Places tinamariemote Wants to Go

This overlooked courtyard and museum celebrate Benjamin Franklin's life and achievements.

The oldest surviving botanic garden in the United States.

The taxidermied remains of Charles Dickens' pet raven, which helped inspire one of Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poems.

Tour the dark and beloved poet's former cobwebbed basement, which may have inspired "The Black Cat."

America's most famous museum of medical oddities is home to the remains of Albert Einstein's brain.

The first home and studio that belonged to the famous architect.

Just outside Chicago, one of the few traditional Mongolian restaurants in the U.S. serves a misunderstood cuisine.

A 30-foot-tall goat tower in central Illinois is home to a herd of Swiss ungulates.

A wondrously macabre treasury of obscure antiques and unusual oddities.

An exhibit of items from the mental institution where Mary Todd Lincoln lived after her son conspired to have her committed.

The last masonry skyscraper ever built reveals a transitional moment in architectural history.

This softly rounded mansion was built without corners not to avoid evil spirits, but to make them more comfortable.

The clothes-washing king doubles as a community center with some unusual features, including an aviary filled with finches.

The famous author's birthplace is preserved in a town that he once described as narrow-minded.

Tour the luxe "glass cage" that inspired and unnerved the architecture world upon its debut.

Designed by Alfred Caldwel, this landscape showcases his vision of a native garden.

Take a break from all the boring business of death at this funeral home mini-golf course.

A plaque marks a former safe house on the secret route, now hidden next to a McDonald's.

This historic house museum that celebrates one of the world's most influential social reformers is also one of the most haunted locations in Chicago.

World's second largest particle accelerator, where nature reveals its secrets.

The legacy of an unsolved, gruesome murder rests beneath the spans of this historic bridge.

Its eclectic exhibits range from the world’s first motorcycle to Luke Skywalker’s Land Speeder.

A small abandoned and abused cemetery that has become a magnet for ghost hunters.

A small Chicago museum filled with thousands of preserved butterflies, beetles, and more.