Measuring just more than 100 square feet, the World’s Smallest Museum exhibits “artifacts of ordinary life,” including a 1984 Compaq computer, a Beatles concert poster, a letter from John F. Kennedy, natural curiosities, and the “world’s largest pot of prehistoric puzzle pieces.” Located in a small red shed behind the Buckboard City Cafe an hour east of Phoenix, Arizona, the World’s Smallest Museum is free, but donations are appreciated.

The World Famous Crochet Museum, owned by artist Shari Elf, is housed inside of a tiny former photo-processing booth just outside of Joshua Tree National Park. Elf has been collecting crocheted items since the early ’90s; after purchasing the photo booth, she built shelves to display her collection, painted it bright green, and moved it to Southern California.

Eyegore’s Odditorium and Monster Museum is a new addition to Cawker City, Kansas, home of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. Located just across the street from the small town’s famously big attraction, Eyegore’s is part shop, part museum, and the home of Matt “Wizard of Odd” Alford and his wife, “Master of Monster Management,” Julie. The space is officially only open on weekends for now, but visitors are encouraged to call the couple.

The crown jewel of the Akin Free Library’s eclectic archive is easy to miss—you’ll have to descend into the building’s basement to see the curious collection of Olive M. Gunnison. Gunnison began collecting insects, mice, and worms as a child, and later moved onto preserving her own specimens. The mother and housewife kept her burgeoning collection in a shed behind her home—dubbed a “chamber of horrors” by her husband—until it was donated to the Pawling, New York, library in 1960.

First opened in 2012 in a downtown Manhattan elevator shaft, the 36-square-foot Mmuseumm, is currently located in Cortlandt Alley just south of Canal Street. Devoted to “object journalism,” the Mmuseumm’s website bills it as “a new type of museum, expanding in a network of expected and unexpected locations, dedicated to exploring modern humanity and current events through revealing objects from around the world.”

Located less than 3 miles east of the U.S. Capitol and the National Mall, and tucked away in the middle of the 446-acre U.S. National Arboretum, is a small museum of tiny trees with a long history: The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. The mission of the free, open-air museum museum is to educate future generations about the ancient art form of bonsai. Showcasing more than 100 specimens, the collection is divided by region of origin and includes trees from Japan, China, and North America.

After he and his family moved from Long Island to Littleton, North Carolina, former New York City journalist Stephen Barcelo began to suspect their historic home was haunted. Now the ground floor of their home houses the Cryptozoology and Paranormal Museum. One room is dedicated to the paranormal, including several haunted dolls, gravestone rubbings, an old wooden coffin, and shrunken heads; the other is dedicated to cryptids, with plaster casts of Bigfoot footprints.

When Mississippi’s Hattiesburg Pocket Museum opened in August of 2020, the museum had no address or phone number. Today, a search will get you to an adjacent street, but visitors still have to find the right alley themselves—which is part of the fun. The museum itself, made up of a window with shelves, is only one part of the Pocket Museum experience, which includes several large-scale murals, a theater made from a modified ViewMaster, and an art gallery created in a former newspaper stand.