Although your vacation may be well planned with the purchase of cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, and cheap auto rentals, if you are planning on a taking a road trip once you reach your destination, knowing about interesting roadside attractions along the way can help your family survive/enjoy the drive.
The following are fun places to stop along the way, stretch your legs, and amuse your children:
Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona is a huge three acre greenhouse constructed as a research station simulating conditions of space colonization. The building itself is airtight and self sustaining. This mini-world has several climactic zones, including its own ocean with a coral reef and a rainforest.
Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, Wyoming encourages travelers to get on their knees scraping for bones in the dust of the Rockies. This dinosaur graveyard has one of the most impressive collections of fossilized remains in the world.
Maya Lins Wave Field in Mountainville, New York is a six acre outdoor sculpture located an hour north of New York City. Visitors can walk on the 15 foot green crests or look at them from on high where the mounds start to resemble breaking waves on shore.
Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida is a working spaceport where unmanned missions to space will continue to be launched. Visitors can see where rockets and robots are built, practice flying on simulators, and view memorabilia including moon rocks.
U-505 Submarine in Chicago, Illinois was captured by Allied forces during World War II off the coast of West Africa. It is now an exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. Its onboard tour is very popular. Visitors walk through the crew quarters, peer into the torpedo bay, and visit the command station.
Circus World Museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin houses over 200 circus wagons, original costumes, posters of mustached ladies and fat men. During the summer there are daily circus performances.
The Comet Bobsled at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah is where visitors can join a four man sled piloted by a professional driver that attains speeds of up to 80 mph and drops 40 stories in under a minute. Kids 16 and older can see how the force of 5Gs really feels.
Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee is a shrine to Elvis Presley. The audio tour narrated by Lisa Marie Presley is Gracelands highlight.
Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan is home to a wide range of American memorabilia. It houses the bloodstained chair in which President Lincoln was shot, George Washingtons camp bed, a bottle containing the dying last breath of inventor Thomas Edison, and an exact replica of the Wright Brothers 1903 flyer.
Wigwam Villages in San Bernardino, California, Holbrooke, Arizona and Cave City, Kentucky house concrete teepees, each of which contain an individual motel room. These teepees encircle a larger teepee which houses a restaurant, gift shop and gas station. www.cheapfares.com