Madame Tussauds New York

When Madame Tussaud first started creating wax figures in Europe in the late 18th century, she immortalized figures from the bloody French Revolution. Now two centuries after her death, Tussaud’s legacy lives on with museums in major cities around the world, yet few can compare in either size or popularity with the five-story Times Square edition. A favorite among tourists and young, culture-obsessed visitors, it is best to avoid school holidays when checking out the 200-plus wax figures, which include various movie stars, singers, athletes and politicians. Each model is painstakingly made by teams of artists through the use of precise measurements, photographs, casts and oil paints. The result is so uncanny that the picture you take next to President Obama or Jennifer Aniston might just look real enough to trick your friends on social media–which alone might be worth the admission price.