118 Best Sights in USA

Known simply as "Cal," the founding campus of California's university system is one of the leading intellectual centers in the United States and a major site for scientific research. Chartered in 1868, the university sits on 178 oak-covered acres split by Strawberry Creek. Campus highlights include bustling and historic Sproul Plaza ( Bancroft Way and Sather Rd.), the 307-foot-tall and 61-bell carillon of Sather Tower ( Campanile Esplanade), hands-on Lawrence Hall of Science ( 1 Centennial Dr.), the vibrant 34-acre Botanical Gardens ( 200 Centennial Dr.), and the historic Hearst Greek Theatre ( 2001 Gayley Rd.), the classic outdoor amphitheater designed by John Galen Howard (who also designed Sather Tower).

A winding tree-lined road leads to this small college of liberal arts and sciences. The beautiful 540-acre campus encompasses two Hudson River estates, parklike grounds and gardens, and wooded areas.

Founded in the 1880s as a private estate for two very rich New Yorkers, this 1,400-acre farm is much more than an exquisite landscape: it's an educational and cultural resource center with a working dairy farm, an award-winning cheese producer, an organic market garden, and a bakery whose aroma of fresh bread and pastries is an olfactory treat. It's a brilliant place for parents to expose their kids to the dignity of farmwork and the joys of compassionate animal husbandry—indeed, children and adults alike will get a kick out of hunting for eggs in the oversize coop, milking a cow, and watching the chicken parade. There are several activities and tours daily, and a lunch cart serves up fresh-from-the-farm soups, salads, and sandwiches. Frederick Law Olmsted, the co-creator of New York City's Central Park, designed the magnificent grounds overlooking Lake Champlain; walk to Lone Tree Hill for a splendid view. If you fall in love with the scenery, arrange a romantic dinner at the lakefront mansion, or spend the night.

Founded by David Rockefeller in honor of his late wife, Peggy, Stone Barns is a groundbreaking nonprofit educational center that aims to promote sustainable, community-based agriculture. The 80-acre working farm encompasses Norman-style barn buildings, a restaurant and café, a greenhouse, and livestock, including sheep and swine. Garden tours, greenhouse workshops, and introductions to local environmentalists, winemakers, and organic farmers are among the programs. Self-guided tours are free; guided tours are $15. The dinner-only restaurant, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, is an outpost of Manhattan's famed Blue Hill. The Blue Hill Café serves light fare and sandwiches until 4:30.

Probably the most interesting and important site in Annapolis, the Naval Academy, established in 1845, occupies 338 waterfront acres along the Severn River. The midshipmen (the term used for both women and men) go to classes, conduct military drills, and practice or compete in intercollegiate and intramural sports. Your visit to "The Yard" (as the USNA grounds are nicknamed) will start at the Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center. The visitor center features an exhibit, The Quarter Deck, which introduces visitors to the academy's mission, including a 13-minute film, The Call to Serve, and a well-stocked gift shop. From here you can join one of the hour-long, guided, walking tours of the academy. The centerpiece of the campus is the bright, copper-clad dome of the interdenominational U.S. Naval Academy Chapel, beneath which is buried Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones. You can go inside Bancroft Hall (one of the world's largest dormitories) and see a sample room and the glorious Memorial Hall.

Visitors can have lunch on campus either at Drydock in Dahlgren Hall or the Naval Academy Club.

Intellectuals come to the University of Chicago to breathe in the rarified air: after all, the faculty, former faculty, and alumni of this esteemed institution have won 99 Nobel Prizes, awarded in every field, including President Obama's 2009 Peace Prize. History buffs and art lovers are drawn by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, and Smart Museum of Art, while the university's professional theater company, Court Theatre, stages new and classic works. Architecture aficionados won’t be disappointed either.

