The 10 Weirdest Things You Can Do In The State of Illinois
You might be driving along and suddenly spot a giant ketchup bottle on the horizon, or hear about a dive site with a quirky underwater surprise. That is when things start to get interesting.
This side of Illinois feels a little more playful and a lot more unexpected. Small towns lean into their oddities, everyday objects turn oversized, and roadside stops become stories you end up telling long after the trip is over.
It is not about checking off famous landmarks, it is about enjoying the strange little moments along the way. If you are up for something different, this is the kind of road trip that makes Illinois feel anything but ordinary.
1. Underwater “Petting Zoo” At Mermet Springs
In the quiet southern tip of Illinois, a freshwater quarry hides one of the most jaw-dropping surprises you can find on dry land or below it. Mermet Springs in Belknap, Illinois, is a scuba diving destination that doubles as an underwater attraction site with a variety of submerged features.
Divers regularly encounter a fully submerged airplane, school buses, and even a small helicopter resting on the bottom of the quarry floor.
The real showstopper, though, is a quirky underwater “petting zoo” installation made of submerged sculptures. Yes, you read that correctly.
Certified divers and beginners alike can enjoy the site, as lessons and rental gear are available on location. The water clarity is impressive, which makes spotting all the quirky submerged objects even more rewarding.
If you have never considered strapping on a tank before, Mermet Springs might just be the weirdest and most convincing reason to start.
2. Take A Photo With World’s Largest Catsup Bottle
Standing 170 feet tall along Route 159 in Collinsville, Illinois, is a water tower that has absolutely no business being this charming.
The Brooks Catsup Bottle, officially recognized as the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle, was built in 1949 and originally served as a water tower for the Brooks Foods plant nearby. What makes it genuinely strange is how seriously the town takes its giant condiment landmark.
A dedicated fan club formed around the bottle in the 1990s when the structure fell into disrepair, and local enthusiasm helped fund a full restoration. Today, it stands freshly painted and proudly photogenic, drawing road-trippers and curious travelers from across the country.
The surrounding area is simple and unassuming, which somehow makes the oversized ketchup bottle feel even more surreal when it appears on the horizon.
There is no admission fee, no gift shop inside the bottle, and no guided tour. You simply pull over, stare upward, take your photo, and drive away slightly baffled but completely delighted.
Collinsville has fully embraced its saucy claim to fame, and honestly, it is hard not to admire a town that knows its identity so confidently.
3. Go Giant-Hunting In Casey’s Big Things Small Town
Casey, Illinois, is a town of roughly 2,700 people that somehow managed to collect more Guinness World Records than most major cities. The man behind it all is Jim Bolin, a local who decided the best way to put his hometown on the map was to build things really, really big.
The result is a collection of record-breaking giants scattered throughout the town that visitors now call Big Things Small Town.
You can stand beside the world’s largest wind chime, sit in the world’s largest rocking chair, marvel at the world’s largest pitchfork, and gawk at oversized mailboxes, knitting needles, and golf tees.
Each attraction is free to visit and spread throughout walkable areas of town, making the whole experience feel like an outdoor scavenger hunt with increasingly absurd rewards.
What makes Casey especially fun is that the giant objects are not corralled into a theme park. They are just out there, existing among ordinary streets and local businesses, as if enormous furniture and farm tools are completely normal.
Grab a map from a local shop, lace up your walking shoes, and prepare to feel very, very small in the most entertaining way possible.
4. Meet The Gemini Giant
Route 66 has always been the kind of road where strange and wonderful things appear without warning, and Wilmington, Illinois, delivers one of the highway’s most beloved surprises.
The Gemini Giant is a 28-foot-tall fiberglass spaceman that originally stood outside the Launching Pad Drive-In and now has been restored and relocated to South Island Park in Wilmington, where it remains an icon of American roadside culture.
Originally one of many “Muffler Men” fiberglass figures produced in the 1960s, this particular giant was customized with a space helmet and a tiny rocket to match the space-age excitement of the era.
He went through some rough years, but a dedicated restoration effort brought him back to his full retro glory, complete with fresh paint and renewed civic pride.
Wilmington is about an hour south of Chicago, making it an easy and highly rewarding day trip. Families, road-trip enthusiasts, and anyone with an appreciation for mid-century American kitsch will find the Gemini Giant completely worth the detour.
5. Experience Popeye Character Trail
Chester, Illinois, is a small river town that carries a surprisingly big cultural legacy. It is the birthplace of Elzie Crisler Segar, the cartoonist who created Popeye the Sailor Man back in 1929, and the town has fully committed to honoring that history in the most delightful way imaginable.
The Popeye Character Trail is a self-guided tour featuring statues of Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Wimpy, and other beloved characters from the comic strip, placed throughout the town.
Each statue is detailed, expressive, and surprisingly fun to interact with for photos. Visitors have been known to flex alongside Popeye, share a bench with Wimpy, and strike dramatic poses with Olive Oyl.
The trail connects visitors to local history while walking through Chester’s charming downtown streets near the Mississippi River.
The statues were inspired by real Chester residents that Segar knew growing up, adding a layer of local history that makes the whole experience more meaningful than your average novelty stop.
