This is one of those gems not to be messed. Henry Moore what's a local resident who made 1"/1'…read morescale handmade models his town and the surrounding communities with such skill and expertise that is simply boggles the mind. I've never seen anything like it. This all comes from an age-long passed when people had skills to make anything by hand. Henry Moore had an incredible talent the likes of which aren't ever likely to be seen again. We visited this place seven years ago and were completely blown away with what we found. This was our third visit and our teenagers love it. The beauty of his models are beyond belief and they took up a great amount of time to create. Do yourself and your family a big favor and visit this place.

Love, love, love this museum. Nestled right on the Pentacrest of The University of Iowa campus, we…read morereally do have an amazing resource in our own backyard (for those of us who live in the Eastern Iowa corridor area, at least). The museum hasn't changed much since I last visited 10+ years ago, but that's okay. Rusty the Sloth and the polar bear in the gift shop are staples. Macbride Hall houses the Department of Anthropology at U of I. Wouldn't it be cool to see these artifacts every day as a student? The pair of lions in Mammal Hall were placed in an enclosed case in 202 (previously not enclosed) and a nice mural was painted behind them. From what I could tell, that's the most recent update to one of the museum's exhibits. Museum is free, but a donation is suggested. Please don't skip the donation box located near the guestbook in the gift shop. As indicated in a previous review, some of the exhibits have become quite 'well-loved.' Interactive features no longer work, particularly in the Hall of Birds. Mammal Hall is my most favorite, but there's so much to learn from each area of the museum. The museum covers 3 floors of Macbride Hall. Take the stairs and work those quads! Elevator available as well. Due to the summer season museum hours are a little different, so I'd call ahead or check the website for details. Parking during the summer on the street is easy to find. $1.50/hour. Highly recommend!

Great spot to walk around and explore with kids. Staff was friendly, fun scavenger hunt.read more

What a treasure. Great info about the amanas. Love to see the history. I really appreciate the…read moreinfo and antiques

We dropped in to expand our knowledge on the Amana Colonies. The first area is a room with cook…read morebooks and small displays. To go beyond , you agree to the 20 minute Video and a museum visit. The hitch is 8.00 per person to go deeper. I just couldn't see the value for 16.00. He was very nice and explained the process to the next people arriving after us. But we decided to hold on to our cash. I would have done it for half. I was already inside. I learned more in the woolen store later from the sales ladies. They loved to tell the history.

I went on a date with my boyfriend to visit the National Czech and Slovak Museum. Staff at the…read morefront desk was very friendly and helpful about the exhibit. It turned out to be a really neat exhibit, with lots of interesting information provided everywhere you turned. I liked seeing the rotating mannequins displaying the different outfits worn by the Czech and Slovak people. I also liked reading about their different foods associated with their culture. We both enjoyed our time there very much! The gift shop at the end of the exhibit was filled with all sorts of neat traditional items of the Czech and Slovak culture. All Very Cool! I definitely recommend for everyone to visit this museum at least once in your life!

I'm definitely glad I had the chance to visit the National Czech and Slovak Museum. However, it…read morewas a lot smaller exhibit-wise than it appeared on the outside which might be worth noting. Underground parking garage kind of seemed to be closed when we pulled up, but it is not - just don't be shy about pulling your vehicle right up to the door! The nearby Czech Village is a fun artsy neighborhood worth your time as well.

Amazing time, quant, peaceful & informative(: The Roman…read moreEmpire exhibit was super unexpected & exciting in my opinion w/the coin collection & history of empresses. Honestly really good exhibits. Love the landscape of Iowa w/amazing security around the facility & front desk

I'll go ahead and give them five stars because it was free the day/time I went, and they don't…read moreforce you to exit thru the gift shop. Otherwise it's a bit small but since I don't know what they charge even I won't judge them for that. What they did have was generally pretty impressive, the Grant Wood collection was surprisingly beautiful. The Roman section had some great historic items as well. There's as a large focus on local Iowa artists, and a lot of landscape works at the moment at least. Plenty of free parking in the area on weekdays, I saw a garage too but don't know the situation. Staff is friendly and helpful. Definitely worth checking out. Building is old and pretty cool.

It was torrentially down pouring and time to take a stop on our cross country road trip, we got off…read morethe exit to walk around a target since a playground was out and saw signs for The Iowa Children's Museum. So glad we saw the signs this place was amazing it was just what our 2 year olds need to burn off some energy after 2ish hours in the car with many more to go. It was surprisingly large, has so many different rooms with different themes for the kids to explore. We let the kids play for close to 2 hours than grabbed food at the mall food court and went back on our way.

