Places Joshua Foer Wants to Go

The U.S. government built the million-pound stack of steel during the Space Race.

The walls are decorated with whimsical murals painted by the creator of the Madeline franchise.

A small museum contains one of the largest collections of ethnic and traditional headgear in the world.

The statues commemorate the legendary mass killing of escaped circus monkeys.

At this exhibit on the world of poison, venomous animals steal the show.

Though its celestial ceiling is impressive, the true star is the vast collection of French books.

This doorless 20th-century elevator doesn't stop or slow down.

People escaping slavery may have hidden inside a corpse vault.

A curious collection of oddities including a lock of Alexander Hamilton's hair and Harry Houdini's ouija board.

A detached cement mixer has been transformed to resemble a relic from some obscure NASA mission to Oklahoma.

For 20 years, this whale skeleton has been slowly dripping oil on the floor of the museum where it hangs.

Step back in time at this 1950s display home, built to showcase once cutting-edge electric amenities.

Two hundred tons of pioneer artifacts were painstakingly recovered from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Missouri River.

The site of the first "historically true" UFO encounter in the U.S.

The shelves in the back of this thrift store are devoted to saving, not selling, retro tech.

Brain collection and database that narrows the gap between man and animal.

An intricately designed junk art house with four extravagant junk art cars hidden in the suburbs.

Carved faces add a touch of magic to this island's impressive oak trees.

Nose around a unique collection of more than 300 natural aromas used to craft fragrances.

A hoard of sky catalogs, astrophysical journals, even the works of Galileo and Copernicus.

This abandoned oil depot produces world's longest echo in a manmade structure.

All that remains of a gigantic earth-moving machine.

A bright and wacky exhibit answers every question you may have had about human excrement, flatulence, and more.

The system of air guns are fired off remotely to scare any trespassing avians.