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Illinois

Find Illinois travel tips, stories, maps, videos and news for unusual tourist attractions and sights.

New Reports

  • Gemini Giant: Space Age Muffler Man

    Gemini Giant: Space Age Muffler Man

    Wilmington, Illinois

    Outfitted for short-sleeved space travel, this fiberglass giant has guarded the Launching Pad drive-in on Route 66 since 1965.

Sights for Oddball Excursions

  • Historic Auto Attractions

    Historic Auto Attractions

    Roscoe, Illinois

    History, via 20th century pop culture and you-are-almost-there artifacts. The way we like it!

  • Hot Dog Muffler Man

    Hot Dog Muffler Man

    Atlanta, Illinois

    An iconic figure from mid-20th century Cicero, Illinois, the Hot Dog Muffler Man has stood along Route 66 in Atlanta since 2003.

  • Dungeons and Dragons Park (Castle Park)

    Dungeons and Dragons Park (Castle Park)

    Carbondale, Illinois

    Dungeons and Dragons fan killed in an auto accident is remembered with a fantasy memorial park.

  • Klairmont Kollections Museum

    Klairmont Kollections Museum

    Chicago, Illinois

    Rare and unusual cars and oddities, such as the electric chair from Sing-Sing. assembled by real estate millionaire Larry Klairmont.

  • America's 2nd Largest Cross

    America's 2nd Largest Cross

    Effingham, Illinois

    198-ft. tall interstate-convenient no-nonsense soul-saver.

  • Jerry's Hat Museum

    Jerry's Hat Museum

    Forrest, Illinois

    At last count, Jerry had roughly 14,000 hats and 24,000 pens, uniquely displayed on the inside walls of an old church. Personal tours by Jerry.

  • Museum of Initiation Pranks

    Museum of Initiation Pranks

    Greenville, Illinois

    Tour the company that built "prank" devices for fraternal lodge initiations. Visitors can experience the Branding Iron, the Bucking Goat, and the Spanking Machine.

  • Pink Elephant Mall: Outdoor Retro

    Pink Elephant Mall: Outdoor Retro

    Livingston, Illinois

    Eat your ice cream and gaze upon Roadside giants. A Futuro flying saucer house, Muffler Man, pink elephant, Uniroyal Gal waitress, and a big beach dude statue.

  • Super Museum

    Super Museum

    Metropolis, Illinois

    The life's work of Jim Hambrick, stuffed with over 70,000 items relating to Superman.

  • Superman Statue

    Superman Statue

    Metropolis, Illinois

    The Man of Steel stands, larger than life and ever-vigilant in his hometown of Metropolis.

  • Miniature Golf in a Funeral Home

    Miniature Golf in a Funeral Home

    Palatine, Illinois

    Funeral parlor owner's private basement mini-golf. Kids, keep the noise down during viewings!

  • Wheels O' Time Museum

    Wheels O' Time Museum

    Peoria, Illinois

    Historical Peoria brought to life with the city's old clocks, cars and jukeboxes. Singing barbershop quartet of former Presidents!

  • Puppet Opera in Focus

    Puppet Opera in Focus

    Rolling Meadows, Illinois

    Puppets perform opera scenes and show tunes in their own custom theater. Backstage tour after each show.

  • Russell Military Museum

    Russell Military Museum

    Russell, Illinois

    Back yard battle cast-offs fill a museum and adjacent lot. A mashup of military gear, more for the equipment geek than the historian, which is fine by us.

  • Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum

    Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum

    Springfield, Illinois

    An imagineered immersion in the life of the 16th President.

  • Kaskaskia Dragon

    Kaskaskia Dragon

    Vandalia, Illinois

    Spend your dragon coins wisely at this fire-breathing beast contraption.

  • Volo Museum: Bonnie and Clyde Death Car

    Volo Museum: Bonnie and Clyde Death Car

    Volo, Illinois

    Hollywood vehicles and outlandish Kustom Kars: million-dollar Cat-in-the-Hat car, 1966 Batmobile, Elvis's 1974 Cadillac station wagon.

  • Robert Wadlow, World's Tallest Man

    Robert Wadlow, World's Tallest Man

    Alton, Illinois

    Life-size statue at the birthplace of the World's Tallest Man, Robert Wadlow, who stood nearly nine feet tall.

  • The Piasa Bird

    The Piasa Bird

    Alton, Illinois

    Monster bird of legend merits a tourism roost along the river.

  • The Soul Asylum

    The Soul Asylum

    Alton, Illinois

    Chastity belts, Native American foot torture, and "the much-dreaded Chinese Death Cage," in America's most haunted building and town.

  • Relics of the World's Tallest Man

    Relics of the World's Tallest Man

    Alton, Illinois

    Robert Wadlow stood nearly nine feet tall, so everything he wore or used had to be big. A few relics have survived to impress later generations of tinier humans.

  • One and Only Hippie Memorial

    One and Only Hippie Memorial

    Arcola, Illinois

    The conceptual artistic legacy of the late Bob Moomaw, whose Hippie Memorial suggests that he liked the 1960s and disliked Ronald Reagan.

  • Frankenmufflerman

    Frankenmufflerman

    Burbank, Illinois

    Frankenstein's Monster resembles a former Muffler Man, 20 feet tall, reworked into a smartly-dressed creature. Nonetheless he stretches our powers of creative categorization.

  • Sit with Roger Ebert

    Sit with Roger Ebert

    Champaign, Illinois

    Famous movie reviewer Roger Ebert watched films in the Virginia Theatre when he was young. Empty seats allow visitors to critique alongside a bronze Roger.

  • Statue of Popeye

    Statue of Popeye

    Chester, Illinois

    Hometown of cartoonist immortalizes Popeye's ragtag entourage with statues around town.

  • Henry Darger's Room

    Henry Darger's Room

    Chicago, Illinois

    The reconstructed room of janitor Henry Darger, where he lived for 40 years creating unsettling art that he showed to no one.

  • Busy Beaver Button Museum

    Busy Beaver Button Museum

    Chicago, Illinois

    Thousands of buttons used for promotion and political views, displayed in a business that makes buttons.

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