18 Best Sights in USA

Universal Studios Hollywood combines the classic theme park experience of roller coasters, costumed characters, and long lines with the magic of movies. It sits above a still-functioning movie studio and all of its rides are centered around blockbusters like Jurassic Park and Transformers. Coming in 2026 is a Fast & Furious–inspired topsy-turvy coaster that spirals down the hillside. There are entire lands dedicated to Harry Potter, The Simpsons, and Despicable Me's Minions. The newest section is the fully immersive, highly interactive Super Nintendo World, which plunges gameboys and girls into the Mushroom Kingdom with Mario and Luigi.

What can't be duplicated at the Orlando branch is the Universal backlot, where movies have been made since 1915. Hop aboard the new electric trams which wind around working soundstages and exterior sets where many popular movies and TV series have been filmed. As they are still being used today, going during the week increases your chances of seeing stars at work. During the studio tour, you'll visit The Good Place, see the airplane wreckage from War of the Worlds, and have a close call with Norman Bates from Psycho as well as drive through 4D motion simulated "rides." 

The park gets a scary makeover in October for Halloween Horror Nights when new mazes full of monsters, murderers, and jump scares pop up. If you can swing it, splurge on the express tickets to drastically reduce wait times.

The tram ride is the best place to begin your visit both for historical context and because the line becomes longer as the day goes on.

Also run by Universal Studios, CityWalk is an adjacent corridor of shops (there's a great place to snag Dodgers gear!), restaurants like Margaritaville, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, and the Hello Kitty & Friends Cafe, and movie theaters. There's also several quick food options like Pink's Hot Dogs and Voodoo Doughnut. Lots of park visitors end their day here, so make dinner reservations.

Roller coasters and other thrill rides are the biggest draw at this theme park, which has some 4 million visitors annually. The twisting Tigris, with a 50-foot skyward surge and dramatic drops, is Florida’s tallest coaster. The Iron Gwazi, at more than 200 feet, is the tallest hybrid roller coaster in North America, as well as the fastest and steepest hybrid coaster in the world. The new-in-2023 Serengeti Flyer features back-to-back seating in gondolas that swing ever higher and faster as the ride progresses.

The park also has a world-class zoo—with more than 2,000 animals and a live entertainment venue—that provides a full day (or more) of fun for the whole family. The Jungala exhibit puts Bengal tigers center stage and at eye level—allowing you to view them from underground caves and underwater windows. In the 335-acre adventure park's habitats, you can spot some of the world's most endangered and exotic animals. For the best sightings, come early, when it's cooler. Also, to beat the crowds, start in the back of the park and work your way around clockwise.

Catering to the shorter set, the Sesame Street Safari of Fun is a 5-acre kids' playground with themed rides, shows, and water adventures. The Air Grover Rollercoaster takes kids (and parents) on minidives and twisty turns over the Sahara, while Jungle Flyers gets everyone swinging and screeching. Cool off at Congo River Rapids, Stanleyville Falls (a flume ride), or Bert and Ernie's Water Hole—complete with bubblers, geysers, water jets, and dumping buckets. Character lunches are available (but you might want to wait until after your rides).

In addition to its 1:20-scale LEGO reproductions of U.S. cities and sights, this theme park has more than 50 rides, shows, and attractions throughout 10 zones. The Danish toy company's philosophy is to help children "play well." And play they do, as attractions here are very hands-on. Kids can hoist themselves to the top of a tower, power a fire truck, or navigate a LEGO robot. Sights include huge LEGO dragons, wizards, knights, pirates, castles, roller coasters, racetracks, villages, and cities. In the heart of the park, you'll also find a marvelous botanical garden, which preserves one of the world's largest banyan trees and is a remnant of the original Cypress Gardens theme park.

The cityscapes in Miniland USA fascinate children and adults, who delight in discovering what's possible when you have enough bricks. Miniland opens with Kennedy Space Center, where a 6-foot shuttle waits on the launchpad. Miami Beach features bikini-clad bathers and Art Deco hotels; St. Augustine and its historic fort play into LEGO's pirate theme; Key West's Mallory Square is accurate right down to the trained cats leaping through rings of fire. The rest of the country is not ignored: New York City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., all have intricate, often-amusing details (like New York's purse snatcher) hidden in each.

Among other highlights are Ninjago, where kids battle computer-generated bad guys; LEGO Kingdoms, whose castle towers over a jousting area and a roller coaster and where knights, damsels, dragons, and ogres are found; Land of Adventure, where you can explore hidden tombs and hunt for treasure; and the Imagination Zone, showcasing LEGO Mindstorms robots and where a giant head of Albert Einstein invites kids to explore and invent. Things get wild in LEGO Technic, the most active of the park's zones, where Test Track, Aquazone Wave Racers, and Technicycle let the family expend some energy.

