Ways to explore
Museums & galleries
Collections worth planning a morning around. 321 picks across 58 destinations.
The best of the best
BostonBoston Tea Party Ships & Museum
A floating, interactive museum on Fort Point Channel where you board restored 18th-century ships and throw "tea" into the harbor — reliving the 1773 protest that helped spark the Revolution.
ChicagoArt Institute of Chicago
One of the great encyclopedic art museums in the world — guarded by its famous bronze lions on Michigan Avenue, home to a legendary Impressionist collection plus "American Gothic" and "Nighthawks."
HawaiiPearl Harbor National Memorial (Oahu)
America's most hallowed WWII site — the USS Arizona Memorial, floating above the sunken battleship, plus the Battleship Missouri, submarine Bowfin, and the Aviation Museum.
Los AngelesBattleship USS Iowa Museum
The "Battleship of Presidents" — a mighty World War II-era battleship now a museum ship at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, where you can walk the decks, tour the gun turrets, and stand on the bridge.
MiamiVizcaya Museum & Gardens
James Deering's 1916 Italian Renaissance villa on Biscayne Bay — Miami's most
New OrleansThe National WWII Museum
America's best museum by many rankings, and it earns the votes — immersive D-Day and Pacific galleries, warbirds hanging in glass pavilions, and storytelling that turns a half day into the trip's gravity.
New York CityStatue of Liberty & Ellis Island
The defining symbol of New York and one of the most-photographed monuments in the world — ferry-only access from Battery Park, with Ellis Island and the Immigration Museum on the same ticket.
Pigeon ForgeTitanic Museum Attraction
A half-scale Titanic docked on the Parkway — 400 real artifacts across 20 galleries, a boarding pass carrying a real passenger's fate, the grand staircase, 28-degree water you can touch, and a genuinely moving Memorial Room.