Bigfoot Museums in the USA: 8 Stops Worth the Trip

School's almost out, and that means road trip season. If your family (or your inner kid) loves Bigfoot, there's no better summer stop than a Bigfoot museum. These places are part science fair, part folk art gallery and part roadside wonder, and almost all of them have a gift shop you won't leave empty-handed.

Here are eight stops across the country, from coast to coast. Hours and prices change, so always check the official website before you go.

Best for: serious evidence buffs

Opened in 2019 by Cliff Barackman, known from the TV series Finding Bigfoot, the North American Bigfoot Center sits at the intersection of Highways 26 and 212 in Boring, on the road from Portland toward Mount Hood. Expect footprint casts, research displays and a large life-size Bigfoot figure. It's an easy add-on to a Mount Hood day trip, and its website lists it as open every day.

Best for: history lovers

The self-proclaimed Bigfoot Capital of the World has a local history museum with a big Bigfoot wing. The museum describes three collections under one roof: a Bigfoot Collection of footprint casts, photographs, sighting records and Bluff Creek history; historical collections on the area's mining, blacksmithing and everyday life; and a Native Room about the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa, Tolowa, Tsnungwe, Chimariko and Wintu peoples. There's also a giant gift shop and a Bigfoot to pose with.

The town itself is small (1,720 people in 2020) and sits on the Trinity River inside Six Rivers National Forest country. It was once called China Flat, after the Chinese laborers from the mining and lumber camps who were its first non-Indigenous settlers. The China Flat post office opened in 1878 and took the name Willow Creek in 1915, which is where the museum gets its double name. Willow Creek is about 50 miles south of where the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film was shot, and the town holds an annual Bigfoot Daze festival. Pair it with the Bigfoot Scenic Byway (Highway 96). Read more in our Bigfoot in California guide.

Best for: families with kids

This museum near Blue Ridge calls itself North Georgia's "Biggest" Family Attraction. It's packed with casts, maps, dioramas and interactive exhibits.

Best for: cryptid fans who want everything

Founded in 2003 by cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, this museum covers Bigfoot, its Himalayan cousins, lake monsters and many more cryptids, with thousands of items, replicas and pop-culture pieces. Coleman, who has written more than 40 books, started the collection in Portland and moved it several times: into the back of a downtown bookshop in 2009, to a larger space on Avon Street in 2011 and to Thompson's Point in 2016. In 2023 he bought a building on Broadway in Bangor, a Streamline Moderne landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Funding delays pushed the move back from 2024, and the new Bangor museum is set to open on June 1, 2026, ending 23 years in Portland. It bills itself as "the world's only cryptozoology museum," and its exhibits include a long-running Sasquatch Revealed display.

Best for: a quick, free stop

This small-town museum in downtown Sutton claims the Mid-Atlantic's largest collection of Bigfoot casts, hair samples, research and sighting stories. It's connected to a Bigfoot store and to the Mountain Laurel Country Store, which sells handmade crafts, art and antiques from artisans across Appalachia. The museum also organizes the West Virginia Bigfoot Festival, usually held in early-to-mid October in nearby Summersville. The 2026 festival is listed for October 9–11 at Nicholas County Veterans Memorial Park (see our festivals page).

Best for: swamp adventurers

Deep in the Everglades on the Tamiami Trail (US 41), this roadside stop at the Trail Lakes Campground is run by the Shealy family. It's the unofficial home base of Florida's Skunk Ape legend, with a gift shop, a campground, tours and an animal exhibit. The shop sells a signed Everglades Skunk Ape Research Field Guide alongside the T-shirts. Getting there is part of the adventure: per its website, it's 15 miles south of I-75 (old Alligator Alley), then four miles east of Highway 29, about 36 miles east of Naples and 60 miles west of Miami.

Best for: exploring Bigfoot country in the Southern Plains

In the Kiamichi country of southeast Oklahoma, this small museum offers exhibits on lore, historical sightings and casted footprints, plus guided tours and workshops. Learn more about the region in our upcoming Bigfoot in Oklahoma guide.

Best for: hikers

Not a museum, but a one-of-a-kind outdoor exhibit. In 1974, a now-defunct Eugene-based group called the North American Wildlife Research Team built a 10-by-10-foot wooden box trap along what's now the Collings Mountain trail in southern Jackson County, near the California line. The spot was chosen because of Perry Lovell, a miner near the Applegate River who said he'd found 18-inch, human-like tracks in his garden. The trap is made of 2x12 planks bound with heavy metal bands and anchored with telephone poles, and its metal door was designed to slam shut when the bait hanging from the ceiling was pulled. They kept it baited with carcasses for six years and caught only bears. The Forest Service began restoring it in 2006 through its Passport in Time program, and the door has been bolted open for visitor safety since 1980. The site sits about 3.1 miles from the California border, and since the Applegate Dam was built, a road runs near what was once a remote spot. Hundreds of people visit every year.

The Bigfoot Discovery Museum in Felton, California, run by Michael Rugg in the Santa Cruz Mountains, was a beloved stop for years. Rugg, a 1968 Stanford graduate, worked in Silicon Valley until the dot-com bust and then opened the museum in 2004 or 2005, with Paula Yarr listed as co-founder. Its collection featured knick-knacks from the 1970s Bigfoot boom and Harry and the Hendersons memorabilia from the 1980s revival. Listings now say it's permanently closed.

There was also a fine temporary exhibit, Sensing Sasquatch, at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon (2024–25). It presented Sasquatch through the voices of Indigenous Plateau artists.

Planning a bigger trip? Our upcoming Pacific Northwest Bigfoot road trip links several of these stops together. Find more places on our Research page.