During the live Brickbeard's Watersport Stuntshow, seafaring sailors wearing LEGO suits defend a huge ship from attacking pirates on water skis. LEGO Movie World features rides and attractions from the blockbuster, including Splash Battle, Masters of Flight, where guests soar above The LEGO Movie universe aboard a triple-decker flying couch, and Unikitty's Disco Drop, taking riders to the top of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

LEGOLAND Water Park features a wave pool; Build-a-Raft, where families construct a LEGO vessel and float down a lazy river; a 375-foot pair of intertwined waterslides that plunge riders into a pool; and a DUPLO toddler water play area. Three on-site hotels offer LEGO-theme accommodations and park packages. While you're here, you might want to also check out the neighboring, stand-alone Peppa Pig Theme Park, which delights preschoolers with its six rides, play spaces, splash pads, and characters.

SEA LIFE Florida Aquarium, with 10 underwater galleries bustling with marine life, 25 interactive exhibits that include rock pools where you can touch critters, and a stingray bay, opened here in June 2025. You can buy tickets just to SEA LIFE or opt for packages that wrap in the other LEGOLAND attractions, too.

The world's first theme park designed and built for individuals with special needs, 25-acre Morgan's Wonderland is completely wheelchair-accessible, with playgrounds, attractions, and rides specially built to accommodate wheelchairs, like the colorful carousel and the Whirling Wonder Ferris Wheel. Traditional swing areas also feature wheelchair swings. New additions include the 4D Magic Cinema theater that gives guests the sensation of riding a thrilling roller coaster, a four-seat zipline that soars above the park's scenic lake, a passenger boat ride that crosses the lake, and a ride featuring six hang-glider-style cars that gently fly in a circular pattern. The Wonderland Express train ride gives an overview of both Morgan's Wonderland and adjacent Morgan's Inspiration Island splash park, the latter with five tropically themed splash pads. And because not everyone's wheelchair is suited for a watery environment, there are complimentary waterproof wheelchairs and protective accessories for guests.

The inspiration for such an amazing place is Morgan Hartman, daughter of native San Antonian philanthropists Gordon and Maggie Hartman. The Gordon Hartman Family Foundation pursues Gordon and Maggie's goal of helping people of all ages with special needs. Morgan Hartman is now 30 and is greeted like a rock star when she visits her namesake park. Special needs children and adults are admitted to the park free of charge. Before planning a visit, call or check the parks' website for days and hours of operation.

The largest marine park in the United States, SeaWorld San Antonio consists of more than 250 acres where you can see shows and animal habitats and experience thrilling coasters and family-friendly rides. Shows include orcas, belugas, sea lions, and Pacific white-sided dolphins. There are also immersive educational experiences where you can get up close to belugas, dolphins, sea lions, and penguins. Aldabra Island is a 5,000-square-foot habitat housing the Aldabra tortoise, one of the largest tortoises in the world. The new habitat allows guests to interact and feed them on a guided tour. Aquatica water park (admission is separate from SeaWorld) offers a range of water rides, slides, and pools and is open on select days from March through October. The free SeaWorld app helps plan your day, reserve seats at shows or book an animal encounter tour. There is also a free Aquatica app. The pricing structures for both parks vary seasonally and depend on whether you purchase tickets in advance or at the entrance. Check the website or call for the latest prices.

A perennial favorite with tour operators, this family-run park has been in business since 1968 on a wild plot of land just 15 miles from overdeveloped west Miami. It has an arena for alligator wrestling shows with seating for up to 300 people. Before and after the show, get a closer look at both American alligators and American crocodiles on Gator Island, follow a jungle trail, walk through a small wildlife museum, or board an airboat for a 40-minute ride on the River of Grass (fee is included in park admission). The park also has a restaurant, a gift shop, and an observation platform overlooking the lush vegetation in the surrounding Everglades. Smaller, private airboats can be chartered for tours lasting 40 minutes to two hours. Check online for discounts and count on free parking.  This is one of three businesses authorized by the National Park Service to conduct airboat tours inside Everglades National Park.

A self-proclaimed "Kingdom for Kids," this 44-acre amusement park features rides and activities suited for families with younger children. Most rides, such as the roller coaster, merry-go-round, and giant slide, are quite tame. The adjacent water park (no separate admission), Duke's Lagoon, is open weekends, Memorial Day through Labor Day. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, the park is open for its "Dutch Winter Wonderland," with holiday-themed rides and a light show. The Cartoon Network Hotel is next door; hotel guests get special park admission discounts and early access to the park and rides.

