10457 Best Sights in USA

The center is a 144-acre, 2-mile drive- or walk-through loop accessing large enclosures where you can see up close the many animals the park has adopted and rescued. The center raises wood bison, which had been extinct in Alaska since the 1800s and were endangered in Canada. In 2015, the it reintroduced 100 wood bison to the wild, 340 miles west of Anchorage; a small herd remains at the center. Visitors can also see moose, elk, eagles, owls, musk ox, porcupines, and the elusive lynx. An elevated walkway at the center also allows visitors the thrilling experience of seeing bears at eye level.

Roam the trails and visit with the polar bears, caribou, brown and black bears, seals, tigers, snow leopards, moose, wolves, lynx, and a large array of birds that call the Alaska Zoo home. The zoo provides a wide array of programs included with admission, such as zookeeper talks and toddler story times, that concentrate on promoting the conservation of arctic and subarctic animal species. Throughout the summer for an additional fee you can join daily two-hour tours that include behind-the-scenes stops. The zoo is in the foothills on the edge of town, but a free summer-only shuttle leaves from the Downtown Visitor Center at 4th Avenue and F Street every hour from Thursday through Sunday; online reservations are required to ride.

Built in Portsmouth in 1953, the USS Albacore is the centerpiece of Albacore Park. You can board this prototype submarine, which served as a floating laboratory to test an innovative hull design, dive brakes, and sonar systems for the Navy. The visitor center, which underwent a significant expansion in 2024, exhibits Albacore artifacts, and the nearby Memorial Garden is dedicated to those who have lost their lives in submarine service.

From April through October, you can tour the city in a land-and-water vehicle. The 75-minute tour starts on dry ground, cruising the streets of Albany to historic sites. The U.S. Coast Guard–certified vessel then plunges into the Hudson River to give you another perspective of the city skyline. Tours start at the Albany Heritage Area Visitors Center and depart in the morning and early afternoon.

The center's museum gallery is a good place for an orientation. Displays trace the city's history and define its neighborhoods; some include cultural artifacts. The center, downtown, has basic visitor information and often serves as a starting point for guided tours.

The 1791 museum, the state's oldest, has annual rotating exhibits and an impressive permanent collection that includes Hudson River School paintings and an Egyptian mummy exhibit. Silver, furniture, and contemporary-art collections cover regional history dating from the 1500s. The building, which combines a modern expansion with the original 18th-century space, is interesting architecturally.

Stroll along on a guided tour through gardens showcasing the graceful sculptures created by internationally known Czech sculptor Albin Polasek (1879–1965). The late artist's home, studio, galleries, and private chapel are centered on 3 acres of exquisitely tended lawns, colorful flower beds, and tropical foliage at the edge of Lake Osceola. Paths and walkways lead past classical life-size figurative sculptures and whimsical mythological pieces. Inside the museum are works by Hawthorne, Chase, and Mucha. The Capen House, a historic 1885 building, has been moved to the grounds to be used for public events.

More than three millennia of human history in the Ventura region is charted in the archaeological exhibits at this small museum. Some of the relics on display date back to 1600 BC.

Bachelor quarters for U.S. Army cavalry officers from 1909 to 1918, the carefully renovated red-roof visitor center is a great source for maps, advice, permits, and free Wi-Fi. This hefty stone structure also contains a bookstore and exhibits about the park's history, flora, and fauna, including displays of bears and wolves that kids love.

Twentieth-century art is well represented here. The gallery's collections are especially rich in postwar American and European art, including Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Andy Warhol. Works by Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are here as well. On Sunday afternoons in July and August, free jazz performances are held on the massive front steps. The museum's restaurant, Muse, serves dinner and a highly acclaimed brunch.

This park has one of the longest sandy beaches on Lake Champlain and some fine examples of rare flora and fauna along the hiking trails. The wetlands are also an important area for wildlife refuge, providing a safe habitat for breeding, feeding, and nesting for surrounding animals like deer and wild turkey. Amenities: parking (fee). Best for: solitude, swimming, walking.

You may feel like royalty here as you rest on the benches by the exquisitely tiled fountains—the garden's highlight—and it's no wonder: the garden's landscaping was inspired by the gardens surrounding the Alcazar Castle in Seville, Spain. Bordered by boxwood hedges, the garden is open year-round, allowing for a seasonally shifting color palette. The flower beds, for example, are ever-changing horticultural exhibits featuring more than 7,000 annuals for a nearly perpetual bloom.

