Our 3 year old loved the museum! It was clean and well maintained. Staff were amazing and super…read morefriendly! Highly recommend!

This museum is so awesome for kids. It's small but has so many unique exhibits and is very hands…read moreon. I brought my two kids here and as usual was worried about what the baby, who is 1 year old, would want to do or try to get into since this is a museum. The very friendly woman at the desk was so encouraging of letting the baby explore and touch everything. This museum is very educational but kids can touch and play with everything. It's not one of those museums where you are constantly reminding your kids not to touch something. There are exhibits representing many different places and cultures, and the kids can play in all of them. There is a Central American kitchen with items stocked in the kitchen that would commonly be found in that region. There is a Japanese tea house, a Parisian cafe, a West African market (my personal favorite as there are so many fruits and vegetables that one wouldn't see here and cards describing what each plant is), a rainforest where you can learn about how chocolate is made and hold and smell a real cocoa pod. Such a cool place. If we lived closer, I'd take the kids every weekend. Still plan on going multiple times a year. It's just such a unique place.

Great time and place to unwind. Beautiful art pieces they have in the collection . The natural…read morelighting made everything ten times better. Letting us walk self guide through the house is a great touch .

The Hyde Collection is a hidden gem and well worth the trip North to Glens Falls…read more On a cold winters day, I ventured here as it's known to be styled after the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston. The Hyde couple's home houses 5,000 or so pieces of art that you can enjoy within their beautiful living space. I felt privileged to be able to tour the Hyde family's Italian Renaissance style villa built in 1912. Here you'll find works from renowned artists such as Botticelli, Degas, Renoir and Rembrandt just to name a few. The original furniture and tapestries acquired are from the sixteenth century Renaissance. There are also late eighteenth century Neoclassical French seating furniture and marquetry desks for your viewing pleasure. It was a wonderful way to pass the afternoon. The Hyde is also known to share temporary collections with the community. The basement level has an added teaching auditorium as well as classroom space where programs are held for those interested in the fine arts. Lastly use your phone to scan the QR code available in most rooms for a self guided informational tour. I also recommend that you take the visitor guide and map to help you along. The front desk admission can also give you insight on how to navigate your time here. A must see in my opinion and you cannot overlook the library room with their vast collection of original books that are sure to have you in awe.

Wilson's Castle is worth a visit. It's currently going through renovations which it needs. I will…read morehave to visit when the renovations are finished. Smaller than it looks. It is kinda spooky and is located in beautiful Vermont. I visited in October, went through a short tour and we were free to explore on our own. I would recommend

Hidden gem well worth the trip! The castle is full of intricate trinkets and oddities, especially…read moresince we visited around Halloween time. We especially loved the painted ceilings and stained glass. And the tour guides showed us such hospitality! They even let us play the antique organ

The staff here were pleasant, kind and helpful. We came for a Saturday night light show in the…read moreplanetarium. About 45 minutes long, a good time you can't beat it. A few jokes from the ticket-taker as well. Tip: try and grab the seats toward the back, to keep your neck more comfortable. We arrived ~15 minutes before start time and were able to peruse around the different displays and interactive exhibits. A place for all ages. This was a nice indoor activity to get out of the house and not be in the frigid cold.

Amazing hands-on activities, fun and engaging displays. Such an amazing museum and kids will love…read moreit.

This place is incredible and extremely child friendly! The volunteers who run the operation are…read morebeyond spectacular and are extremely helpful. I have two under three who were extremely excited for the entirety of this museum. It was a perfect day. We ended up buying a membership and very much look forward to our returns in the future! Be sure to check out their virtual airplane ride it's actually really fun and was one of the highlights for my little guys!

