Illinois
Find Illinois travel tips, stories, maps, videos and news for unusual tourist attractions and sights.
Top Rated Attractions
Historic Auto Attractions
Roscoe, Illinois
History, via 20th century pop culture and you-are-almost-there artifacts. The way we like it!
Dungeons and Dragons Park (Castle Park)
Carbondale, Illinois
Dungeons and Dragons fan killed in an auto accident is remembered with a fantasy memorial park.
America's Largest Cross
Effingham, Illinois
198-ft. tall interstate-convenient no-nonsense soul-saver.
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
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
Metropolis, Illinois
The life's work of Jim Hambrick, stuffed with over 65,000 items relating to Superman.
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
Palatine, Illinois
Funeral parlor owner's private basement mini-golf. Kids, keep the noise down during viewings!
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!
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum
Springfield, Illinois
An imagineered immersion in the life of the 16th President.
Kaskaskia Dragon
Vandalia, Illinois
Spend your dragon coins wisely at this fire-breathing beast contraption.
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.
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.
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.
Curiosity Museum (Historic Museum of Torture Devices)
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
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
Arcola, Illinois
The conceptual artistic legacy of the late Bob Moomaw, whose Hippie Memorial suggests that he liked the 1960s and disliked Ronald Reagan.
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
Chester, Illinois
Hometown of cartoonist immortalizes Popeye's ragtag entourage with statues around town.
World's Largest Catsup Bottle
Collinsville, Illinois
A water tower painted to resemble a bottle of Brooks Tangy Catsup.
Muffler Man - Indian
Crystal Lake, Illinois
Displaced by the closing of a local water park, the towering Indian brave now greets customers at a garden center.
Muffler Man - Bunyan
Crystal Lake, Illinois
A Paul Bunyan Muffler Man, once an attraction at Ozzie Water Park in Palatine, has retired to gardening.
Big John - Grocery Clerk
Eldorado, Illinois
A grocery clerk giant, Big John clutches three car-crushing bags of groceries in a supermarket parking lot.
Purple Martin Capital of the Nation
Griggsville, Illinois
Signs claim Purple Martins eat 2,000 mosquitoes a day... and they live in luxury bird condo high-rises in town. Coincidence that purple martin houses are manufactured here?
World's Largest Covered Wagon and Big Lincoln
Lincoln, Illinois
12-foot-tall Abe on a 24-foot-tall covered wagon -- the largest in the world.
Trunkations
Roadside America's blog, offering news, rants and ruminations on the state of Illinois
Offbeat Landmarks and Oddities
Choice field reports and tips. Or check out: Complete list of Illinois attractions.
- Alto Pass: Bald Knob Cross of Peace [tips]
- Alton: Robert Wadlow, World's Tallest Man
- Alton: The Piasa Bird
- Alton: Curiosity Museum (Historic Museum of Torture Devices)
- Alton: Relics of the World's Tallest Man
- Arcola: One and Only Hippie Memorial
- Atlanta: Hot Dog Muffler Man
- Auburn: Brick 66
- Batavia: Mary Todd Lincoln's Sanitarium Bed [tips]
- Belleville: National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows [tips]
- Benton: Charlie Birger Gallows and George Harrison Artifacts [tips]
- Bloomington: Poppy Plane Crash Memorial [tips]
- Burbank: Frankenmufflerman
- Carbondale: Dungeons and Dragons Park (Castle Park)
- Carmi: Big John - Grocery Clerk [tips]
- Carthage: Museum of Funeral Customs Exhibits - Lincoln Casket [tips]
- Casey: World's Largest Rocking Chair [tips]
- Casey: Big Things in a Small Town Workshop [tips]
- Casey: Giant Mailbox [tips]
- Casey: Giant Bird Cage [tips]
- Casey: World's Largest Pitchfork [tips]
- Casey: Giant Antlers [tips]
- Champaign: Giant Copper Indian
- Champaign: Sit with Roger Ebert
- Champaign: Human Skeleton, Hairball, Magic Shop [tips]
- Chatsworth: Horrible Train Wreck Happened Here
- Chester: Statue of Popeye
- Chicago: Sliced Human Bodies, Cow Eyeball Dissection [tips]
- Chicago: Eye Care Muffler Man Indian [tips]
