At Chicago's revered Field Museum, visitors are invited to learn about and literally explore DNA.

To find the "unicorns of the deep" you've got to go downstairs.

These pretty kitties killed and ate as many as 135 railway workers.

This awkward aquarium sculpture is one of the strangest statues in Chicago.

No one knows how many bodies are in this vault in a Chicago public park.

A little-known subterranean street runs under some of the best-known buildings in Chicago's River North.

Recognized the world over as the home of the McCallisters in the 1990 movie "Home Alone."

Museum dedicated to the art of cutting and polishing stones.

A science teacher's dream.

Shop of curiosities with a dinosaur museum tucked in its basement.

Chicago's museum dedicated to the history of bondage and fetishism is more textbook than titillation.

A small Chicago museum filled with thousands of preserved butterflies, beetles, and more.

The world's only known button museum.

The rodent-shaped sidewalk imprint that earned worldwide media attention.

A lush green oasis in the middle of Chicago.

The beloved home to all publications indie, erotic, and punky.

In one Chicago park, a trio of werewolves are waiting to devour their fallen brethren.

An outdoor urban gallery of large-scale artworks by the world's most influential street artists.

A journey begins with a single step, and for many, the road-trip of a lifetime started at this Chicago intersection.

This unique landscape is the only place in the world to dig for hourglass-selenite crystals.

A peculiar forest that was handcrafted for government experiments.

The largest single-building tribal cultural center in the U.S. is an expansive museum in Oklahoma City.

Behind the Cowboy Hall of Fame is a burial ground for good horses and a famed rodeo bull.

By day this New Orleans square is for pedestrians, but by night it is a kingdom of kittens.