Somewhere hidden inside the Empire State Aerosciences Museum is a great museum trying to get out of…read morethe shell of a tired old one. The collection here isn't the issue per se. The outdoor air park has an enormous number of post-War jet planes and one helicopter, and while they're peeling in the sun and the displays need quite a bit of freshening up, it's an impressive collection of real aircraft, some of which you can peer into the cockpit. They have mostly American, one British, and several Soviet-era aircraft, almost all war planes and mostly fighters. The interior exhibits look like a hodge podge of things amateur enthusiasts have collected over the years, made, and shoved together into a vaguely coherent timeline from the dawn of flight to the early rocket age. It's not good. There are many individually interesting things but they're just too random, and many are quite old, dated, and some broken. Some of it looks like your Grandpa's model plane project after it's been sitting in the attic for 25 years. There is NO sense of curation here, as the displays, interpretation, and artifacts are random; again, it shows the marks of many volunteers and enthusiastic amateurs but without the guidance of professional curation. The collection is divided up into two buildings, one of which is the old GE hangar (a lovely building, somewhat ruined by having had a building within a building constructed on one side) with dusty interior exhibits in the minibuilding and some very random real plane exhibits alongside a bunch of obvious works-in-progress restorations that looks very much like an aviation junk yard. The second building leads out to the airpark, which is fenced in and can only be reached through the second building. What really would make a great museum is if they cut out about 90% of the artifacts, and focused on the local stories -- not even New York aviation as a whole, but starting with the story of the original use of the place, as the GE Aviation Testing Center in 1946, and working their way up to much, much more on the story of the 109th Airlift Wing at the adjacent Stratton Air National Guard base. If the collection focused on that -- even if it meant jettisoning the air park -- there could be a really cool and much more coherent story with both local interest and international importance. There are so many odd and undercurated GE-related historical museums and exhibits around here -- from the Edison in downtown, to MiSci, to the Schenectady County Historical Museum, to this place -- that are scattered about and thus tell an incoherent story about GE's presence in town -- one kind of wishes in the abstract GE would sponsor some kind of master museum just about the history of the place (like the Heinz Center in Pittsburgh, PA) and cleaved off the science museum part. An example of what I consider to be the kind of problem a place like this continues to have: they are currently trying to get money together to get a half-sized model of the SST. What? Whatever for? It's not like it's a real SST, and a half-sized model is just another maintenance headache that I doubt very much will be either a big attraction or key to understanding the story of aviation in New York. Yeah, the SST took off from a New York airport. I'm sure that's the hook. But it's not really the kind of direction this place needs to head. For now, this is a little sad and depressing but for the ardent history buff there's still things to dig out of it, and if you have an aviation-enthused youngster (but not one not already interested, I don't think) they will enjoy it. The front desk staff are pleasant and the small shop, while having not a whole lot of unique local-interest items, is reasonably priced for souvenirs. (I have suggested to them they at least add some models of the C-130s used by the 109th.) No food or drink (an outside cafe with a viewing area to watch the planes take off, with interpretive plaques, would be a big money maker) and extremely rudimentary bathroom facilities (in the second buliding).

It is very evocative of 19th century life on a rural farm; I wouldn't last a week as a yeoman. I…read moreespecially enjoyed the "indoor outhouse" that our prior president used. Wonder how he would feel about the gold plated ones our current occupant of the White House uses. Admission is cheap cheap cheap by NY standards and there is one weekend at the beginning of the season that is free in all VT state parks and most attractions.

I had to come out of my way to get here, and yes it is out of the way. It's amazing that a 20th…read morecentury president came out of such a humble place. On Google maps, I saw it was a small town, but basically the entire town is Calvin Coolidge Town. Yes it's only like 8 buildings and the church functions on its own and the cheese shop rents, but still. As a presidential house connoisseur, this is really a top experience because of the extent of the buildings and the authenticity and preservation of the objects. And unlike any other presidential house, this also doubles as the site a president was sworn into office. There is a thorough exhibit hall where you buy tickets, watch a movie, and see all about Coolidge's presidency with some interesting artifacts and interactive audio elements. They also have the lamp which lit the inauguration in here, and it's a pretty sweet lamp. The video introduction to Coolidge was really engaging and well-made, and one of the top videos I've seen at a historic site as well. Tours start at the general store (which is also cool, take a look before), go through the 2 barns that house antique cars and farming equipment, next to his birth house, to across the street to his later boyhood home. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and really painted Coolidge as a hard worker from a young age and how his dad, a hater of the telephone, was a public notary and personally swore him in at 2:47 am one fateful night. Coolidge should get more attention. Painting his story from the death of his mother to the death of his sister, to the death of his son really painted a picture of a figure outside of politics, and having all the buildings as they were at the time, on a quiet forested part of Vermont, was a really interesting way to spend the day. Definitely a 5/5 and worth a few hours on site. Keep cool and keep Coolidge.