Situated at Esplanade Avenue and Mystery Street, this tiny sliver of a park was named for the philanthropist and professor Alcée Fortier, who owned much of the surrounding area in the late 19th century and who founded a public school. A neighborhood favorite, the park is almost completely maintained by the efforts of local volunteers who tend the lush landscaping, which includes palms, caladiums, and azaleas, keep up the collection of whimsical sculptures and art, and make sure the concrete chess tables are ready for game time (complete with baskets of chess pieces). A focal point of the Bayou St. John neighborhood, Alcée Fortier Park is surrounded by a concentration of hip restaurants and neighborhood grocers.

Popular with birders, the Alder trail heads inland, passing fruit trees and alder bushes on an easy 1.2-mile out-and-back hike, but many hit the grassy path as part of a near-loop with the challenging 1.1-mile Anvil Trail. Trailheads for both are near the Blueberry Hill parking area on the loop road; you must cross the road to get to them. Steep and heavily rooted in sections as it climbs Schoodic Head, Anvil requires lots of rock climbing but rewards with wonderful water and island views from the rock knob overlook (side trail) for which it's named. After connecting with Schoodic Head Trail from Alder or Anvil, it's not far to the top of Schoodic Head, where expansive views of the surrounding seascape and landscape await.

A great place for solitude during the winter—and popular with families during the summer season—this beach has hard-packed sand at low tide, making it ideal for walking. It's accessible from the Marriott Grande Ocean Resort. Amenities: lifeguards; parking (free); showers; toilets. Best for: swimming; walking.

With one of the largest tasting rooms in San Diego, this microbrewery offers tastings at its out-of-the-way locale in the Miramar area. Try AleSmith's popular Speedway Stout, brewed in various editions ranging from peanut butter and maple bar to German chocolate and coffee.

Through old newspapers, memorabilia, video footage, and exhibits about the Aleutian Campaign, this quaint visitor center outside the Unalaska Airport preserves bits of history from Alaska's little-known role in the war. The Aleutian Islands saw heavy fighting through much of World War II; at the peak of the war, more than 60,000 servicemen were stationed here in the farthest and most brutal reaches of the United States. On June 3 and 4, 1942, the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor and landed in the far reaches of the Aleutians a few days later. The Japanese military forces took entire villages and outposts captive in Kiska and Attu, with many of those captured transported to Japan as prisoners of war. The center is within easy walking distance of the ferry terminal and open June through September.

The historic area also includes Ft. Schwatka, a U.S. Army base poised on a mountain that contained over 100 structures when fully built out. You can do a group or self-guided walking tour of the fort by getting an access permit from the Ounalashka Corporation at 400 Salmon Way or at the visitor center.

The Alex Haley House Museum, the only state-owned historic site in West Tennessee, displays family portraits, mementos, and furnishings.

Maui's largest landowner, A&B was one of the "Big Five" companies that spearheaded the planting, harvesting, and processing of sugarcane. At this museum, historic photos, artifacts, and documents explain the introduction of sugarcane to Hawaii. Exhibits reveal how plantations brought in laborers from other countries, forever changing the islands' ethnic mix. Although sugarcane is no longer being grown on Maui, the crop was for many years the mainstay of the local economy. You can find the museum in a small, restored plantation manager's house across the street from the post office and the still-operating sugar refinery, where smoke billows up when the cane is being processed. The museum gift shop sells plantation-themed memorabilia, coffee, and history books.

In this recreation area you'll find a campground, as well as a stream for swimming, canoeing, and kayaking. At a constant temperature of 72 degrees, the clear waters are popular for fishing, too.

Occupying the 1840s homestead of Cyrus Alexander, the valley’s namesake, this winery known for the widely distributed Sin Zin produces wines from Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and a few more grapes. Tastings are old-Sonoma low-key; book Experience Cabernet Sauvignon to sample the Bordeaux-style blend Cyrus and other Cabs. Twice-daily free tours pass by the production facility and through caves dug deep into a nearby hillside. Daily vineyard hikes focusing on the land and the winery's history conclude with a box lunch and tasting.