This elaborate and thrilling park was a Denver family tradition long before its 1995 relocation from northwest Denver to its current home on the outskirts of downtown. The park's highlights include hair-raising roller coasters and thrill rides; for younger kids and squeamish parents there are also plenty of gentler attractions such as bumper cars and tea cups. Twister II, an update of the classic, wooden Mister Twister, is from the original Elitch Gardens, as is a 100-foot-high Ferris wheel that provides sensational views of downtown. A 10-acre water-adventure park is included in the standard entry fee. You can spend a whole day at either the water park or the main park. Over Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, the park is open for holiday-themed events.

Many episodes of Animal Planet's Gator Boys were filmed here, making this wetland "park" an extremely popular tourist attraction. Take an hour-long airboat tour, snap a selfie with a python, and catch alligators wrestling in the pit.

The airboats tend to be supersize, and the overall experience can feel commercialized.

At Gator Park, you can really get to know alligators and even touch a baby gator during the park's wildlife show. You can also meet turtles, macaws, and peacocks. Native snakes also reside nearby, including the black pine snake, brooks king snake, Florida king snake, and red rat snake. The park, open rain or shine, also provides educational airboat tours through Everglades National Park, as well as a gift shop and restaurant serving swamp fare like burgers, gator tail, and sausage. Tickets include admission, a group airboat ride, and an alligator wrestling show. Private tours are available.  Gator Park is authorized by the National Park Service to give airboat rides inside Everglades National Park.

Look for the giant LEGO giraffe and you've found this recently redone mecca for building-block enthusiasts, where your kids can freestyle their own creations, build spaceships, launch their LEGO car off a ramp, or test their energy with the Hero Zone's climbing wall, action games, and laser maze. The Duplo Farm is perfect for tiny tots to spend some quiet discovery and building time. The 4D Cinema brings LEGO movies to life with additional wind, rain, and snow effects, while the indoor rides and Great LEGO Race virtual-reality experiences add in some interactive fun. Discover iconic Boston attractions and local buildings all made entirely out of LEGO bricks in the famous MINIWorld attraction that used more than 1.5 million.

This 33,000-square-foot space, one of 14 Discovery Centers in the United States, is chock-full of all things LEGO, including a kid-sized race car that was made with more than 100,000 LEGO bricks. Miniland Philadelphia contains 50 of the city’s iconic landmarks brought to life with nearly 1½ million LEGO bricks—Independence Hall, Boathouse Row (with crew boats you can race), the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Lincoln Financial Field, just to name a few. Other highlights include the interactive LEGO Ninjago Training Camp; a LEGO 4-D Cinema; a LEGO-themed pirate ship play area called Pirate Adventure Island; the LEGO Meet & Greet in the Build Challenge area, where kids can “meet” their favorite characters (weekends only); and Imagination Express, an interactive ride through a LEGO world.  Note that adults must be accompanied by a child 17 or under to visit the attractions except on occasional adult nights (check website). 

This spectacular, 723-acre wildlife park 30 miles southeast of Tacoma is devoted to native creatures of the Pacific Northwest. Walking paths wind through natural surroundings, and you can see beavers, otters, and wolverines; get close to wolves, foxes, coyotes; and observe several species of big cats and bears in wild environments. Another option is to book the separate Wild Drive Premier Tour, which lets you slowly explore the park grounds from your own car, near free-roaming bison, elk, mountain goats, caribou, and a female moose named Aspen. 

Based on the popular and long-running British kids' show and built with accessibility and the little ones in mind, this park is also a Certified Autism Center. Explore playscapes such as Rebecca Rabbit’s playground, Grandpa Pig's Greenhouse, and the Muddy Puddles Splash Pad, which has slides and water fountains. At the Fairgrounds, play games and ride on Peppa Pig’s Balloon Ride and Mr. Bull’s High Striker.

Other attractions include Grampy Pig’s Dinosaur Adventure, Grandad Dog’s Pirate Boat Ride, and the popular Daddy Pig’s Roller Coaster—a great introduction to coasters for little ones. At The Cinema, relax indoors and watch episodes of Peppa Pig cartoons. Peppa tells interactive stories in live shows at Mr. Potato’s Showtime Arena, Miss Rabbit’s Diner offers kid-friendly meals, and Mr. Fox’s Shop sells exclusive park merchandise. The park is just steps from LEGOLAND Florida but requires a separate ticket; combo tickets are available, though.

The oldest operating, biggest, and perhaps most controversial marine-mammal park in the country has been anchoring the Orlando Disney–alternative theme-park business since 1964. Much has been made of the company's handling of animals, and they've been in "rebuild and repair" mode for several years after attendance and stock prices plummeted.