The dominant building here, Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, is a neo-Gothic beauty complete with glorious stained-glass windows, a vaulted ceiling, 72-bell carillon (the single largest musical instrument ever built), and 207-foot-high stone tower. In sharp contrast, the Booth School of Business is very modern looking; its horizontal accents imitate the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House (1910), located directly across the street. Mid-century buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Eero Saarinen, as well as contemporary award winners by MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, postmodernist Helmut Jahn, and husband-and-wife duo Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, are also worth seeking out. Self-guided tours of campus highlights, points of interest, and public art on campus can be found at  visit.uchicago.edu/campus-guides.

Established in 1888 as a small agricultural school, USU now enrolls around 27,000 students and is an intellectual and technological leader in land, water, space, and life enhancement. The scenic, 400-acre campus is best toured by starting at the historic Old Main administration building east of downtown Logan—look for the bell tower. Inside the building you'll find the Museum of Anthropology, which contains an impressive collection of prehistoric and contemporary Native American artifacts and cultural works. The first Saturday of each month features family-friendly exploration of a specific country through its food, art, crafts, and music. Also worth a stop is the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, which is in a striking contemporary building a few blocks northeast of the campus Quad and contains a permanent collection as well as mounting rotating shows. You can also pick up a map here of sculptures and public art visible throughout the campus.

New Haven's manufacturing history dates to the 19th century, but the city owes its fame to merchant Elihu Yale. In 1718, his contributions enabled the Collegiate School, founded in 1701 at Saybrook, to settle in New Haven and change its name to Yale College. In 1887, all of its schools were consolidated into Yale University. This is one of the nation's great institutions of higher learning, and its campus holds some handsome neo-Gothic buildings and noteworthy museums. Student guides conduct hour-long walking tours that include Connecticut Hall in the Old Campus, one of the oldest buildings in the state, which housed a number of illustrious students—including Nathan Hale, Noah Webster, and Eli Whitney. Tours start from the visitor center.

The campus here contains several superlative examples of 1930s WPA-commissioned murals in its administrative building. The college's Luther Bean Museum and Art Gallery displays European porcelain and furniture collections, and exhibits of regional arts and crafts.

What began in 1886 as the Tempe Normal School for Teachers, a four-room redbrick building and 20-acre cow pasture, is now the 750-acre Tempe campus of ASU, the largest university in the Southwest. The university has five campuses across the Valley, with the Tempe campus serving as headquarters. As you walk around campus, you'll wind past public art and innovative architecture—including a music building that bears a strong resemblance to a wedding cake, designed by Taliesin students to echo Frank Lloyd Wright's Gammage Auditorium, and a law library shaped like an open book—and end up at Sun Devil Stadium, which is carved out of a mountain and cradled between the Tempe buttes.

Baylor University. The oldest institution of higher learning in the state of Texas, Baylor University is also the oldest Baptist university in the world. The 450-acre, tree-covered campus features the Bear Habitat, where Baylor's two live North American black bear mascots live; the Martin Museum of Art, which rotates exhibits throughout the year; and a new memorial to the Immortal 10, a group of Baylor students who died when their bus collided with a train in Round Rock while en route to a basketball game in Austin in 1927.

Contemporary stone sculpture and white-frame neo-Colonial dorms surrounded by acres of cornfields punctuate the green meadows of the placid campus.

Provo and the entire region are probably best known as the home of BYU. The university was established as the Brigham Young Academy in 1875, with a mandate to combine teaching about the sacred and the secular. It has grown into one of the world's largest church-affiliated universities, and still reflects the conservative nature of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Students must adhere to a strict dress and honor code, and refrain from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea. BYU is known for its large variety of quality undergraduate and graduate programs, and is a considerable force in regional athletics. Heading up BYU attractions is a quartet of museums. A free guided university tour is offered weekdays on the hour, and reservations are recommended.

