery, jail, living quarters, and livestock areas. Staff and docents sometimes demonstrate crafts, food preparation, and other circa-1840s activities.

This isolated homestead belonged to Oscar and Emma Swett and their nine children through most of the 1900s. The U.S. Forest Service has turned the ranch into a working historical site, complete with restored and decorated houses and buildings.

Located about 20 minutes from downtown, this expansive, bucolic park has a lot to see and do. A village of 19th-century buildings—including a pioneer farm, a one-room schoolhouse, and a Southern manor—showcases Old Florida and has weekend living-history demonstrations on cooking, blacksmithing, quilting, and other period activities. A boardwalk meanders through 52 acres of a natural-habitat zoo with panthers, bobcats, white-tailed deer, bald eagles, red wolves, hawks, owls, otters, and black bears. Guest animals drop in for visits, and animal encounters are scheduled daily. Don't miss the nature walk, which has colorful dinosaur sculptures created entirely from recycled car parts. For an extra charge, you can get a bird's-eye view everything at Tree-to-Tree Adventures, which features sky-high zip lines and an aerial obstacle course.

Brigham Young and his band of Mormon followers descended into the Salt Lake Valley here. On July 24, 1847 (now a statewide holiday that is bigger than July 4 in many communities), he famously declared that this was the place for the Latter-day Saints to end their cross-country trek. A 60-foot-tall statue of Young, Heber Kimball, and Wilford Woodruff stands prominently in the park, which includes Heritage Village, a re-created 19th-century community and visitor center. In summer, volunteers dressed in period clothing demonstrate what Mormon pioneer life was like. You can watch artisans at work in historic buildings and take wagon or train rides around the compound. A 20-minute movie at the visitor center depicts the pioneers' trek across America.

Take a trip back in time to experience the story of Oregon's early pioneers and the industrial revolution. The Thomas Kay Woolen Mill Museum complex (circa 1889), complete with working waterwheels and millstream, looks as if the workers have just stepped away for a lunch break. Teasel gigging, napper flock bins, and the patented Furber double-acting napper are but a few of the machines and processes on display. The Jason Lee House, the John D. Boon Home, and the Methodist Parsonage are also part of the village. There is nothing grandiose about these early pioneer homes, the oldest frame structures in the Northwest, but they reveal a great deal about domestic life in the wilds of Oregon in the 1840s.