- Chicago: International Museum of Surgical Science [tips]
- Chicago: Oz Park - "Wizard of Oz" Statues [tips]
- Chicago: Harry Caray: Faces In His Pants [tips]
- Chicago: Crown Fountain - Spraying Faces [tips]
- Chicago: The Bean
- Chicago: The S--t Fountain [tips]
- Chicago: Cube of 1 Million 1 Dollar Bills [tips]
- Chicago: U-505 German Submarine [tips]
- Chicago: Fountain Of Time [tips]
- Chicago: Obama's Barber Chair, Encased in Plexiglass [tips]
- Chicago: Busy Beaver Button Museum [tips]
- Chicago: Wall of Bad Art [tips]
- Chicago: Assassinated Mayor Cermak Mausoleum
- Chicago: Chicago in Miniature [tips]
- Collinsville: World's Largest Catsup Bottle
- Covell: Charles Lindbergh Crash Site #2
- Crystal Lake: Muffler Man - Indian
- Crystal Lake: Muffler Man - Bunyan
- Crystal Lake: Muffler Man - Lumberjacks [tips]
- Darien: World's Largest Religious Wood Carving [tips]
- Des Plaines: Meals Delivered by Train
- Dixon: Horsey Ronald Reagan [tips]
- East Moline: Tour World's Largest Farm Equipment Factory
- Effingham: America's Largest Cross
- Effingham: My Garage Museum [tips]
- Elburn: Larsen's Christmas Lights [tips]
- Eldorado: Big John - Grocery Clerk
- Ellsworth: Wind Farm Lookout Platform [tips]
- Elmwood Park: Large Radio Flyer Wagon [tips]
- Evanston: American Toby Jug Museum [tips]
- Evergreen Park: Muffler Man - Bunyan [tips]
- Forest Park: Memorial to Circus Train Wreck Dead
- Galena: John Martinson's West Street Sculpture Park [tips]
- Gays: Two-Story Outhouse
- Granite City: Old Chain of Rocks Route 66 Bridge [tips]
- Greenville: Museum of Initiation Pranks
- Gridley: Telephone Museum of Gridley [tips]
- Griggsville: Purple Martin Capital of the Nation
- Joliet: Old Joliet Prison Tours [tips]
- Libertyville: Muffler Man and Bessie the Cow
- Lincoln: World's Largest Covered Wagon and Big Lincoln
- Lincolnshire: Par-King Miniature Golf [tips]
- Lisle: Giant Trolls of Thomas Dambo
- Livingston: Pink Elephant Mall: Outdoor Retro
- Livingston: Muffler Man [tips]
- Livingston: Uniroyal Gal [tips]
- Makanda: Monument to Boomer, 3-Legged Hero Dog
- Makanda: Smiley Face Water Tower [tips]
- Metropolis: Super Museum
- Metropolis: Big John - Grocery Clerk [tips]
- Metropolis: Superman Statue
- Mount Carroll: Raven's Grin Inn [tips]
- Naperville: Dick Tracy Statue [tips]
- Nauvoo: Carpet Viking HS Mascot [tips]
- Niles: Leaning Tower of Niles
- Normal: Ice Cream Muffler Man [tips]
- Norway: Agricultural Crash Monument
- Oak Lawn: Big Chief: World's Largest Cigar Store Indian [tips]
- Olney: Home of the White Squirrels
- Oquawka: Norma Jean, Elephant Killed By Lightning
- Oregon: Black Hawk, the Rock River Colossus [tips]
- Ottawa: Statue of the Radium Girl
- Palatine: Miniature Golf in a Funeral Home
- Peoria: Uniroyal Gal: Vanna Whitewall
- Peoria: Wheels O' Time Museum
- Peoria: Statue of Richard Pryor [tips]
- Pontiac: Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum
- Port Byron: Tug Fest - East Side of Mississippi River Tug-of-war [tips]
- Rantoul: World Champion Punkin Chunkin [tips]
- Rock Island: Atomic Cannon
- Rockford: Home of the Sock Monkey [tips]
- Rolling Meadows: Puppet Opera in Focus [tips]
- Roscoe: Historic Auto Attractions
- Salem: Pollard's Collection
- Schaumburg: Medieval Times
- Springfield: 30-Foot-Tall Skinny Abe Lincoln Statue
- Springfield: Lincoln's Tomb and Lucky Nose
- Springfield: Lauterbach Tire Muffler Man [tips]
- Springfield: Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum
- Springfield: Santa Anna's Leg
- Springfield: Defiant Tomb Of Mr. Accordion
- Springfield: Pink Elephant With Martini [tips]
- Springfield: Giant Lincoln and Perry Como [tips]
- Staunton: Henry's Ra66it Ranch
- Taylorville: Monument to Kay the Elephant
- Taylorville: JFK in a Graveyard, But Not His Grave
- Union: Illinois Railway Museum: Largest in North America [tips]
- University Park: Exhausted Paul Bunyan
- Urbana: Pollinatarium: Bees and Bats [tips]
- Vandalia: Kaskaskia Dragon
- Volo: Volo Museum: Bonnie and Clyde Death Car
- Wadsworth: Golden Pyramid House
- Waukegan: Ray Bradbury Rides a Rocket
- White Hall: Monument to the Schoolteacher Tornado Martyr [tips]
- Wilmette: Bahai House of Worship [tips]
- Wilmington: Gemini Giant: Space Age Muffler Man
- Woodstock: Groundhog Day Movie Town [tips]
- Zion: Russell Military Museum