Founded in 1764, this Ivy League institution is the nation's seventh-oldest college and offers degrees in 84 undergraduate concentrations and another 80-plus master's and doctoral programs. On a stroll through the College Hill campus, you'll encounter Gothic and Beaux Arts structures, as well as the imposing Van Wickle Gate, which opens twice a year—in fall to welcome first-year students and spring to bid graduating seniors farewell. On the ground floor of Manning Hall, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology exhibits artifacts from around the world. The David Winton Bell Gallery in the List Art Building hosts several major art exhibitions a year. Attending a Brown Bears Ivy League football game is an old-school experience, with games played at monumental Brown Stadium, which first welcomed fans in 1925.

The 1939 film Philadelphia Story, a depiction of Main Line society life, starred Katharine Hepburn, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, the first college for women that offered graduate degrees. Founded in 1885 and modeled after Cambridge and Oxford colleges, Bryn Mawr introduced the "collegiate Gothic" style of architecture to the United States.

Mother Frances Cabrini, the first American citizen to become a saint (canonized in 1946), purchased the land between Esplanade Avenue and Bayou St. John near City Park in 1905 and built the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum here. She stayed in the Pitot House, which was on her property until she gave it to the city during construction of the orphanage. In 1959, the institution was converted to a girls' high school in Mother Cabrini's name. Her bedroom here, preserved as it was in her time, is filled with personal effects and maintained as a shrine. Tours of her room and Sacred Heart Chapel are available by appointment.

Roughly 12,500 students learn and in many cases reside on this pleasant, tree-shaded campus marked by formidable redbrick architecture and located on the north side of downtown. University Way contains several handsome buildings dating from the university's founding in 1891 as the State Normal School. Attractions near the center of campus include a serene Japanese garden and the Sarah Spurgeon Gallery, which features the work of regional and national artists.

It all began in 1874, when John Heyl Vincent, a Methodist minister, and Lewis Miller, an industrialist, set up a training center for Sunday-school teachers here. The Chautauqua Institution rapidly grew into a summer-long cultural encampment. More than 2,000 events take place here in summer, including lectures, art exhibitions, outdoor symphonies, theater, dance performances, opera, and open-enrollment classes.

The village has small winding streets lined with gas lights and beautiful Victorian houses, which are often outfitted in bright colors, turrets, multiple gables, and gingerbread trim. The Miller Bell Tower is the most recognizable landmark on the lakeshore and has become the symbol of the institution; tunes are played three or four times a day, and the Miller Bell is rung manually 15 minutes before amphitheater lectures and evening programs.

Seats for the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and other large events held at the 6,500-seat Chautauqua Amphitheater are on a first-come, first-served basis. Musicians as diverse as Peter, Paul, and Mary; 10,000 Maniacs; Glenn Miller; and Natalie Cole have performed in the theater, which has a roof and houses an enormous pipe organ. Norton Memorial Hall, a 1,365-seat art-deco building, is where the Chautauqua Opera Company presents four English-language operas each season.

The institution's recreational activities complement its cultural opportunities. You may fish, swim, play tennis, golf, or rent sailboats, motorboats, or canoes from the concessions on the lake. The village, a National Historic District, also includes B&Bs, hotels, inns, guesthouses, apartments, and condominiums, as well as several restaurants and eateries. You may use a car when dropping off and picking up your luggage, but otherwise car usage is extremely limited here. Lots near the entrance gates offer daily and long-term paid parking. A free shuttle bus and tram travel through the campus during the season. Narrated bus tours of the grounds are available.

After making a name for himself in the local dining scene, Chef Darin created his own cooking school in 2015 with hands-on classes for cooks of all levels. The state-of-the-art facility includes a kitchen stocked with five KitchenAid dual fuel ranges and a double wall oven as well as Savannah's only local kitchen shop. Class subjects range from Lowcountry comfort food to Pan Asian cuisine.

Chiefly a place for the community to gather for calligraphy and tai chi workshops, the center operates a gallery with interesting temporary exhibits by Chinese and Chinese American artists. Excellent political, historical, and food-focused private walking tours of Chinatown depart from the gallery.

