Skip to Content

Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.

Map of the world

Museum of Funeral Customs

If you're looking for another great Halloween fun house, this isn't it, but if you want to learn a few things about death and funerals, you'll probably enjoy a visit to the Museum of Funeral Customs in Springfield, IL, conveniently located near the most popular tomb in America.

As one of few things every human experiences, death and grieving rituals have a wide, multicultural and ancient scope. Exhibits at the museum shed light on many different types of funeral rituals, and offer visitors a behind-the-scenes look into body preservation and presentation. You'll see lots of different gadgets and tools used in the embalming process as well as a postmortem fashion display, showing popular funeral outfits for the deceased.

Of course, there's a gift shop. The most popular souvenir, according to the director, are the locally-made chocolate coffins. When you open the lid, there's a chocolate mummy inside. Now there's something you can give out to trick-or-treaters!

After your visit to the museum, go less than a mile to Lincoln's tomb, and while you're there, be sure to visit the defiant tomb of Mr. Accordion, which is another fascinating and amusing story. Read about it here.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, Learning

Find Your Hotel

City name or airport
POWERED BY
City name or airport
City name or airport
POWERED BY
City name or airport
City name or airport
POWERED BY
City name or airport code
If different
POWERED BY
POWERED BY

Search Travel Deals

Gadling Features

Categories

Become our Fan on Facebook!

Featured Galleries (view all)

Berlin's Abandoned Tempelhof Airport
The Junk Cars of Cleveland, New Mexico
United Airlines 787 Inaugural Flight
Ghosts of War: France
New Mexico's International Symposium Of Electronic Arts
Valley of Roses, Morocco
The Southern Road
United Dreamliner Interior
United Dreamliner Exterior

Our Writers

Grant Martin

Editor-in-chief

RSS Feed

Don George

Features Editor

RSS Feed

View more Writers