12 Best Sights in USA

Show your kids where Ice Age fossils come from by taking them to this fascinating outdoor park and indoor museum. Oil rises and bubbles to the earth's surface, as it is collected in shallow pools, and coagulated into asphalt. In the early 20th century, geologists discovered that all that goo contained the largest collection of Pleistocene (Ice Age) fossils ever found at one location. There are more than 600 fossils of species of birds, mammals, plants, reptiles, and insects. Roughly 100 tons of fossil bones have been removed in excavations during the last 100 years, making this one of the world's most famous fossil sites. You can see most of the pits through chain-link fences, and the Excavator Tour gets you as close as possible to the action.

As the headquarters to the Maritime Refuge, this free visitor center and natural history museum provides a wonderful introduction. The refuge covers some 3½ million acres spread across some 2,500 Alaskan islands, from Prince of Wales Island in the south to Barrow in the north. The 37,000-square-foot eco-friendly facility with towering windows facing Kachemak Bay is a must for anyone interested in the abundant aquatic, avian, and land mammal life of the region. A film takes visitors along on a voyage of the Fish and Wildlife Service's research ship, the MV Tiglax. Interactive exhibits detail the birds and marine mammals of the refuge (the largest seabird refuge in America), and one room even re-creates the noisy sounds and pungent smells of a bird rookery. In summer, guided bird-watching treks and beach walks are offered, and you can take a stroll on your own on the walkways in Beluga Slough, where Alaskan poet Wendy Erd's commissioned work lines the way.

Founded in 1885, the Burke is Washington’s oldest museum—and also one of its newest, after moving to a new, 113,000-square-foot facility in 2019. It’s an impressive space with an ambitious goal: to exhibit highlights from a collection of more than 18 million objects, encompassing natural history, archaeology, and native Northwest art and culture. You’ll see totem poles, hand-carved canoes, mastodon bones, a whale skeleton, bats, bugs, and lots of fossils. It’s all beautifully displayed, but what’s most striking about the design is the way it “turns the museum inside-out.” Glass walls let visitors look behind the scenes at 12 labs where researchers and conservators go about their work of studying and preserving artifacts. The Burke is also good about activities for kids, with daylong classes on dinosaurs and fossils (handy for parents who want some time to themselves). The museum is affiliated with UW and located on the northwest corner of campus.

A short drive west from the heart of Brewster, this spacious museum and its pristine grounds include a shop, a natural-history library, and exhibits such as a working beehive and an aquarium with live specimens from local waters. Walking trails wind through 80 acres of forest, marshland, and ponds, all rich in birds and other wildlife. A pollinator path lined with blooming plants leads to a seasonal (June-Sept.) Butterfly House. The exhibit hall upstairs has a wall display of aerial photographs documenting the process by which the famous Chatham sandbar was split in two. In summer there are family field walks, nature programs, forest bathing, and nature classes for kids age 3--12. 

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.  

A small but lively museum, on a site that holds the first American home of Haitian-born artist and naturalist John James Audubon (1785–1851), captures the wonders of the avian world and the need to protect it, as well as Audubon's mission to paint North America's birds. Kid-friendly interactive exhibits explore nests, birdsongs, feathers, and more; exhibits about Audubon's artistic process (with a copy of his massive Birds of America) will appeal to older children and adults. Outside, there's a bird-themed outdoor play space. Admission includes a tour (sign up at center for the one tour, at 1 pm) of Mill Grove, Audubon's stone farmhouse, built in 1762 and filled with displays relating to Audubon. Managed by the National Audubon Society, this site 2 miles north of Valley Forge National Historical Park is within the 200-acre Mill Grove estate and has 5 miles of marked walking trails. The center also offers birding sessions and other outdoor programs.

The biggest attraction beyond the miles of neon and the Blue Swallow Motel is the Mesalands Community College Dinosaur Museum, where marvelous full-size bronze dinosaur skeletons are on display. This area was a hotbed of Triassic activity, when dinosaurs emerged in their development, and there are species here—like the Struthiomimus—that you won't find anywhere else in the world. The skeletons are cast in the local foundry, and they are touchable. The latest addition, a Parosaurolophus from the Farmington, New Mexico, area even "breathes" through re-created respiratory tubes—talk about realistic!

More than 2,000 mineral specimens are on display at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources' Mineralogical Museum, among them samples from the area's ore-rich mining districts of Magdalena, Santa Rita, and Tyrone. Exhibits cull from the museum's fabulous collection of more than 15,000 items, which has been called Coronado's Treasure Chest, as it contains everything the explorer wished he'd found in New Mexico but didn't. There is an excellent fluorescent minerals display, as well as mining memorabilia and some fossils. Tours can be arranged.

One of the world's great natural history museums offers 20 exhibition halls—including a fully renovated Dinosaur and Fossil Hall, filled with not only fossils, but also glittering gems, creepy-crawly insects, and other natural wonders. There are more than 145 million specimens in the collection. Marvel at the enormous African bush elephant, which greets you in the rotunda, and learn about elephant behavior and conservation efforts. Discover Q?rius, a state-of-the-art discovery space for all ages featuring 6,000 objects, on-site experts, and an array of digital tools that focus on the natural world. Walk among hundreds of live butterflies in the Butterfly Pavilion ($8 adults, $7 children/seniors). Check out giant millipedes and furry tarantulas in the O. Orkin Insect Zoo (don't miss the daily live tarantula feedings). See perfectly preserved giant squids, a jaw-dropping replica of a whale, and the ecosystem of a living coral reef in the Sant Ocean Hall. Watch as paleobiologists study some of the museum's collection of 46 million fossils, which includes the nation's T. rex found in Montana in 1988.

In business since the 1950s, Ulrich's Fossil Gallery has fossils from around the world on display. You can even buy some specimens, particularly fish fossils. Ulrich's also runs fossil-digging excursions at private quarries; call for more information.

Dinosaurs, placed throughout the building, are among the prehistoric animal and plant specimens on display at the WWCC Natural History Museum. Species range in age from 67 million to 180 million years old. Don't miss the fossilized fish and the baby alligator. The museum also has rotating exhibits.