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, and later, in her first museum space on Baker Street, London she presented persons involved in sensational crimes. Now, over a 150 years after her death, Tussaud’s legacy lives on with museums in several major cities around the world. Yet, few can compare in either size or popularity with the five-story Times Square, New York 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 and costs a staggering $300,000 to create. 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 might alone be worth the $28.40 ($25.75 online) adult admission price. Folks hoping to take a memento home with them should splurge for the tickets that include your very own wax hand sculpture–you certainly can’t get something like that at every tourist attraction.