If you go

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG

101 Visitor Center Drive, Williamsburg, Va. 888-965-7254 colonialwilliamsburg.com The restored capital of colonial Virginia boasts 88 original or reconstructed 18th-century buildings, including a 1660 church, taverns, homes and trade shops. You’ll encounter historic interpreters and craftspeople throughout the 300-plus-acre living history museum, and there are “Visits with a National Builder” several days a week, when you can chat with someone playing the Marquis de Lafayette or Thomas Jefferson. Single-day tickets $20.49 to $40.99; winter single-day tickets $13 to $25.99; multiday tickets $25.49 to $50.99; winter multiday tickets $16.50 to $32.99.

“DEADWOOD ALIVE”

715 Main St., Deadwood, S.D. 800-344-8826 deadwoodalive.com Living history troupe in boots, hats and 19thcentury dress performs faux shootouts on Main Street and a re-created trial (admission: $3 to $6) of gunslinger “Wild Bill” Hickok.

GEORGE WASHINGTON’S MOUNT VERNON

3200 Mount Vernon Memorial Hwy., Mount Vernon, Va. 703-780-2000 mountvernon.org The 18th-century family home of the first president offers tours of the furnished house, a museum about the first president’s life and times, a working farm, grist mill and distillery. History interpreters include family members, slaves and farm hands.

HEARST CASTLE

750 Hearst Castle Road, San Simeon, Calif. 800-444-7275 hearstcastle.org Newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst’s art-stuffed and grandiose Spanish-style, 20th-century estate just off the California coast boasts 165 rooms, 123 acres of gardens and opulent pools. Evening and holiday tours of the estate often star glamorously decked out interpreters re-creating a 1930s party.

LIVING HISTORY FARMS

11121 Hickman Road, Urbandale, Iowa 515-278-5286 lhf.org

A 500-acre open-air museum summons 300 years of Iowa history via re-creations of a Native American farm, a pioneer homestead and other sites.