If you find yourself in Vermont, and in particular Proctor, VT you can stumble upon the Vermont…read moreMarble Museum. The museum is up on the second floor but for those that need it they do have an elevator as well. As you would expect you get there and are immediately surrounded by the different types of Marble. There is a nominal cost to get in and you will find a fairly large display that should please many a museum geek. You will find some hand carved work, lots of pictures of where and how marble is used and several self running history of marble and such videos you can watch. Of interest to us was both the section on marble faces of many of the nations presidents along with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and how not only it was built but how they moved it. For the shopper out there they also had a rather large store that had many different items such as trivets, rolling pins, desk accessories, jewelry and more.

Pretty dull, even for a museum about marble. Spent lots of floor space on bad example of using…read moremarble in the kitchen and bathroom, lot of space of photo of monuments they supplied marble to. Then just had photo of actual marble mining. There really isn't much need for the physical museum itself. It is most photo that can be online and examples of home decorating, The staff is nice, the museum is just a nothing.

What better way to spend a rainy afternoon with out-of-town guests then to meander through a vast…read morespace with a very cool lineup of cars on display? I've been living in Saratoga County for so many years, and there are still countless treasures right in my backyard. The automobile Museum is certainly one of those treasures. I happened to visit during the Corvette show....and while I don't know much about cars (beyond basic driving skills), it was extremely cool. The entry fee was $20. I would definitely check it out again in the future.

Pontiac: The Dawn of Muscle…read more The Pontiac GTO is currently featured at a local automobile museum in Saratoga, NY. The first new car my husband ever owned was a 1970 GTO, so this exhibit interests us. It runs from November 5 - April 26, 2025, and the museum is open Wednesday to Sunday. Members: FREE Adults: $20.00 Children 11-18: $15.00 Children 10 & Under: FREE Students 17+ (with ID): $15.00 Senior Adults 65+: $15.00 Veterans/Active Military: $15.00 Special Guided Tours are available, and they are free with admission to the Museum on Wednesdays at 2pm. Showcasing 16 landmark Pontiacs, the museum explores the power and style that turned Pontiac into a legend. On exhibit-- * The Original GTO: The 1964 Pontiac Tempest GTO that defined the muscle car genre. * The Monkeemobile: A 1966 Pontiac GTO customized for The Monkees TV show, considered one of the most recognizable and beloved custom cars. * Firebirds and Trans Ams * GTO Judges- multiple examples This Museum is well curated and appeals to car lovers of all ages.

History comes alive at Fort William Henry. It is a restored Colonial fortress of 1755-1757 French…read moreand Indian War era located at the strategic south end of Lake George, an important part of the water transportation system used by both Native Americans and the Europeans Visitors to the Fort have an opportunity to experience plenty of history: the long boiling tensions between global superpowers, the early days of a new nation and its impact on indigenous peoples, and the backdrop for one of American literature's great novels. Visitors can experience this living museum with guided tours, historical interpreters, musket and cannon fire demonstrations, and self-guided tours. In the fall, the Fort hosts Haunted History Tours featuring guided tours of spooky spots at the Fort and some great ghost stories. If you are a history buff, this is a must-do for you.

The tour in and of it's self was good, but i fore warn you that one of their tour guides will leave…read morea bad impression of the heroes who died there during the Siege by the French and Indian forces. Much to my dismay while standing in the center of the court yard of which i was told is hollow sacred ground given there were many deaths in that very spot and some actually buried their, with that the tour guide during his story telling of the battle and death that happened their he goes on talking about how the soldiers serving their had syphilis... What in the hell purpose did that serve other than telling people soldiers were having sex with infected women there---- people in the group were shocked by this and how he degraded the reputations of these dead hero's! this is what the management here indorses! be aware especially if you have children with you. I was there on the weekend of Oct 31st thru Nov. 2nd attached is a picture of the guide