A wraparound mural inspired by the colorful garden that fronts the Culinary Institute of America's Oxbow District facility brightens its facade. Check out the ground floor's well-curated culinary shop, nearby Vintners Hall of Fame wall, and self-serve wine stations—then head upstairs to the Chuck Williams Culinary Arts Museum. Named for the Williams-Sonoma kitchenwares founder, it holds an eye-popping collection of cooking, baking, and other food-related tools, tableware, gizmos, and gadgets, some dating back more than a century.

A majestic Greek revival portico, Randolph Hall—designed in 1828 by Philadelphia architect William Strickland and built by the labor of enslaved people—presides over the college's central Cistern Yard. Draping oaks envelop the lush green quad, where graduation ceremonies and concerts, notably during Spoleto Festival USA, take place. Founded in 1770, this liberal arts college's historic campus served as the backdrop for films like Cold Mountain and The Notebook.

This is a great place to meet some of the park's animal handlers and to gather round for a critter encounter. You'll learn about the park's veterinary care, ongoing research, and food preparation for hundreds of animal inhabitants. Interactive exhibits are simple fun for younger children and have messages about worldwide efforts to protect endangered species and their habitats. Here, you also can find out how to connect with conservation efforts in your own community. At The Animation Experience at Conservation Station, a Disney artist leads a class in drawing a famous (animal) Disney character. For people with disabilities: Guest may remain in wheelchairs or ECVs. Begin a family conservation project here.

The Corcoran School, a prestigious art school since 1878, is now in partnership with George Washington University. Throughout the year, the school features events and performances by the students and other artists. The iconic, beautifully restored Beaux Arts Flagg Building, which started life as the historic Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1890, shuttered its doors in 2014. Don't miss the first-floor Luther W. Brady Art Gallery, which showcases temporary exhibits by renowned artists. Check the website for events like Friday @5, featuring live music and popular amongst young D.C. professionals.

With its historic buildings, weave of natural and man-made spaces, Cayuga Lake views, and two spectacular gorges, the campus of this private university is considered one of the most beautiful in the country. Founded in 1865, Cornell is a mixture of modern structures and ivy-covered 19th-century buildings. Wear your walking shoes; there is almost no public parking near the campus center. Free 75-minute tours of the campus leave daily from Day Hall, at Tower Road and East Avenue.

The East Coast branch of the country's most respected cooking school is on the grounds of a former Jesuit seminary overlooking the Hudson River. Tours are available Monday to Thursday when school's in session. Five student-staffed restaurants are open to the public. The Craig Claiborne Bookstore stocks more than 1,300 cookbooks in addition to culinary equipment and specialty foods. One- and two-day workshops and lectures are offered on weekends.

One of four branches of the country's most famous culinary school, the CIA Texas campus in San Antonio attracts food lovers and future chefs with a special interest in Latin American culture and cuisine. Associate and bachelor degrees in the culinary arts are offered here, but if you're just a foodie passing through, you can sign up for one-day classes that range from three to five hours on topics like Mexican desserts, live-fire grilling, holiday pies, and more. If you would rather relax and watch someone else work, check out the one- to two-hour chef demonstrations on a variety of topics, with tastings and take-home recipes included. To skip the work entirely, make reservations at Savor, the CIA restaurant, for a meal created and presented by advanced CIA students under the guidance of professional faculty as a culmination of two years of rigorous study. Cooking classes, tours, and demonstrations vary.

The poet Robert Frost spent part of a brooding freshman semester at this Ivy League school before giving up college altogether, but the school counts politician Nelson Rockefeller, actor Mindy Kaling, TV producer Shonda Rhimes, and author Theodor ("Dr.") Seuss Geisel among its many illustrious grads. The buildings clustered around the picturesque green, which is lovely for strolling, include the Baker Memorial Library, which houses such literary treasures as 17th-century editions of William Shakespeare's works. The library is also well known for Mexican artist José Clemente Orozco's 3,000-square-foot murals that depict the story of civilization in the Americas. Free campus tours are available.