A dedicated Popeye museum also operates in town with memorabilia, original artwork, and the full backstory of how a small-town Illinois kid created one of the most recognizable cartoon characters in the world.
6. Check Out Tower Of Baa-Goat
Goats are already entertaining on their own, but someone in Illinois decided the standard pasture experience simply was not ambitious enough and built them a tower.
The Tower of Baa-Goat near Windsor, Illinois, is a farm attraction that features a multi-level climbing structure designed specifically for goats to scramble, perch, and show off their impressive agility for visitors.
The concept of goat towers originated in South Africa, but this Illinois version brings that quirky tradition to the American Midwest with full goat-loving enthusiasm.
Visitors can feed the animals, watch them navigate the tower with surprising confidence, and enjoy the kind of wholesome, low-tech fun that feels refreshing in a world full of screens. Kids especially tend to lose their minds with joy when a goat climbs to the very top and stares down at them like a tiny, bearded king.
Farm visits like this one are a good reminder that not every great Illinois experience requires a museum ticket or a GPS coordinate from a travel magazine.
Sometimes the best stops are the ones where a goat casually walks across a wooden bridge fifteen feet in the air and everyone watching forgets whatever was stressing them out that morning.
7. Ask To Take A Spin In Bob Waldmire’s Road Yacht
Bob Waldmire was one of Route 66’s most beloved characters, an artist and free-spirit who spent decades traveling the Mother Road in a converted school bus he called the Road Yacht.
Covered in his signature hand-drawn folk art illustrations, the bus was both his home and his rolling canvas, and it became one of the most recognizable vehicles in the history of American road culture. Waldmire’s artwork and lifestyle even helped inspire the character Fillmore in the Pixar film Cars.
After Waldmire passed in 2009, the Road Yacht found a home at the Hackberry General Store in Arizona for a time, but efforts have been made to bring pieces of his legacy back to Illinois, where much of his story unfolded.
Today, visitors can view Bob Waldmire’s Road Yacht and related exhibits in Pontiac, Illinois, where his work and legacy are preserved as part of the Route 66 museum complex.
Even viewing the exterior is a remarkable experience. Every inch is painted with obsessive detail, environmental messages, maps, and portraits that together tell the story of a man who loved the open road more than almost anything else and expressed it through every brushstroke.
8. Visit The Giant Superman Statue
There is only one official hometown of Superman in the United States, and it is not New York, not Gotham, and not some fictional planet. It is Metropolis, Illinois, a small town in the far southern corner of the state that legally claimed the title in 1972 and has been leaning into it with tremendous commitment ever since.
The centerpiece of the whole experience is a 15-foot bronze statue of the Man of Steel standing proudly in the town square, cape mid-flow and fist raised toward the sky.
Right nearby is the Super Museum, a privately owned collection that houses one of the most extensive Superman memorabilia archives on the planet.
Original costumes, rare comics, vintage toys, movie props, and thousands of collectibles fill the space in a way that feels more like a passionate superfan’s dream basement than a traditional museum.
Metropolis also hosts an annual Superman Celebration each June, drawing fans in capes from across the country. Even outside of festival season, the town’s commitment to its superhero identity makes every visit feel like stepping into a very friendly, very enthusiastic comic book.
9. Visit The First McDonald’s Site
Fast food is so deeply woven into American life that it is easy to forget it had to start somewhere. That somewhere is Des Plaines, Illinois, where Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s franchise location on April 15, 1955.
The original building no longer exists, and although a replica museum once stood on the site, it was demolished in 2018 after repeated flooding.
The museum recreates the original 1950s aesthetic with remarkable accuracy, complete with vintage menu boards, original equipment, period uniforms, and displays that walk you through the early days of the McDonald’s empire.
Prices on the replica menu boards will make modern visitors do a double-take. A burger for fifteen cents sounds almost fictional today.
The site is located at 400 North Lee Street in Des Plaines and is free to visit, which makes it an easy and surprisingly moving stop for anyone curious about how a single hamburger stand transformed the way the entire world eats.
Whether you are a fast-food fanatic or a cultural history enthusiast, standing in the shadow of where it all began carries a genuinely strange and fascinating weight.
10. Take A Photo At The Leaning Tower Of Niles
You do not need a passport or a transatlantic flight to get a photo with a leaning tower. Niles, Illinois, has its own version, and while it may lack the thousand-year-old history of the original, it makes up for it with pure Midwestern audacity.
Built in 1934 by businessman Robert Ilg as a water tower to supply his private swimming pools, the structure is a half-scale replica of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, complete with the signature tilt and the tiered marble-white exterior.
The tower stands in a small park at 6300 Touhy Avenue in Niles, just outside Chicago, and is surrounded by a reflecting pool that makes the whole scene feel surprisingly elegant for a roadside oddity.
A formal twinning agreement between Niles and Pisa, Italy, signed in 1991, gives the replica an official international seal of approval that few imitation landmarks can claim.
The classic tourist photo here involves standing at just the right angle to appear to push the tower or hold it upright, a trick that never gets old no matter how many times you have seen it done.
Admission is free, the photo opportunities are endless, and the story behind the tower is far stranger and more interesting than the building itself suggests.