SeaWorld still features dolphins and orcas, but thrill rides and literal spills are now the order of the day, with more swirling, looping, and splashing than just about anywhere. The Kraken Unleashed coaster soars to 150 feet while riders dangle their feet from the floorless track. The Manta and the Mako skim tantalizingly close to the water, with Mako reaching speeds of up to 73 mph. Other offerings include Infinity Falls River Rapids, with the world's tallest river-raft drop, and the 400-foot Sky Tower, with bird’s-eye views of the park. Ice Breaker, a launch coaster, features a 93-foot-tall spike with a 100-degree angle. Pipeline: The Surf Coaster is the first of its kind—you ride standing up going 110 feet in the air at speeds of up to 60 mph!

The Sesame Street area of the park includes meet and greets with neighborhood favorites and kid-friendly rides like Big Bird's Twirl N' Whirl and interactive play areas. Little ones will love dancing along to the Sesame Street Party Parade offered most days and during peak seasons held numerous times each day.

Animal attractions here now focus more on education than performance. Shark Encounter leads you through one of the world’s largest underwater viewing tunnels, and Stingray Lagoon offers encounters with both stingrays and mantas. You can visit the ice-filled home of Puck the penguin in Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin and observe sea lions, walruses, and otters at Pacific Point Preserve, which doubles as a sea-lion rehabilitation facility. Helping injured marine animals is also the focus of the Manatee Rehabilitation Area and the Pelican Preserve, which offer up-close views of rescue operations.

Spread over 190 tropically landscaped bayfront acres, SeaWorld is one of the world’s largest marine-life amusement parks. The majority of its exhibits are walk-through marine environments like Shark Encounter, where guests walk through a 57-foot acrylic tube and come face-to-face with a variety of sharks that call the 280,000-gallon habitat home. Turtle Reef offers an incredible up-close encounter with three species of green sea turtles, while the moving sidewalk at Penguin Encounter whisks you through a colony of nearly 300 penguins.

The park also wows with adventure rides like the Electric Eel, a shocking multilaunch coaster that sends riders twisting forward and backward 150 feet in the air at speeds reaching 60 mph, and the Emperor, a floorless dive coaster with a 14-story face-down vertical drop. Another guest favorite is Arctic Rescue, a family-friendly straddle coaster simulating a perilous animal rescue mission aboard a snowmobile at speeds of 40 mph. For a comparatively milder thrill, Journey to Atlantis water coaster splashes down a 60-foot plunge. Younger children will enjoy the rides, climbing structures, and splash pads at Rescue Jr.

SeaWorld is most famous for its large-arena entertainments, now part of their efforts to refocus its orca program toward education and conservation. The park's Orca Encounter features a nature-inspired backdrop and demonstrates orca behaviors in the wild, and other educational opportunities and live entertainment shows feature dolphins, sea lions and otters. Several upgraded animal encounters are available including the Dolphin In-Water Interaction Program, which gives guests the chance to interact with SeaWorld's bottlenose dolphins in the water. The hour-long program (20 minutes in the water), during which visitors can feed, touch, and give behavior signals, starts at $179.

Significant admission discounts are available by purchasing tickets online ahead of time at seaworld.com/san-diego.

Aimed squarely at young kids and their families, this water and theme park based on the popular children's show Sesame Street provides fun places for children to crawl, climb, and jump; float, slide, and splash; and meet, greet, and perhaps hug the ageless Big Bird and his friends. Though there are dry-land activities, the highlights of the park—especially on a hot summer day—are the water rides, including the Rambling River, the interactive Count's Splash Castle, and rides at Big Bird's Beach. (Water attractions are open seasonally.) As befits a park for preteens, the rides in Elmo's World and the roller coasters—Vapor Trail and Oscar’s Wacky Taxi—are modest by theme-park standards, but they've got enough excitement for young riders. Other favorites are the daily, and nightly, parades and shows; Sesame Neighborhood, a replica of the TV street; and pricey meals with characters like Elmo and Grover. Sesame Place Philadelphia is the world's first theme park to be a Certified Autism Center; see website for information. The park's gift shop is large.  Buy tickets online in advance for substantial savings. Check ahead in case any rides or attractions are closed, and note that food is expensive and can be uneven in quality (see website FAQs for info on bringing water). No cash is accepted at the park, but you can buy a debit card at no cost. 

If visiting a Star Wars thrill ride isn't enough, why not an overnight stay? The extremely expensive (up to $6,000 for a family of four), immersive, three-day, two-night ride, experience, and "resort" offers accommodations on a fictitious,100-cabin cruise ship, where guests join the battle between the Resistance and the First Order, enjoying a journey to Batuu, themed meals, and interactive experiences with costumed cast members. The details, portrayals and overall atmosphere are incredibly true to the galaxy far, far away and start the moment you are "launched" into space, continuing through meals and cocktails at the famed Cantina, lightsaber training, and roleplaying missions to the Rise of the Resistance attraction.  Kids will probably want to order their Star Wars costumes in advance to arrive "in character"