Alabama

Stark and harrowing in its simplicity, this memorial stands in honor of 4400 African American victims of lynching. Great rectangular steel slabs, each the size and shape of a coffin, are inscribed with the name of a county, the dates of every documented lynching incident within that county and the name of the victim. The immensity of the space and the mute testimony of the slabs underlines the ubiquity of racial violence in American history.

A maze of moving audio, video and photography exhibits tell the story of racial segregation and the Civil Rights movement, with a focus on activities in and around Birmingham. There's an extensive exhibit on the 16th Street Baptist Church (located across the street), which was bombed in 1963; it's the beginning of the city's Civil Rights Memorial Trail.

The Sloss Furnaces constitutes one of Birmingham's can't-miss sites. From 1882 to 1971, this was a pig iron–producing blast furnace and a cornerstone of Birmingham's economy. Today, instead of a wasteland it's a National Historic Landmark, a red mass of steel and girders rusted into a Gothic monument to American industry. Quiet pathways pass cobwebbed workshops and production lines that form a photographer's dream playground. A small museum on site explores the furnaces' history.

If you ever entertained dreams of playing Major Tom to someone's ground control, head here. This Smithsonian-affiliated museum boasts one of the world's largest collections of space artifacts, from rockets to shuttle components. There are simulator rides for kids and adults (try the G Force simulator!), and play areas for toddlers. The array of space-related paraphernalia, from lunar landers to rocket components, is mind-boggling. Of particular interest is a working, walk-through replica of the International Space Station.

One of the largest and best-preserved sites of the pre-Columbian Mississippian civilization sits outside of modern Moundville, about 17 miles south of Tuscaloosa. Here, on the dark forested banks of the Black Warrior River, rest the grassy remains of a Mississippian mound city and an excellent museum, all managed by Moundville Archaeological Park.

Blankets of white-topped pitcher plants can be found here, a 2100 acre plot of land owned and protected by the non-profit Nature Conservancy. Walk into the pitcher-plant bogs (almost immediately visible once you depart the parking area) and you may notice that the clouds of midges, mosquitoes and flies so common in Southern woodlands and wetlands are mysteriously absent. That's because these insects are busily being digested by a graceful field of wildflowers.

Few sites are as iconic to the American Civil Rights movement as the Pettus Bridge. On March 7, 1965, a crowd prepared to march to Montgomery to demonstrate against the murder of a local black activist by police during a demonstration for voting rights. As those activists gathered into a crowd, the news cameras of the media were trained on the bridge and a line of state troopers and their dogs, who proceeded to lay into the nonviolent marchers.

There's a silly number of good bars in Birmingham, many concentrated in Avondale and Five Points. Drinking culture here encompasses and encourages a healthy amount of eccentricities and weirdness, and this innovation extends to the bar scene.