The museum is bigger than I expected it to be, attached to the mall. There are a variety of…read morehands-on activities for children to participate in and explore different interests. Some stuff was clean and well functioning, while other stuff was not. I'm not going to comment on the organization since it was mass chaos when we went. My husband's complaints are that some of the simulators didn't work, it was disorganized, and way too many big kids in the 0-5year old play area that did not have younger siblings and were UNSUPERVISED (specifically a group of preteen girls). My biggest complaint was we went on NYE and expected there to be a limited number of guests. We have visited different children's museums in the USA for the past few years and each one required tickets purchased in advance (and they all became sold out). But not this place. It was uncomfortably crowded and during the time of the ball drop, you couldn't move. We couldn't move even if we wanted to go to another area to play. So during the congregation of guests awaiting the balloon drop, my kids wanted to move around and I tried to hype up the balloon drop instead since we were stuck in place. Once the balloons were released and both children and their parents were savages, I realized my kids wouldn't have a chance of getting a balloon, so we moved on to another exhibit to play and spend some energy. Great! No biggie. Except we went to lunch in the food court shortly after and were disappointed to see families with 3 balloons per kid. My kids didn't cry, or make a scene or anything like that. They just didn't understand why they didn't get one. While we have no intention of going back to Iowa anytime soon, I hope they consider changing their policy to limit the number of guests inside the museum at one time, and consider encouraging families to take one balloon per child. We went to another NYE in the evening that had balloons and they helped entertain my children for the 7 hour drive home the next day.

I stopped in on my way through Waterloo. I haven't been to the museum since I was little. It is…read moredelightful. Just the right size for a short stop, yet packed with great information and insights. The displays and interactive activities are well done and good for all ages. Thank you for persevering all this history.

Good sized museum with plenty of information about local history and some science topics. One thing…read moreI really liked was all the different options for fun photo opportunities that are good for both children and adults. These are arranged on two separate floors that are fairly well spaced so that you have plenty of room to explore, even with other patrons inside the museum. The displays are done well, with plenty of artifacts shown in a realistic setting and well written explanations of what the visitor is looking at. Overall, a nice place to spend a few hours learning and exploring.

Well it's just a stone marker, but it's a cute idea. Worth the visit for the selfie if you're a…read morefan. The marker has been moved from where a lot of maps show it, but there are directional signs. It is near the city hall at 2022 on Greene St. The Voyage Home museum and shop is a few blocks away, across from the statue of Kirk, in Railroad Park off of first street.

We were in Coralville, Iowa, so had to drive down here (30 minutes each way) to check out this…read morequirky feature. In the last few years, they've moved things around, but are also better at pointing them out. The "future birthplace marker" is near the post office and city hall as of 2022 on Greene St. The statue of Kirk is across the street from the museum, in Railroad Park off of first street. Not much else to see here, but if you want a bit of quirky fun, and are close, then it is a strange/fun picture opportunity.

Herbert Hoover was our 31st president, in which he served from 1929- 1933. He served right when the…read moreUS went into the Great Depression. He only served one term and lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt when he tried to run for office a second time. Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa. He was born into a religious Quaker family. Unfortunately he became an orphan at only 9 years old, but was raised by his uncle in Oregon. After he graduated from Stanford, he went into mining. He actually ended up becoming a mining engineer, working in Australia, where he made most of his fortune in mining. He was one of the first presidents to forgo his presidential salary and donate most of it to his charity. Herbert Hoover met his wife at Stanford, while she was perusing a teaching degree. They got married the day before they left for China. He was under contract to the Chinese government in which he investigated the conditions in Chinese mines and would make his recommendations for improvement. They ended up living in Tientsin. Lou Hoover learned how to speak and write Chinese during their stay. Over the next 14 years, they ended up traveling all over the world. Lou Hoover gave birth to two sons. This presidential library does have a national historical site, in which you can view Herbert Hoover's birthplace cottage, his school house, the blacksmith shop his father owned and worked at, and also can visit the visitor center. The historical site is free. However the presidential library, which is right around the corner, does charge for admission ($10 for adults aged 16 and older, $3 for children aged 3- 15, $5 for seniors, military and college students). After you are done visiting the library, you should head out to the gravesite of Herbert Hoover and his wife. This presidential library is my 12th of 13 libraries that I have already visited (although there are 14 presidential libraries, please note that Obama's is not currently ready and open to the public to visit yet). I really enjoy presidential history and found that this library seems to have less information than the other presidential libraries that I have visited. There is not as much about the president himself growing up and the first wife. Also there is very little information about his children. So it may not take as long to visit this library if you read everything, my husband and I were here about 90 minutes, which includes watching the introductory video near the lobby of the library. Herbert Hoover's youngest Son, Allan Hoover, purchased his father's birthplace cottage and restored it. This eventually lead to the national historical site that I had mentioned earlier and the construction of this presidential library. Overall, I really enjoyed our visit. I especially enjoyed the flour sacks exhibit. This exhibit covered Herbert Hoover's initiative to help provide food relief to children in Belgium and also aid prisoners of war. Part of this program helped to raise funds by selling empty flour sacks that were made of cotton. The flour sacks were made into clothing, accessors, pillows, bags, etc. Some had embroider, some were painted on or stenciled on the fabric. Herbert Hoover was given several hundred of these special decorated flour sacks as gifts, in which you can see some on display in this exhibit. This exhibit has one of the largest collection of WWI flour sacks in the world.

Although I haven't been here since I was a fifth grader in elementary school, when your family from…read moreNew York City comes out and wants some Iowa culture this is obvious a spot in the area after you've run out of bars, bars, and football. The museum is pretty thorough, interactive, clean, and modern and also has rotating exhibits. If you for some reason wanted to go more than once a decade. Always nice to be able to tour inside the nearby original house and other time era structures on your own, which is a very cool and trusting thing. The price is normal for Iowa. I think it was between 10 and $15 a person for entrance but these days it always changes so make sure to check if that's an issue. I do remember that they have discounts for students and children.