This home of town founder Jean Mouton was originally built in 1800 as his maison dimanche, or "Sunday house" (a town house used when attending church services). After Jean, the house became home to Alexandre Mouton (1804–85), the first Democratic governor of Louisiana. Today, this galleried town house with a mid-19th-century addition preserves local history. The older section is an excellent example of early Acadian architecture and contains artifacts used by settlers. The main museum features Civil War–era furnishings and memorabilia and an exhibit on Mardi Gras. Guided and self-guided tours are both available.

This collection, devoted to the history of African Americans in Alexandria and Virginia, is housed in part in the Robert H. Robinson Library, a building constructed in the wake of a landmark 1939 sit-in protesting the segregation of Alexandria libraries. The Watson Reading Room, next to the museum, holds a vast collection of books, periodicals, videos, and historical documents detailing the social, economic, and cultural contributions of African Americans who helped shape the city's growth since its establishment in 1749. The federal census of 1790 recorded 52 free African Americans living in the city, but the town was one of the largest slave-exporting points in the South, with at least two highly active slave markets.

Some fine hiking trails, one leading to a hidden redwood grove, along with a nice selection of campsites, make up this park a little inland from Brookings. There's also a grove of myrtlewood trees, which you'll find only in southwest Oregon and northern California.

The work of landscape architect Alfred Caldwell, this serene oasis---comprising a gracefully curving pond and Prairie-style pavilion amid native vegetation---hides in plain sight beside Lincoln Park Zoo’s parking lot, poised to allay weary zoo warriors with a Zen break.

Based on the toys Andy got from the Pizza Planet claw machine in the first Toy Story movie, this ride puts you on a rocket being driven by aliens in flying saucers, who are trying to have their rocket chosen by The Claw. Rather than just spinning, the cars swirl about in figure-eight formations, sending passengers back and forth within the car. Kids love the unexpected twist, making this a must-do for kids as young as 4. For people with disabilities: You must transfer from a wheelchair to ride.

The view is spectacular from this lavender farm established by master horticulturist and visionary Alii Chang. You can explore the property on your own or reserve a spot for the 30–40 minute tour that winds through paths of therapeutic lavender varieties, protea, and succulents. The gift shop has many locally made lavender products, such as honey, moisturizing lotions, and scone mixes.

This narrow beach is lined with homes, most of them set back a bit and screened with vegetation that blocks access along the sand in a number of places when the surf is up or tide is high. The waters off Aliomanu Beach are protected by the fringing reef 100 yards or so out to sea, and there are pockets for swimming. However, currents can be tricky, especially near the stream tucked in the beach's elbow toward the northern end and at the river mouth on the southern end that demarcates neighboring Anahola Beach. This beach is in Hawaiian Home Lands, an area held in trust for Native Hawaiians by the State of Hawaii, and is frequently used by fishers and local families for camping. There are no restrooms or lifeguards, so plan accordingly. Amenities: parking (no fee). Best for: sunrise.

A spectacular 92-mile corridor of lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers, this state-protected waterway cuts through vast commercial forests, beginning near the northwestern corner of Baxter State Park and running north to the town of Allagash, 10 miles from the Canadian border. From May to mid-October, the Allagash is prime canoeing and camping country. The Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands has campsites along the waterway, most not accessible by vehicle. The complete 92-mile course, part of the 740-mile Northern Forest Canoe Trail, which runs from New York to Maine, requires 7–10 days to canoe. Novices may want to hire a guide, as there are areas with strong rapids. A good outfitter can help plan your route and provide equipment and transportation.

Allegany State Park's 65,000 acres make this the largest park in the state system. More than 85 mi of trails vein the park, which encompasses forest, meadow, lakes and streams, and hills, and borders Pennsylvania's Allegheny National Forest to the south. Hikes here range from short, easy strolls to an 18-mi trek over rugged terrain. The park has sandy swimming areas, bridle trails, boat launches and rentals, fishing, miniature golf, mountain-bike rentals, tennis courts, and picnic areas. The 90 mi of snowmobiling trails are a big draw in winter. Lodging options (all year-round) include 424 tent and RV sites, 375 rustic winterized cabins with single beds (no bedding), and seven cottages with heat and electricity. The park's Red House Restaurant, at the Tudor administration building in the Red House area, is open seasonally. In general, the Quaker Area (western) portion of the park is more remote than the (eastern) Red House Area.