Celebrating A Century of Strange With Ripley's Odditorium in Baltimore

Autumn lovers are rejoicing. It's finally September, yay! But you know what else come in September? The release of the newest Ripley's Believe It or Not! Book!


Simply Nerdy Mom was provided a copy of the book featured in this post for promotional purposes. Location tickets were purchased by Simply Nerdy Mom and were not part of the promotion. This post also contains affiliate links. 

We've always loved these books. They are full of fun facts which will entertain your whole family for hours, and the books always have such fun colors and holograms on them every year. 

This year, Ripley's is celebrating A Century of Strange. 

Each page is still filled with fun, wacky, and true facts about people, places, and things, but you also get a bit of insight into Ripley's through the years. My kiddos always love the pop culture type facts in every book because they love seeing their favorite characters and things they know. Their second favorite type of facts are about animals. And who could blame them? Animals are adorable, fun, and sometimes strange all on their own.

To celebrate 100 years, my husband and I decided to check out Ripley's Believe it or Not Odditorium while we were in Baltimore the last weekend in September to get an up close look at a lot of things we have read about in the books through the years. Each Ripley's location has different items, and my husband and I had a ton of fun, so I think we've decided to try and visit each location on our various vacation travels.

We happened to already be down near Ripley's already because Baltimore Book Fest was going on down there as well. I love Baltimore's Inner Harbor. There's always so much to do!

At any rate, the entrance to Ripley's Odditorium is way cool! The dragon breathes smoke out of his nose and that large ball there is interactive (of a sort) in that you can turn it around and read a bunch of fun facts on it. Inside this building is also a theater and mirror maze, but we just did the museum this time around. Check out some of the fun photos we got while we toured the museum.

There are so many interactive elements in Ripley's and it's a lot of fun for kids and adults. Even the steps up into the main part of the museum made music! They were piano keys, but you didn't know it until you stepped on them as they looked like regular old steps. Although, I will say that my husband and I were pretty creeped out in a few exhibits. One room was kind of dark and had a wax figure in a "kissing booth" with it's back turned (it was interactive and you could turn it around by pressing a button) and I walked by it without realizing it was there and when I turned around, almost had a heart attack. This happened in a few spots with the wax figures. My husband lifted a lid to an interactive piece and there was a motorized snake inside that he didn't expect. There's also a chest in the Egyptian exhibit that you open. I opened it slowly knowing whatever it was would probably scare the crap out of me, and I don't even know what was inside because I barely lifted it and it made a loud noise. Everyone in the room with us was like "Screw that!" 😂

Aside from those, there are fortune telling machines, an area where kids can crawl under an interactive city in "tunnels" and come out in a different area of the room, a mirror room with lights and music, and our favorite was the fun floor game, which changes on the screen from time to time, where we teamed up to squash moving ketchup and mustard packets.

We spent probably about an hour in there, but we also didn't read every exhibit description or do every single interactive element. And it's not for lack of time or anything. We went around 8pm after the festival closed up (they are open until 10pm) and there were maybe 5 or 6 other people in the museum with us (or at least directly before or after us in each room). My husband usually hates when I drag him to museums unless they are comic book or military themed, but even he said he had a lot of fun in Ripley's Odditorium.

So it's safe to say that Simply Nerdy Mom AND Dad can highly recommend visiting one of Ripley's 100+ attractions worldwide!

Also pick up your copy of the latest book celebrating 100 years of Ripley's strange, fun, and interesting finds >> Ripley's Believe it or Not: A Century of Strange