Weird day trips from Chicago

The strangest Chicago finds are often a short drive out. These 8 day trips — Sanfilippo Place de la Musique, Gemini Giant, American Giants Museum & Bunyon's Hot Dog Giant and more — are each hand-vetted and sourced: ghost towns, hot-spring soaks, roadside oddities, and odd small-town museums worth the gas. A weird day trip is its own kind of date.

Explore Chicago →

Sanfilippo Place de la Musique Snack-food magnate Jasper Sanfilippo (of Fisher Nuts) spent over 30 years assembling what is widely called th… Barrington Hills
Gemini Giant A helmeted fiberglass astronaut cradling a rocket, the Gemini Giant is one of the original Space-Race-era 'Mu… Wilmington, IL
American Giants Museum & Bunyon's Hot Dog Giant This small Route 66 museum is devoted entirely to the 1960s-70s 'Muffler Men' fiberglass giants, with restore… Atlanta
Volo Museum What started as a 1960s collector-car dealership has sprawled into a 35-acre warren where Hollywood movie car… Volo, IL
Forevertron / World of Dr. Evermor The Forevertron is a 50-foot-tall, 300-ton scrap-metal contraption that the late demolition expert Tom Every… North Freedom, WI
House on the Rock Alex Jordan's house perched atop a chimney of rock unfolds into one of the strangest attractions in America:… Spring Green, WI
Yerkes Observatory Called the birthplace of modern astrophysics, this 1897 lakeside observatory houses the largest refracting te… Williams Bay, WI
Dickeyville Grotto Between 1924 and 1930 Father Mathias Wernerus encrusted an entire churchyard in broken glass, seashells, colo… Dickeyville, WI